Top Ha Long Bay Kayaking Tours - page 38

Pros 👍🏼👌🏼🥰: Tuk 특, our Tour Guide, was very friendly, enthusiastic, witty, hilarious 🤣, magnetic 🐸, helpful, fun and memorable. He is also highly intelligent—to include interpersonal skills and language skills—and is a very knowledgeable, informative, passionate and captivating storyteller (especially within THE CAVE). Anh—one of the cruise members who helped take care of everyone—was very professional, gentle kind 💝, keenly observant, thoughtful 🫠, and prompt; she basically provided warm and excellent 👌🏼 service throughout the cruise. Other team members were great 👍🏼 as well, but these two are the ones I interacted with the most, and they all deserved big tips. The tour was overall great, especially the gorgeous views of nature 🏞️ and the hauntingly beautiful cave. The buffet was overall pretty good; but reviews raving about it being amazing seem a bit of a stretch (since I’ve experienced truly mouthwatering, delicious, and amazing food). Granted, there’s potential towards amazing; plus, everyone has their own preferences, so what’s decent to one can be mind blowing to another. Even in January, there were a lot of tourists, so it was very loud at times; but that’s expected, and apparently inevitable, unless you come during the slowest season. Heads Up ⚠️ Regarding Meeting Point: The meeting location provided within the booking confirmation will take you to a different location. So it’s absolutely important to receive the correct location. Layla, from Ha Long Bay Adventures, initially contacted me via WhatsApp the day before this tour. But then she never replied the same day, and the next tour day—with an exact meeting point, plus answers to my questions—which was baffling. I even tried calling her, but there was no answer and no option to leave a voicemail. So then I received the exact meeting location via email at 8:32 am, the morning of the tour, which is NOT okay 🫩, since I was in the middle of getting ready to wait for my Grab app driver outside the building I was staying at (and I didn’t see the email until I arrived at the wrong location). Fortunately, the thoughtful driver helped me to call this tour company’s phone number—since I didn’t have mobile WiFi—who then gave him directions in Vietnamese to the actual meeting location. So I ended up paying for two rides to the start point 😐, which could’ve been prevented with better communication 🗣️💬👤. That’s when I met Tuk, our tour guide—at the actual meeting point—who helped to resolve what was apparently a misunderstanding. He said he doesn’t know anyone named Layla within their company, which seemed odd since she had all the information related to my booking confirmation, to include my full name and phone number. Plus, Tuk had attempted to contact me via WhatsApp that morning (as I later saw); but once again, since I didn’t have mobile WiFi while in my Grab app ride, I wasn’t able to access WhatsApp to receive his two calls. I realize this is a very detailed part of this review, but I’m sharing this so that hopefully others don’t have to experience what felt like a major pain in the @$$ (donkey emoji 🫏), chaotic process before the tour even started. 😳 For everyone’s sake, may this company tune into an effective solution, to include sending the exact meeting point the day before the tour (rather than the morning of). I’ve been informed that this meeting location has been difficult to find for other tourists in the past as well. So perhaps sharing a map with directions to the exact meeting point can help (and also attach it to an email just in case foreign visitors don’t have WhatsApp on 24/7). Since mistakes can happen—and there’s always room for improvement—I decided to give this review a 5 star rating rather than a 3 or 4, mostly because of the staff who went above and beyond with customer service. Plus, this tour was a great deal compared to many other options of its kind. Wishing you ALL many fully present 👁️👀 and pleasant 🌅🌄🌌🌠 moments of Life 🌳🪷. 💖🫂

Tour is well organized and great value for money. Tam was an excellent tour guide and shared lots of knowledge about Vietname Language, History and Culture. First Island in Halong Bay on Day 1 was pretty crowded as expected but the cave visit afterwards was good. Sunset that night was picturesque and it was definetly worth staying overnight as the next morning it felt like we were the only boat out in the Bay which gave the whole scenery an amazing vibe. Pearl factory next morning was interesting and a bit of kajaking on top for those who like rounded up the overall experience. Tam also provided extra help in further organizing next steps of my trip.

From the moment we were picked up in a luxury bus (with seats like business class plane) to getting on the boat, we were treated so well by our wonderful guide, Jake. The whole day was so well planned, with 3 fabulous stops on the cruise to explore beaches and caves. It was a busy day, with many crowds from multiple other cruise ships, but it did not impact on our day as we all really enjoyed ourselves. The food is quite nice, with a surprise sunset party on the roof while sailing home. I would definitely recommend this tour to anyone wanting to have a special day out in Ha Long bay.