Bai Tu Long Bay Cruises from Hanoi

Every cruise on this site is sold as Bai Tu Long, so it helps to know what that means before you book. What cruise lines sell as Bai Tu Long Bay (Vịnh Bái Tử Long) is the Cong Do area, about 25 km east of the Ha Long International Cruise Port at Bai Chay, which the bay’s management board runs as Ha Long Bay route 4. The official Bai Tu Long Bay lies further east, around the hundreds of islands off Van Don, and so does Bai Tu Long National Park. None of these cruises goes there.

What they do reach is good on its own terms. The Cong Do area sits inside the Ha Long Bay – Cat Ba World Heritage area, on its quieter eastern side: the same limestone towers rising out of the sea as the famous central bay, with a small share of its visitors. Thien Canh Son, the busiest cave on the route, counted about 74,000 visits in 2024. Sung Sot, in the central bay and the most-visited cave in Ha Long Bay, counted 1.85 million.

The cruise this site recommends is DGB Travel & Event Company’s two-day cruise: kayaking around Cap La, a night at the Cong Do anchorage and Thien Canh Son cave the next morning, rated 4.7 from 1,638 reviews and from about $145 a person on the booking platform when we checked. It has more reviews than all the other cruises here put together. Drinks are extra, and from 1 October to 30 April DGB adds $10 a person, paid on the day.

See dates for DGB's two-day cruise →

What the route covers

Cong Do is a large limestone island ringed by winding sea lagoons, and the board’s route 4 strings it together with Thien Canh Son cave on Hon Co island, Thay cave, the kayaking water at Cap La and the Vung Vieng fishing village. Vietnam’s tourism authority places Cong Do in Bai Tu Long Bay and inside the World Heritage area, so the cruise lines did not invent the label. It simply names a different patch of sea from the official bay. In legend, Ha Long is where a mother dragon came down to the sea, and Bai Tu Long is where her young came down.

The official bay is the sea off the Cam Pha coast and around Van Don’s islands, north-east of Ha Long Bay. Since 2024 the province has published ten Bai Tu Long routes of its own, most of them starting from Ao Tien port in Van Don, and the first overnight anchorage there was announced only in May 2026, so for now it is a different trip from a different port.

The World Heritage listing follows the same line. Ha Long Bay was inscribed in 1994, and in 2023 the listing grew to take in Cat Ba and Lan Ha Bay as the Ha Long Bay – Cat Ba Archipelago. The Cong Do area is inside it. Most of the official Bai Tu Long Bay is not, so the World Heritage label belongs to the part these cruises visit.

Why the route is quieter

Ha Long Bay took more than 3.4 million visitors in 2025, and the crowds gather in the central bay: the management board says Thien Cung, Sung Sot, Luon cave and the Ti Top beach regularly get overcrowded in places. Route 4’s visitors are mainly overnight guests, and there are far fewer of them.

Quiet is not the same as empty. The overnight boats anchor at Cong Do, one of the bay’s official overnight anchorages, and they share it, so expect other cruise lights across the water. Reviewers on this route write of seeing few other boats. One day-cruise guest in March 2026 counted two others in the bay, and a November guest’s boat was the only one at the cave and the kayaks. A guest on a two-night cruise that same March found litter on a beach. Two listings call the area untouched. It isn’t, but it is far quieter than the central bay.

A two-day cruise, hour by hour

DGB’s timetable is typical of the one-night cruises here, give or take half an hour.

It starts in Hanoi. DGB’s “Option from Hanoi” collects guests from Old Quarter hotels at about 7:40. Ha Long, in Quang Ninh, is about 165–170 km by road: 2 to 2.5 hours of driving, but allow 3.5 to 4 hours from an Old Quarter pick-up to the boat. If you are already in Ha Long, you meet the boat at the Ha Long International Cruise Port by 11:15 to 11:30. Listings also call it Sun World Port, and nearly every cruise here boards there. Check your ticket anyway: Marvel Travel’s two-day itinerary names Tuan Chau Marina, and its three-day cruise lands at a pier in Hon Gai.

You board at about 12:50 to a welcome drink, a safety briefing and your cabin. Lunch, a Vietnamese set menu, is served on the way out, and the 25 km to the Cong Do area take an hour and a half to two hours. At 3 p.m. you kayak around Cap La, with a swim when the season, the weather and the rules allow. One guest’s warning is worth passing on: the crew doesn’t teach you to paddle.

The sunset party starts at 5:30 as the boat moves to its anchorage. Dinner is a set menu at 7, and after it come Vietnamese puzzle games, board games and squid fishing over the side. Two listings warn that the Wi-Fi out here is weak.

The morning begins with optional tai chi on the sundeck at 6 and a Western-style breakfast at 7. At 8 you climb stone steps on Hon Co island to Thien Canh Son cave, then spend some time on the white sand beach below. Early is the quiet time: an August guest whose group was first into the cave found it uncrowded, while a guest on another boat in 2019 found it packed when all the boats arrived at once. The steps rule the cave out for wheelchair users.

Back aboard there is packing, a cooking demonstration of fresh spring rolls and an early lunch on the way in. You land at about 11:20, roughly 22 to 23 hours after boarding. That is what a two-day cruise means here: the rules cap a one-night stay at 24 hours from departure. If you booked the shuttle, you are back in Hanoi in the afternoon.

Other one-night boats change the stops, not the shape. Anh Tourist’s cruise names Cong Do as its anchorage and spends its morning at Vung Vieng instead of the cave: a preserved fishing village where a few dozen families still farm fish and row visitors around. The villagers were moved ashore from 2014, and the village was kept as it was for visitors. Marvel Travel’s cruise kayaks in the Cong Do area from April to October and stops at Vung Vieng from November to March, then takes a tender to Thien Canh Son the next morning.

