Before you board
Practical writing about this bay: the weather month by month, the road from Hanoi, the difference between the three bays, and what you actually see at each stop.
Guides
Bai Tu Long Bay cruises: the small, quiet end
Fourteen of the 87 boats we publish sail Bai Tu Long. They are smaller than the fleet next door, four of them are wooden, and most of those that name a pier leave from a different one. It is the one bay where the choice changes almost everything.
Choosing a boatBest Ha Long Bay cruises by 8,434 guest reviews
This ranking is built from the reviews we read ourselves, one boat at a time, and nothing else. No operator paid to be near the top. The boat that sits there is also the dearest of the boats we rank that carry a price, but second and third start at $165 and $168 a person, two sharing.
Weather & seasonsWhen to cruise Ha Long Bay, from 8,316 guest reviews
Every guide tells you October to April. We counted what guests actually said, month by month, and found one month that behaves differently from all the others.
MoneyHa Long cancellation terms, and how they vary
There is no standard cancellation policy in Ha Long Bay. We found seven different penalty ladders, and each one is stated by a single seller. They agree on the two ends and disagree on everything in between, which is exactly the part that decides what you lose.
Around the cruiseCat Ba and Ha Long City, around your cruise
The two towns people pair with a Ha Long cruise are Cat Ba and Ha Long City, and the fleet has nearly always chosen for you. Of the boats that say where they board, all but one leave from the Ha Long City side. Only one names a Cat Ba pier. That decides where your spare hours go.
What you will seeThe caves and islands you will actually stop at
Brochures name a dozen wonders. The itineraries of the 87 boats we publish name far fewer, and the same handful keeps coming round. Here is what a ticket really buys you.
Life on boardFood on board, and what it does not tell you
Half of all guests write about the food. They write about it just as often after a one star trip as after a five star one, which makes the most photographed thing on a Ha Long boat close to useless for choosing between two of them.
Start hereThe Ha Long Bay cruise guide, from the data
We publish 87 overnight boats, and in August 2026 we classified 7,104 guest reviews of the 49 boats that had them then. This is the short version of everything that came out of that, arranged as the decisions you actually have to make, with a pointer to the longer guide behind each one.
Weather & seasonsHa Long Bay in December: cool, dry, and why reviews dip
December on the bay means cool days, cold evenings on deck and very little rain. Its reviews look weak on the yearly chart, but the last two Decembers came in close to average, and its low scores mention cabins and cleanliness more often than usual.
Weather & seasonsHa Long Bay in November: least cloud, a cooler sea
November has the least cloud of the year on ten years of weather data and one of the lowest shares of one and two star reviews. When November trips go wrong, guests most often say the itinerary was cut, changed or thinner than sold, and a few describe a boat that hardly sailed.
Weather & seasonsHa Long Bay in October: an ordinary month, two traps
October looks like the third-worst month in our reviews until you take out one day of complaints about a single boat. What is left is an ordinary month with two traps you can check before you pay.
Weather & seasonsHa Long Bay in September: the month to move
September carries nearly double the year's rate of bad reviews, 9.8% against 5.0%. It is also the month when guests stop writing about the crew and start writing about the room they were sitting in.
Weather & seasonsHa Long Bay weather by month: ten years of numbers
We pulled ten years of daily weather for one grid point in the bay and set it beside 8,316 guest reviews. Rain falls where the usual calendar puts it, May to September. The strong-wind days spread from July to October, and September holds fewer of them than you would guess.
Choosing a bayHa Long, Lan Ha or Bai Tu Long: which bay to book
Three names, one body of water, and a decision most people make by accident. What actually differs between them, from the itineraries of the 87 boats we publish.
Getting thereHanoi to Ha Long: every route, and the costs
About 160 km of expressway, two and a half hours by road, and three ways to make the trip. Three listings out of 139 include the journey in the fare. The seaplane operator announced an end to its Ha Long flights from 1 April 2026, and by October its website advertised private jets instead. The train was suspended in 2020, and we have found no newspaper report of it running again.
Choosing a boatHow many other people will be on your boat
The boats we track run from four cabins to fifty-six. The price moves little across most of that range, which makes the size of your boat one of the few things in Ha Long Bay you can choose without paying for it.
