Ha Long Bay

Ha long bay is so busy, boats and tourists everywhere, its feels like a conveyour belt tourist attraction. All the tour shops were selling the same 2 cruises and itinery, we knew we wanted something just a bit different, different to what everyone else was doing and different to our experiences of the same 10 years ago.

It seems that we had very different experiences, Angela getting a party boat which served oysters, and I as travelling in a group of 3, getting the short straw and having to share a room with Japanese Ken, who I'd never met before and rather enjoyed walking around naked, great! 👍 🙃

Having finally decided on the right cruise for us, we booked, we would be spending x2 days and a night on Dora, Dora the Vietnamese Explorer. £250 for the trip on a 5* Luxury boat, which had a bathtub in each room with views of the bay, all meals included and with Limosine bus pick-up, and cruised around gracefully to enjoy the picturesque views, sounded perfect, right?

Angela here now, as my experience was different to Francis', I'll do my recall as I remember. 'Dora' was a lovely boat, with a beautiful room and bathroom as Francis has stated. I was a little annoyed as its sister boat 'Gloria' which we was going to book but decided not to and to upgrade had broken down, so everyone on 'Gloria' got a free upgrade to our boat 'Dora'. On the plus side it did mean there were more people to potentially mingle with.

On the boat there was a very tight schedule, but what was lovely was the view and calmness of it all, as we only had three other boats on our bay. If we had been on the main part, it would have been packed. Unfortunately there was quite a lot of plastic and rubbish immediately where the boats were, this did ruin the natural beauty of the place, especially for Francis, and he was not impressed.

The highlights included karaoke, instrumental solo's (which only crew members took part!); Cocktails with new made Australian friends and locals coming to to ship trying to sell you cheap drink, which we took full advantage of (even though not meant to) because the prices on the boat was sky high! Francis also having a bath looking out in the ocean was not necessarily a highlight for me, but he seemed to enjoy it!

Overall it was good, but I am in agreement that it is touristy and the schedule is too tight, if you're on a boat like that, you want to relax and go at your own pace 🙂Read more