Anyone taken a Celebrity shore excursion to Hanoi?

[Suskies]

Celebrity offers 3 shore excursions to Hanoi from the Halong Bay port:

"Multi-Day Adventures - Grand Hanoi" (overnight)

"Hanoi in a Day" (11 hours)

"Hanoi Past and Present" (12 hours)

 

Has anyone taken any of these and, if so, what was your experience like?

 

Most of the people who have contributed reviews of this port have taken a Halong Bay cruise. The bay looks amazing, but we really want to see Hanoi and, yes, we know it's about 3 1/2 hours each way.

 

Thank you!

[Quo Vadis?]

I can't remember but I believe we did Hanoi in a Day. The tour was OK but we had no alternative. We also did Halong Bay the next day. The excursion boats would not pass any safety inspection but the caves were spectacular.

[Kiwifromkiev]

I would not recommend missing the Halong Bay, although , to be fair, you will see the Bay when you depart, if your departure time is during the day (ours was 13 hours or so). However you do not see the cave, the Titov island and Bay up and close. To us this was the main attraction of this cruise.

 

Hanoi is worth a visit of course, however it is a long way. We used an overnight option In Bangkok and loved it (private, not Celebrityj) so fo ports which are so far away a multiple day is a good alternative.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[ghstudio]

I recommend staying overnight in Hanoi. We arranged for a private guide to take us first to a 1/2 day cruise in Halong Bay, then drive us to Hanoi...We did our hotel booking ourselves.....the next morning, the guide picked us up and we spent the better part of the day seeing Hanoi and then the drive back to the ship. We used and I would recommend Smile Travel . We were joined by another lovely couple we met electronically through the roll call on CC....so we were 4 people for the two days. It worked out wonderfully. The halong bay cruise was private for the 4 of us on a boat that probably normally holds 30 or more. Luckily, it didn't sink, but looking at all the wooden boats, not just ours, safety items such as railings don't make their priority list. I would not stay on one of those boats overnight. Not sure what the cost would be now, but we paid $290pp for the two days plus our hotel and the cost of lunch on day 2. Dinner was on the Halong Bay boat..

 

Unless it's a financial decision, I would not recommend that anyone try to do Hanoi in a day given the distance, the drivers and the roads.

 

Smile also arranged our tours in DaNang and Saigon. They were all excellent.

 

Great country to vist..

[hxhbk]

I am not sure when you trip will be but according to the local news, the Ha Long-Hai Phong highway is supposed to open this year and being connected to the Hai Phong-Ha Noi highway, the travel time between Ha Long and Ha Noi is supposed to be reduced in half.

 

http://vietnamtourism.com/en/index.php/news/items/13583

 

I agree that you should not miss the opportunity to see Hanoi.

[Suskies]

Thank you all! We are on the early March 2019 cruise from Singapore to Hong Kong. I've spent more time researching the Hanoi/Ha Long port than all the other ports put together! It's been hard to find information because so few cruise ships stop there, plus Hanoi doesn't yet have a tourism infrastructure on par with the other ports.

 

That's great news about the highway! It makes a day trip to Hanoi much more appealing. I wonder if/how Celebrity will change their Hanoi shore excursions, since the buses won't have to spend so much time on the road.

[budbo]

Thank you all! We are on the early March 2019 cruise from Singapore to Hong Kong. I've spent more time researching the Hanoi/Ha Long port than all the other ports put together! It's been hard to find information because so few cruise ships stop there, plus Hanoi doesn't yet have a tourism infrastructure on par with the other ports.

 

That's great news about the highway! It makes a day trip to Hanoi much more appealing. I wonder if/how Celebrity will change their Hanoi shore excursions, since the buses won't have to spend so much time on the road.

 

We were in Hanoi on the Millenium in March and booked an overnight there on our own. (Hanoi Tranfer Service, Oriental Central Hotel) We were very happy with our arrangements and our decision to stay overnight.

 

We spoke to several other passengers who had done the one day trip thru Celebrity, and the only big complaint that they seemed to have was that it was just too long of a day.....like waaaay too long a day. If Celebrity listened to reviews of their excursion, I'm guessing that once the new highway is open they might keep the tour the same and just adjust the start & ending times to allow for the shorter drive time?