MoneyHow much a Ha Long Bay cruise really costs
The figure in the advert is per person, and it is the cheapest cabin for two quietly halved. Across the 77 boats we publish with a two-day rate it runs from $105 to $402 per person, two sharing, and the dearest band draws bad reviews at almost the same rate as the cheapest once one boat is set aside.
Choosing a boatHow old is the boat you are about to book
The boats we publish with a settled launch year were launched between 2007 and this year, and the middle of the fleet dates from 2019. That sounds reassuring until you ask the one question that actually matters on salt water, which is when the boat was last refitted. Nobody publishes it.
On the waterKayaking in Ha Long Bay: what is really included
Eighty-five of the 87 boats we publish offer kayaking, and no boat is recorded as having none, so it cannot help you choose one. What varies is whether it is in your fare, how long you get, and which bay you paddle in.
Choosing a bayLan Ha Bay cruises: the biggest fleet, and why
Forty-five of the 87 boats we publish sail Lan Ha, more than the other two bays combined. It is the default now rather than the alternative, and the reason is in the stop lists rather than in the marketing.
Choosing a boatThe most luxurious Ha Long Bay cruises, measured
Nobody grades the boats on this bay, so the stars on a listing are the boat's own word. We ranked the dearest boats on the one number the market sets, the price of the cheapest cabin, and put everything else we can check beside it.
What you will seeSung Sot Cave: the famous one and its crowd
Sung Sot is the cave on the postcards, and it is a Ha Long Bay stop only. Eighteen of the twenty-eight Ha Long boats we publish list it. Choosing it means choosing the busiest water in the bay, and the reviews are clear about why.
Choosing a bayThe quietest Ha Long bay, and why counts mislead
Count how often guests mention crowds and Bai Tu Long comes out worst, at more than one review in ten. Read what they actually say and it comes out best. The gap between those two readings is the whole answer.
On the waterThings to do in Ha Long Bay, counted boat by boat
We read the day-by-day itinerary of 57 boats and marked every activity on it. Two things are on all of them. Most of the rest depends on the bay you sail and whether you stay a second night.
Choosing a boatHow many days in Ha Long Bay: two or three?
Two days and one night is enough for most people, and three days is worth it if the bay is the reason you came. On the rates we could read for 65 boats, the second night costs almost as much as the first, so the longer trip is close to double the price.
What you will seeViet Hai village: the stop the most boats sell
Thirty-two of the 87 boats we publish list Viet Hai, more than any cave or beach. It also divides the people who go there more sharply than any other stop we read, and the reason is what the booking led them to expect.
MoneyWhat a luxury Ha Long cruise actually buys
Plenty of the boats we track call themselves luxury, and the word is doing less work than the price is. We split 7,161 reviews by what the cheapest cabin costs per person, and the money buys less than the bands first suggest. Most of the drop in bad trips at the top belongs to one boat.
Reading the reviewsWhat guests complain about on Ha Long cruises
We classified 7,104 guest reviews by subject and then looked only at the angry ones. The loudest complaint turns out not to be the one that marks a bad trip. Three quieter ones do, and all three are things you cannot see in a photograph and can ask about before you pay.
MoneyWhat a Ha Long cruise fare leaves out
The things a boat is least likely to include are the things that cost you most. We read 139 listings for what they put in writing, then turned the list upside down, because the rarest lines on it are the ones that arrive as a separate bill.
Life on boardWhat you actually get on board a Ha Long cruise
Every boat advertises a jacuzzi, a kayak and a cooking class. We checked all 87 we publish, then read what 7,104 guests wrote afterwards. The things the brochures compete on turn out to be the things that never vary.
Life on boardWhat your cabin gets you on a Ha Long boat
There is no such thing as the cabin size of a Ha Long boat. Most boats sell four to eleven grades of room at once, and the sources that seem to disagree about square metres are usually just describing different ones. What the grade buys, and what it does not, is the useful question.
Choosing a boatWhich harbour your Ha Long cruise leaves from
Three harbours serve nearly all of the overnight fleet, and the one you sail from is not a detail. It sets how far you drive from Hanoi and, on the evidence of the boats we track, it quietly decides which bay you end up in. One harbour serves Bai Tu Long and no other bay.
Choosing a boatWooden hull or steel, and what it really tells you
Fourteen of the 87 boats we publish have wooden hulls, and our sources disagree about two more. The wooden boats are older, smaller and a little cheaper than the steel ones, and the number that would actually matter is published by nobody.