Doria Cruise

The first thing to settle on this boat is which boat it is. The Google listing that carries all 278 reviews we hold calls it Doria Cruise, and so does the operator’s own site, which is where our photographs come from. One guest writes that their voucher said MGloria and they sailed on Doria, and thought it was the same boat anyway. Another was booked on the new Doria through a third-party site, then contacted weeks later and asked to move to an older ship, in what was described to them as a better cabin, because a group had come in. A sister boat called Doris exists and has its own review pile. None of that is unusual for a Vietnamese operator running several hulls, and none of it is a reason to walk away. It is a reason to get the ship’s name typed onto your confirmation and to say, in the same email, that you will not accept a substitution.

With that out of the way: twenty-eight cabins, on the operator’s word alone. The hull is steel and they date it to 2024, again their claim, and the reviews back the age up without proving it. Guests keep using the word new, and one says the boat seems very new and spotlessly clean. There is a pool, and that is verified rather than claimed, which matters because a great many Lan Ha boats call a plunge tub a pool. A guest who did the two-night trip singles the pool out. Kayaking is included and verified. There is a spa, verified. A jacuzzi and a gym are listed by the operator only.

The cabins, and how little is published about them

The headline cabin size is 50 m², and that figure is corroborated. Read the detail before you use it. The only two grades anybody publishes are an executive suite at 45 m² with an ocean view and a honeymoon suite at 50 m² with a sea view, both with a double bed and a balcony, both on a single source, and both with a count of two rooms. Four cabins out of twenty-eight. So the 50 m² that gets quoted around this boat belongs to the top grade, and the room you are likely to be sold has no published size at all. Ask for square metres and a grade name together or treat the number as decoration.

Every cabin has a balcony, which we have verified. Passenger capacity, deck count and hull length: no source publishes any of the three.

What it costs, and what we cannot tell you

The per-person figure is $141, read from listings on 7 August 2026, with $147 the top of the same sweep. It is not corroborated. There is no published cabin rate table for this boat, so we cannot show you what two people actually pay for a named room on a named date, and on the boats where we do hold a rate sheet the per-cabin total tends to land well above twice the scraped per-person price.

What guests report instead is that the on-board bill is where the money goes. One account has water charged for at lunch and neither coffee nor tea included in the fare. Cocktails are described as expensive by more than one guest. Several reviews make the same argument in different words: the boat is sold as five-star, the extras are priced as five-star, and the experience sat below that for them. Whether you agree depends on what you paid, which is precisely the figure nobody publishes.

The trip itself

We hold no route stop list for this hull. None. Every cave, beach and village on the run comes to us second hand through reviews, which mention kayaking, a swimming stop, happy hour twice in one evening, and a cave with lit walkways and stairs. That is not enough to print an itinerary from, so ask for the timed schedule before you pay.

Two things about the shape of the days are consistent enough to plan around. First, the one-night trip is 24 hours: you board around midday and you are back on the pier at about the same time the next day, and guests who took it say the second morning is mostly departure. Several who did two nights say the extra day is what makes the trip work. Second, getting aboard takes longer than the booking suggests. One guest describes a 35-minute transfer boat out to the ship after check-in. Another paid AUD 250 for a private car, was dropped at the check-in office at 11:00 for a 12:30 boarding, and waited.

Nobody publishes which pier this boat uses, and Ha Long has three that a driver will happily take you to. Tuan Chau Marina and the Ha Long International Cruise Port are twenty minutes apart, and Hon Gai Pier is across the Bai Chay bridge on the far side of the water. Get the name from the operator and read it back to whoever is driving. If the answer is a shore office rather than a berth, ask how long the boat out to the ship takes.

Where the record is thin

We have collected 278 reviews, 188 of them in English, and our ledger holds no star breakdown for them. We therefore cannot tell you what proportion sit at one or two stars, and we are not going to guess it from the twelve longest reviews we read. Of those twelve, five sat at three stars, which is a lot of qualified approval for a boat this new.

The specific failures guests describe are logistical rather than nautical. Three travellers booked into one room, then two rooms, then one, then a second room again at about half past ten at night. A room switch requested after payment. A long wait to board. There are also lower reviews that make direct allegations about money and about how reviews are gathered, and we have no means of testing either, so we are not repeating them and we are not hiding them. Read the one and two-star reviews on the Doria listing yourself. Search the name on the gangway, not the name in our title.

One more thing on evidence. Of the photographs we hold for this boat, only two show the ship. The rest are aerial shots of the bay, a fish farm and a cave, which are pictures of Lan Ha rather than pictures of what you are buying. Judge the cabins from the review text, not from the gallery.

Who this is for

Value-minded couples who want a boat built in the last two years, with a pool, and who will spend fifteen minutes nailing the ship name and the cabin grade to the booking. On those terms it is one of the cheaper new options in Lan Ha Bay and belongs on the best-value list. If the bay itself is still open, the comparison of the three comes first.

Who should book something else

Anyone who needs certainty about what they have bought. Three names attach to this hull, four of its twenty-eight cabins have a published size, no route is published, no pier is published, and no rate sheet exists. Guests who came in with low expectations tend to leave pleased. Guests who came in holding a five-star promise tend not to, and the promise is the part nobody will put in writing.