Calypso Cruise
From$138per person, two sharingread 6 Aug 2026A guide, not a quote — we confirm the live rate when you enquire.
Details →Book Majesty Prime for the view from the bed. The operator turns every bed in its twenty-four cabins towards the water and gives every one a balcony and a bathtub. The numbers stay small, the boat spends the night away from the busier anchorages, and the crew is what guests write about most. Two nights for two start at $540 a cabin, on one listing read on 6 August 2026.
It is new, too. The operator put it into service in February 2025, and a review posted on 25 February 2025 says it had been sailing for ten days.
We have read 138 reviews on the boat’s Google listing, and 115 of them are four or five stars. Of the 77 in English, 58 praise the crew or the service, often by name. Twenty-seven bring up the window or the view.
Four English reviewers who were marking an anniversary, a honeymoon or a birthday describe the crew producing a cake or a surprise, and the operator lists cakes for those occasions in the fare. Guests who were coeliac, vegetarian or managing an allergy write that the kitchen cooked around them.
The cabins sit on three decks. Twelve are on the first: ten Junior Suites, an Executive Suite and a Family Junior Suite for three. The second has five Senior Suites, a Premium Suite and the two Prime Panorama Terrace Suites with their own terrace. The top deck holds four Luxury Grand Suites and nothing else.
Junior Suites are 35 m². The operator puts the Senior at 40 m², where the booking listing we hold says 35, so ask. Executive, Premium, Family Junior and Luxury Grand are 45, and the Panorama pair 60. The connecting suites come at 70 and 90 m² and the operator sleeps four adults and a child in each. Twenty-four cabins add up without them, so our reading is that a connecting suite is two ordinary cabins opened together.
The operator gives the length as 64 m and the hull as steel. It says four floors on one page and three on another, and the cabins use three of them. Around them are a year-round pool, a jacuzzi, a spa, two restaurants and two bars. No one publishes a passenger capacity.
Per cabin for two for the whole three-day, two-night trip, from one listing’s rates on 6 August 2026: Junior Suite $540, Senior $590, Executive $630, Premium $660, Grand Suite $760, Prime Panorama Terrace Suite $880.
The Grand Suite has a price and no description, and may be the Luxury Grand under a shorter name. The family and connecting suites have no rate on that listing, so ask for one in writing.
The same listing prices the one-night trip per cabin too: Junior Suite $280, Senior $310, Executive $330, Premium $350, Grand Suite $410, Prime Panorama Terrace Suite $460. Two sharing the Junior Suite pay $140 each. Two guests who say what they paid: $240 through Agoda in February 2026, and about $400 with transfers in January, without saying for how many.
The operator’s shuttle collects you in Hanoi around 8am. If you make your own way, the operator wants you at its Waiting Lounge No.19 at Tuan Chau Marina before 11.30am and treats a late arrival as a no-show. Our guide to which harbour you leave from explains why the name matters. A speedboat takes you out, you are aboard for lunch at about 12.30, and next morning the speedboat brings you back to Tuan Chau by about 11. The operator expects you in Hanoi between 2.30 and 3pm.
The afternoon trip is a rowing boat into the Dark and Bright Cave, then a sunset party on the roof, dinner, and squid fishing for anyone who wants it. Kayaking at Tra Bau or Ba Dinh fills the second morning. Two nights add Viet Hai village, reached by bicycle or electric cart across Cat Ba, and a swim at Three Peaches.
Five English reviewers tell you outright to take two nights, two more wish they had, and one is glad they did. One guest on a single night says it never felt rushed. Our two nights or three guide sets out the difference.
Couples who want to wake to the karst through the window without leaving the bed, and who care more about the cabin than the excursions. On this boat the cabin is the trip, and the second night is the upgrade most worth buying.
Families of four who want one door between them. The connecting suites sleep four adults and a child, and the Family Junior Suite takes three. There is no public rate for either, so ask for a quote. Set it against the rest of the family list before you commit.
Guests marking an occasion. The operator plans for it and the reviews show the crew follow through.
Two guests name the same trouble spot. One was in cabin 110 on the first deck, beneath the dining room, and heard breakfast being set up overhead from 5.30am. Another says to avoid cabins near the anchor at the bow or under the dining room. The operator places its restaurant at the bow, so both warnings point at the same end of the boat. A guest in a first-deck Junior Suite gave five stars and no complaint about noise. The catch is where the cabin sits. Ask for the cabin number and for one well back from the restaurant. Separately, one guest who had paid for a Junior Suite says they were given a small cabin beside the engine room and offered $30.
Eleven of the eighteen one-star reviews were posted between 18 and 30 August 2025, nine of them on 18 August, most likely from a single sailing. Five carry no text and one is a single line. The other five describe a sailing cancelled on the day, three of them citing weather. Four describe the ride back to Hanoi, and two call it both long and cramped. None of the eleven describes the boat. A five-star review from the same week describes a weather cancellation that was rebooked a few days later.