A day, one night or two

A day cruise is the short version. The boats leave the Bai Chay port around midday, serve lunch on the way out past islets, reach Thien Canh Son and the kayaks at about 2 p.m. and are back by 5:30. That is about five and a half hours on the water and 12 to 13 hours door to door from Hanoi, and one guest found the time at the bay tight because the journey out is long.

Three day cruises are on this site. Vietnam Tourism & Service, a private company, sells one from about $72, with an Old Quarter transfer you can add at extra cost. The other two, from Authentic Travel DA NANG at about $90 and Local Tours Vietnam Limited Company at about $78 plus a $50 limousine from Hanoi, share their timetable word for word and may be the same boat sold by two sellers. Compare what each price includes before you choose. The Bai Tu Long Bay day cruise guide sets them side by side.

One night is what most guests book, going by reviewers on the longer cruises, and it is what this site recommends: enough for the kayaking, the anchorage at dusk and the cave in the morning. Two nights add a whole day on the water. DGB’s three-day cruise and Marvel Travel’s both move you to a day boat on day two, for Vung Vieng, more kayaking at a spot the listings call Cong Dam, and a look at Thay cave if the weather allows. Guests who did it recommend the extra night. Because most people on board are on the two-day cruise, one guest spent day two on another boat with a different group, and in September 2026 a Marvel Travel guest whose boat was in maintenance was moved to another and saw Lan Ha Bay instead of Bai Tu Long. Three days and two nights in Bai Tu Long Bay goes through both.

There is also a three-day trip from DGB - INDOCHINATODAYTRAVEL that spends its first day in Ninh Binh, with Bai Dinh pagoda, a boat through Trang An, a World Heritage site since 2014, and the climb to the Mua cave viewpoint, then a night ashore before a one-night cruise. Its limousine from Hanoi is included.

Book by how much time you can give it:

Prices, ratings and review counts from our October 2026 data check; operators use seasonal pricing, so treat them as the shape of the market, not a quote.

What the price leaves out

The “from” prices are per person and before extras, as the booking platform showed them when we checked:

On the overnight cruises the price covers the cabin, the meals, the guide, the kayaks and, nearly always, the bay’s entrance fee. For route 4 that fee is 200,000 dong a person by day and 500,000 dong with one night at Cong Do, and most operators include it. Renea’s listing is the exception: it excludes the entrance ticket and names no stops, so ask the seller for both.

Drinks are not included on any cruise here. Swan’s cruise is titled All Inclusive and still excludes beverages, and one guest on another boat wished they could have paid the bar bill by card, so carry some dong. Anh Tourist’s listing describes a hotel pick-up in Hanoi and then lists the shuttle bus among its exclusions, so confirm which applies. Most listings add a surcharge on public holidays, and no listing includes tips.

Stars in the titles

Two listings put “5 Star” in their titles. Vietnam’s national standard grades tourist boats from one to five stars, but we have not seen a star certificate for any boat on this site, so read the stars as the operators’ own labels. Choose by the reviews, the route and what the price covers. A few hundred tour boats work the bay, about a hundred of them overnight cruisers, and the Ha Long International Cruise Port says it checks every boat before it sails.

Weather, storms and closures

The boats sail all year. Vietnam’s tourism authority describes September to November as cool with clear skies, April and May as sunshine and a refreshing breeze, and December to March as the months when mist drifts in. The water is cold in January. June to August is the monsoon season, and storms can close the bay at short notice, mostly from June to September. In 2026 the province stopped boats ahead of a storm in early July, reopening the bay on the afternoon of 5 July, and again from 7 a.m. on 22 August.

Every cruise here can be cancelled free up to 24 hours before, and most listings warn that itineraries change with the weather. None says what happens when the authorities close the bay. Ask the seller before you book whether a closure gets you a new date or a refund, and if the cruise is the point of your trip, keep a spare day after it.

Crowds and prices follow the Vietnamese calendar. The 30 April to 1 May holiday, 2 September and the Lunar New Year, which falls on 6 February in 2027, bring domestic crowds and surcharges. On one day of the April and May holiday in 2026, Ha Long Bay counted 18,500 visitors. Operators treat October to April as peak season. The best time to visit Bai Tu Long Bay covers the seasons and the storms.

Passports

Take your passport, and have its details ready when you book. Overnight boats register foreign guests, as hotels do. Marvel Travel asks in advance for each guest’s full name, date of birth, nationality, gender, passport number and visa expiry. Swan wants passport details two days ahead, with your arrival date in Vietnam or visa expiry, and the booking name to match the card. DGB asks you to bring a passport or ID card, and two listings accept a copy. One day-cruise listing asks for a passport too.

Bai Tu Long or Ha Long?

Bai Tu Long is the quieter choice rather than the prettier one: the same drowned limestone, inside the same World Heritage area, without the queues at the famous caves. You give up some time, because the sail out is longer, and you give up the bay’s big show caves, Sung Sot and Thien Cung, which are on the central routes. For quiet water and kayaking, the eastern side wins; for Sung Sot and the Ti Top viewpoint, it doesn’t. Bai Tu Long Bay vs Ha Long Bay weighs the two, the best Bai Tu Long Bay cruise compares the one-night boats, and is a Bai Tu Long Bay cruise worth it? goes through the price ladder for different kinds of traveller.

For a first night on the bay, book DGB’s two-day cruise: the most-reviewed cruise on this site, on the quiet side of the bay, with the evening at Cong Do and the cave visited before the day boats arrive.

Check dates for DGB's two-day cruise →