Wunderbare 2 Tage, 1 Übernachtung mit Lavender Cruises, Kajakfahren, Kochkurs, Mahlzeiten

Great experience on the Nostalgia 1 in the breath-taking Ha Long Bay. Great food, fantastic scenery, kajacking in lime caves and great trips an expeditions. I would also like to mention the crew, Martin in particular, who with his warm smile always made us feel Welcome! 5 stars from us!

Loved the beautiful old boat and our cabin, which had air con (absolutely essential). All the staff were so polite and friendly, well organised, helpful and knew their business, (also one guy was an amazing karaoke star) Food was delicious! Super tasty, fresh, presented with great pride, and very plentiful. Happy Hour was fun and drink prices were great anyway. We really loved this trip, even tho Halong Bay is crammed with so many tourist operators (we expected that). We decided not to swim in the little beach as there were so many people in there it wasn't our idea of a good time. In the morning when we kayaked, we "accidentally" went in and the water was magic. Gennie running all night was annoying, but we'd much rather that than no air con - it was very, very hot and humid. Highly recommend the Lavender if you're not wanting flashy, but appreciate other more authentic qualities.

I was lucky as this trip was cancelled on short notice, and I was moved to Mila Cruise. This happened with other guests from other ships as well having paid a much higher fee. As a solo traveller, Ha Long Bay is definitely on the more expensive and touristy side, with tens of ships constantly being in the Bay. Mila Cruise had nice staff, which ushered you from activity to activity and tried to entertain as much as possible. Squid fishing did not happen and the time at each activity, especially at TiTop Island on the last day was very rushed as we had to return to the harbour already at 10am and leave the boat by 11am. But this happens on most if not all the 2 day cruises.