Family cruises on Ha Long Bay

Most boats on this bay say they welcome families. Rather fewer have cabins that actually sleep four without a rollaway wedged between the bed and the wall, and fewer still have deck railings a small child cannot get through.

The list below is drawn on one test we can check: the operator sells a cabin it calls a family cabin. That is a lower bar than it sounds. Read the cabin names and most of them resolve to one room with a third bed in it, sold as a triple. What you give up on those boats is a door — everyone sleeps, changes and wakes in the same room, which is fine for one night and wearing for two. A door between two cabins is the rare case here, and where it exists the operator names it, as Majesty Prime does across three of its suites and Swan does on one. We have not verified railings, cots or crew training on any boat on this list, and we are not going to imply we have.

Three things worth checking before you book. Ask whether the family cabin is a genuine connecting pair or one room with an extra mattress. Ask what the child rate is and at what age it stops, since five to eleven at around seventy-five per cent is common but varies. And ask whether cots exist, because on most boats they do not.

Kayaking usually carries a minimum age, often around five, and the deeper swimming stops are not suitable for weak swimmers whatever the schedule says.