Storms close the bay for every boat, and our month-by-month reading covers the season. What you can control is the paperwork. Before booking in summer, read how cancellation terms vary, ask whether you will be told before the drive, and find out who refunds you if you bought through an agent. The complaints about refunds are on the boat’s Google listing; read them there.
Three English reviewers say dishes reached the table cold, and one vegetarian couple in March 2025 found their menu thin. Three found the tide too low for the boats to enter the cave, and the operator says tides can change the programme.
Drinks are extra. Guests quote 64,000 to 80,000 dong for a can of beer between March 2025 and May 2026, with a happy hour before dinner. The operator also lists transfers, VAT and a card charge as extras, although its site was advertising a free limousine bus when we read it on 10 August 2026, so ask which applies. One guest was quoted $20 one way or $30 return for the shuttle and paid at the lounge: 780,000 dong in cash, about the return fare, or 811,000 by card.
Wi-Fi is patchy among the karst, as the operator itself warns. Our list of what fares leave out covers the rest.
Light sleepers who cannot choose their cabin and will not ask. Anyone who wants the fare to be the whole cost. For other boats on this water see the Lan Ha Bay page and the Lan Ha list, and if you have not settled on a bay, start with how the three bays differ.
Chosen by price proximity within the same bay, computed from our dataset — not by commission. We add no booking fee to any of them.
35 m², double or twin beds, ocean view, private balcony, on the 1st deck.
35 m², double or twin beds, ocean view, private balcony, on the 2nd deck.
45 m², double or twin beds, ocean view, private balcony, on the 1st deck.
45 m², double bed, ocean view, private balcony, on the 2nd deck.
60 m², double bed, ocean view, private balcony, on the 2nd deck.
45 m², double bed, ocean view, private balcony, on the 3rd deck.
45 m², triple bed, ocean view, private balcony, on the 1st deck.
70 m², double or twin beds, ocean view, private balcony, on the 1st deck.
70 m², double or twin beds, ocean view, private balcony, on the 2nd deck.
90 m², double or twin beds, ocean view, private balcony, on the 3rd deck.
This is not our score. We have not collected reviews of our own yet, and we do not reprint other people's — the words belong to the guests who wrote them. What we can tell you is the aggregate across the listings we track, and where Majesty Prime Cruise sits against the 108 boats we can score: a median of 9.5 on 87 reviews. Scores in this bay cluster near the top (8–9.9), which is why we show you the review count as well. When we have enough reviews of our own to mean something they will appear here beside these, clearly marked as ours.
That number is what we collected and read. The score beside it is the average the listings publish, computed on 14.
These items appear on both lists. Sometimes that is a real disagreement; sometimes the two sources are describing different things. We show what each actually said rather than pick one.
“Welcome drinks, cold or warm handkerchief;”
“Beverages, personal expenses;”
“All meals mentioned in the program;”
“Meals not mentioned in the program”
“Onboard insurance and service charges.”
“Travel Insurance”
Assembled from the 3 sources we read for this boat, grouped by what each line is about and counted by how many sources list it. Quotes are the sources' own wording. Nothing here replaces the confirmation you get in writing when you book.
Published by one listing and not corroborated elsewhere1 source. Road transfers vary with traffic — treat the last leg as approximate and do not book a flight out of Hanoi tight against it.
We checked every cancellation ladder in our sources. They differ by who you book through, not by which boat you sail: the same boat carries different terms on different listings. So we will not print one and call it Majesty Prime Cruise's policy.
Across the 7 distinct ladders we found, free cancellation ends somewhere between 15 and 30 days before check-in. After that the fee climbs to 100%.
Get the ladder in writing from whoever quotes you, before you pay a deposit.
Stops as published across the sources we track. Operators reorder them with the tide and the weather, and the provincial authority can close a cave at short notice.
Tuan Chau Marina, according to one of the sources we read — we could not corroborate it. The piers serving these bays are roughly twenty minutes apart and drivers do occasionally go to the wrong one, so name it when you arrange your own transfer.
No source we checked publishes: launched, capacity, decks, length m. A further 4 figures rest on a single source. We would rather say that than fill the gap with a guess. If the operator sends us the figures we will publish them and date them.
Read for this boat: operator, source-1, source-2, source-3 — one dot per source, filled when that many publish the figure. 4 figures rest on a single source — confirm before relying on them. How we verify
We add no booking fee. The figure we show is half the cheapest cabin for two on the rate table we read, dated the day we read it.
From$138per person, two sharingread 6 Aug 2026A guide, not a quote — we confirm the live rate when you enquire.
Details →From$143per person, two sharingread 6 Aug 2026A guide, not a quote — we confirm the live rate when you enquire.
Details →From$143per person, two sharingread 6 Aug 2026A guide, not a quote — we confirm the live rate when you enquire.
Details →