Halong Bay or LAN Ha Bay
Exploring a pre cruise to either Halong Bay or LAN Ha bay. Both look beautiful with Halong Bay being a bit more touristy. We are looking at either the heritage-line As the boats are small and upscale. 2 nights 3 days. Anyone have an opinion between the 2 bays?
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You may have already found this webs site, but I'll post a link. I found it searching for the difference between the two bays.
https://www.paradisevietnam.com/en/travel-guides/lan-ha-bay-vs-halong-bay
After reading it, I'd choose Ha Long Bay because I'm more interested in the caves than in kayaking, which seems to be big at Lan Ha Bay.
I'll be interested in what others have to say. I'm sure someone must have gone to Lan Ha Bay and can comment.
[Also, the two bays are close so you may be able to get the boat to take you to both of them if you're going to do two nights and three days.]
MikeHenderson thank you. This is an excellent article. I like your suggestion on seeing whether the boat will venture into the other bay if we do the Halong Bay.
If we are going on the Viet Nam, Thailand, Cambodia tour on 10/22/25 is it worth going a day earlier to Hanoi and doing a 1/2 day or full day tour of the bay?
You need at least a day.
If you have the time, I think it would be nice to have an overnight on a private boat on Ha Long Bay. When we went, I could not make flight arrangements that allowed us to have an overnight on the bay, so we did a day trip. You can see what we did at https://www.mikeandjudytravel.com/2024-1Vietnam-01.htm
Scroll down a little bit and you will be at the section describing our trip to Ha Long Bay.
In any case, if you're going to fly all the way to Hanoi I don't think you should miss Ha Long Bay. It's really unique - and interesting.
We ended up booking an overnight in The Violet and am very much looking forward to this experience later this year.
I’d recommend doing both Ha Long Bay and an extra day in Hanoi. IMHO, you really only need one night in Ha Long Bay and there is limited time in Hanoi once the tour begins. So if you’re able to arrive a couple days early, I’d do one night in Ha Long Bay and a day in Hanoi. I HIGHLY recommend the 4.5 hour Backstreet Jeep Tour. You’ll go to places you won’t see with Tauck, including Train Street. The lunch they provided was fantastic! We did that tour on the same day that the Tauck tour began (we returned to the hotel in time for the welcome dinner). The Jeep tour and Ha Long Bay were highlights of our trip!
We’re doing the trip in January. We’re going to do a cruise (3 days/2nights) that starts the day after we arrive in Hanoi. The cruise includes both Ha Long Bay and La Han Bay as both of them look interesting and we’ll only be there once. We hope it will be a nice way to ease into the Tauck trip. After the cruise we have 1 and 1/2 days in Hanoi before the Tauck welcome dinner. Thanks for recommending the Back Street Jeep Tour. Sounds like fun. I’ll check it out.
@Stanfan - Try to see the Hanoi Train Street when a train comes through. You can do it in the evening.
Oops, I see that was already recommended to you.
I agree, Mike! Stanfan - If you do the Backstreet Jeep Food + Culture + Fun tour in the afternoon (and I believe in the evening as well), you’ll get to see the train pass by on Train Street and you’ll have a prime seat, drinks included! It was a real treat to see it!
Thank you, Mike and buonviaggio. Much appreciated.