Amanda Cruise

Amanda is a 25-cabin steel boat on the main bay, with a spa and kayaking in the fare, both confirmed beyond the operator’s word. The cheapest cabin is $235 for two people for one night, with a window onto the water; the senior suite, at $270, is the first grade the operator lists with a private balcony.

The rate table, and what it gives away

Read on 6 August 2026, per cabin, one night: the deluxe is $235, the junior suite $250, the senior suite $270, the royal suite $315. Two triples sit above them, the triple deluxe at $360 and the triple junior suite at $380, each taking three guests. Two nights on the same listing cost $450 to $550 for a double and $670 or $730 for a triple, so the second night is barely cheaper than the first. Those are the highest rates published rather than a tariff, so a real quote should land under them.

Now divide. For one night the deluxe works out at $118 a head and the triple deluxe at $120. The junior suite is $125 a head and the triple junior suite $127. Two grades, two bed counts, the same money per person to within three dollars. What that tells you is that the sheet was built per person and then written out per cabin, which has one practical consequence: there is no couple’s discount here, and the third bed is not the cheap way to travel that it is on some boats. It is a bed at full price.

It also accounts for the from-price. The $118 is what each of two people pays in the $235 deluxe for one night. Every other grade costs more per head.

What is confirmed, and what nobody says

Twenty-five cabins, verified beyond the operator’s word. Balconies are not on every cabin: one listing gives the 20 m² deluxe a view window, and the operator puts a private balcony on the senior suite, the royal suite and the connecting senior suite. Two listings also call the junior suite’s outside space a balcony; the operator’s own junior suite page describes a large window. If it matters, ask for a photograph of that grade. A spa, verified. Kayaking is included and verified, which is worth stating because it is the inclusion most quietly dropped between the listing and the day. There is a gym on the operator’s word alone. The hull is steel and the launch year is 2022, again from the operator with nothing to check it against.

The operator lists a spa room and a jacuzzi; nobody says where the jacuzzi is or whether it is outdoors, and no source we read mentions a pool. This boat sits in our luxury bracket at $235 a room for a night, so that silence is worth a moment: it is not proof there is no pool on deck, but do not book expecting one, and if a listing shows you a pool, ask which ship the photograph came from. Capacity and hull length are unpublished. We looked.

How big is each grade, and how many are there?

Each grade has its own floor area, the operator says: 20 m² for the deluxe, 25 m² for the junior suite, 35 m² for the senior suite and 60 m² for the royal suite. Listings repeat those four figures without always naming the grade, which is how they first reached us looking like a disagreement. The triple deluxe is 30 m². The triple junior suite is less clear. The operator’s own page for it gives 30 m² in the description and 35 m² in the box underneath, so ask which is right if the extra space is why you are booking it.

Amanda’s operator also publishes a count per grade, and that matters at the bottom of the rate table: seven deluxe cabins on the first deck, ten junior suites on the second, four senior suites on the third, one royal suite, and a single cabin each for the two triples and the two connecting suites. The $235 entry price covers seven rooms. Added up, those grade pages come to 26 against the 25 on the operator’s home page, and nobody explains the extra one.

Where does Amanda go, and where does it leave from?

Three listings read on 6 August 2026 agree on the core of Amanda’s two-day route: Titop Island and Sung Sot cave. Two of them add Luon Cave. On halongbaytours.com you kayak or row through Luon by sampan on the first afternoon, climb or swim at Titop after that, are back on board around 17:30, and see Sung Sot after breakfast on day two. The three-day version on halongbaycruises.com adds Trinh Nu cave and the Ba Trai Dao islets. Ha Long Bay routes are more standardised than the Cat Ba ones, which is why three agents can print nearly the same day. If you have not fixed on a bay, they differ more than the listings suggest.

Amanda leaves from Tuan Chau. The operator’s own itinerary pages for this boat, read on 10 August 2026, give the welcome point as No 12, Tuan Chau Marina, and three listings read on 6 August also name Tuan Chau. One of those operator pages calls the same stop Tuan Chau International Cruise Port. Give a driver the number the operator uses, No 12, and write it down.

The score has nothing behind it

We collected none of the reviews under the Google listing’s score, in any language, so we are not reprinting it — read it on the listing if you want it, and treat it as somebody else’s arithmetic.

Ours is this: the listing rests on a rating count we do not repeat, and that count is short enough that one guest’s bad night would visibly move the average. A score which swings on a single trip is not measuring reliability, it is measuring luck so far. We are not going to print the arithmetic either, because printing the sum is another way of printing the figure it was worked out from. For a 25-cabin ship the operator says has been sailing since 2022, that is also fewer published ratings than we would expect from four seasons of guests. We cannot tell you why. It may be that Amanda sells through agents and domestic channels that never generate a public review, which is common here and says nothing about the boat.

Who it suits

Couples and threes who want a recent steel hull on the main bay, and a private balcony from the senior suite up, who have a written quote against a named grade, and who are not relying on other people’s accounts to make the decision. Priced against the rest of the best-value list, $235 for the room for one night is one of the three cheapest double cabins on it.

Who should look elsewhere

Anyone treating the listing score as a fact about how the trip goes. A short rating count with no readable text underneath is thinner evidence than a 9.1 from four hundred.