31 Dec 2022
This was a horrendous cruise. No pick up from hotel occurred. Very disorganised buses, they were late and overbooked. We were taken to a dodgy harbour and put on a boat. Then another bus, left at another harbour with no English speaking guide, or any guide at all. We waited for 1.5 hours to be taken to the cruise boat, which is nothing like the photos. The rooms smelled of smoke and the showers were broken. The food was definitely not like the photos either - mainly rice and questionable meat and carrot. The kayaking was with a lot of other cruise boat tourists, and it was overrun and difficult to enjoy with everyone crashing into each other at low tide. We were taken to a "authentic fishing village" which was clearly just a place to get tourists to buy souveniors. The bike ride to the village was nice, and the only enjoyable thing about the cruise unfortunately. To top it off they don't actually take you to Halong Bay - they say it is too busy so they take you to Lan Ha Bay instead. There was also no tai chi or Ti Top Island at all. I honestly could not wait to get off this cruise.