Fabulous 2 night stay on the Indochina Sails Halong

06/17/2011 After a shaky start (not caused by Indochina but the cancellation of our origional trip with the Junk A) we boarded the Indochina sails and were greated by a lovely welcome party, a cold drink and face towel. The boat we were allocated was a beautiful Junk, with lots of character. the boat had around 14 cabins, an enclosed dining area, and a sun deck which covered the whole roof of the boat, which contained plenty of sun loungers and seating for everyone on board.

Due to the previous problems with Junk A, we had been promised a room with a balcony on the 'replacement' boat, by the tour agent. Unfortunately when we got on the boat this hadnt been relayed to the Indochina Sails, so we were given a standard cabin - which was very nice - but not what we had been promised. After a quick chat with Jerry, the General Manager of Indochina Sails (who happened to be on our boat that day) we were moved to cabin 201 - this was amazing!! we had a large room with twin beds, a huge bathroom with bath and a rain shower, and of course a lovely balcony with opening doors. We were so happy with our room that we didnt really want to leave it to do the activities!!

The food onboard was very nice, with lots of variety. I was very happy with the food, however my sister (who lives in vietnam) wanted some western style food, as she is used to eating vietnamese food every day, so wasnt as happy as I was - however i dont think you can go wrong with sweet and sour chicken, squid, fried rice dishes, lots of salad and noodle dishes and the amount of fish optioned served was fantastic. the only negative i can say about the food was that the cake/dessert options were not that great! I dont think the vietnamese do cakes very well. this was the general concensus on the boat, however they were OK with a nice cup of tea! Breakfast and lunch was equally good with lots of choices.

The trips off the boat consisted of a visit to the beach (with an optional climb up to a viewing platform if desired!), a trip to a floating village, kayaking through caves, a visit to the suprise cave. we also had the 2 night option, so on our 2nd day we went off for the day on a day cruiser which took us to places for Kayaking, swimming, and a pearl farm.
I have to say that the day boat is not as good as the main boat, and that as i mentioned previously, we felt that we wanted to spend more time enjoying our own cabin and balcony rather than being put onto a seperate boat. however the food was lovely on the day cruiser, and as there were only 4 of us on the 2 night option, we got the whole day cruiser to ourselves. as part of the day cruiser trip we went kayaking into a lagoon and were lucky enough to see a whole family of monkeys!! The guide said it was very unusual for them to be on the rocks right in front of us, and that usually you could only see them high up in the trees. It made our holiday to see them and we stayed watching them in our Kayake for an hour!!
We also took part in the wine tasting which was really good fun - for $15, we got to taste very healthy measures of all 10 wines on offer - however be warned that we only had 1 hour to do this!! we were very tipsy afterwards and we all commented that it would have been better to do the wine tasting on deck after dinner! Jerry was so accomodating, he even sent a transfer boat over to us on our boat to take us off swimming because we were hot! Now that is what i call service!! One word of warning though - if you want to swim off the boat when the smaller transfer boat is not moored alongside - you have to get out of the water using a very steep ladder. My sister and I both struggled with this and we are in our early 30's. someone less mobile would not be able to do it! It is best to wait for the transfer boat to moor alongside so that you can get in and out of the water with ease!
All in all we had a fabulous trip - i would recommend to anyone. Halong bay is beautiful and the staff on the Indochina Sails made sure we enjoyed every minute of it!
Visited June 2011
(Source Tripadvisor)
Indochina Sails - The most luxury and safest cruises on Halong Bay, Vietnam
Hanoi Office
Add: 27 – A6 – Dam Trau Quarter – Hai Ba Trung District – Hanoi – Vietnam
Tel: +84 – 4- 39842362
Fax: +84 – 4 – 39844150
Email: info@indochinasails.com
Website: www.indochinasails.com

About This Author

Indochina Sails

Indochina Sails is a susidiary of Huong Hai Junks, one of the first companies to offer tourist cruising on Halong Bay. Backed by more than 10 years experience hosting international guests on the tranquil waters of Halong Bay, Indochina Sails has set a new standard for luxury cruising. The first comp…