New Ha Long Bay cruise ships, 2025 and 2026

The ten boats on this page went into service in 2025 or 2026: Aime’e, Calista, Athena Premium and Victorious on Ha Long Bay, Cycad on Bai Tu Long, and Halora Nova, Indochine Grand, La Sen of the Bay, Lyra Grandeur and Orient Legacy on Lan Ha. Nobody publishes a like-for-like measure of what a hull that new gives you over a 2019 boat at the same price, so we make no claim about room size or quiet; each boat page lists its cabins by grade.

The risk is the operation rather than the ship. A crew in its first season has not yet worked out how to turn around forty cabins between check-out and the next embarkation, and it shows in small ways: a slow brunch, a tender that leaves late, a booking system that loses your dietary note.

We show a launch year on 68 of the 87 boats we publish, counted on 12 October 2026, and only sixteen of those years are confirmed by two sources. Forty-five rest on the operator’s word alone, and seven come from sources that disagree, so treat those as our best reading of the evidence. For the other nineteen boats, nobody publishes a year for fifteen, and for four the sources are too far apart to pick one. On this page, only three boats have their launch years confirmed by two sources: Victorious and La Sen of the Bay, both from 2026, and Aime’e, from 2025. Athena Premium’s own site says 2025, but its first guest reviews date from March 2026, which is the year we show. The other six rest on the operator’s word. Where an operator has refitted rather than rebuilt we say so if we can confirm it, and say nothing if we cannot.