Velar of the Sea Cruise

The room size. Some of the staff were accommodating. Doing their best.

Clarify: they changed our ship to Celina of the Sea. There was construction going on. One of our rooms smelled like fish. We were 5 guests, but, only had 4 pillows. The floors were always slippery. (This is in the top 2 decks.) I paid for executive rooms at Velar, but, when we moved to Celina, were given a standard room. Our other friends room had a leak coming from bathroom above. The food wasnt good, but, they did make accommodations for my son with food allergies. They also announced everything in a built in speaker in every bedroom: time to eat, about to go kayaking. This starts at 6:45 am. And is said in 3 different languages.

The staff was kind.

We spent more on this one night cruise than we did for a full week in Vietnam. Horribly overpriced. The boat wasn't in great shape. The rooms were worn, the food wasn't good, the activities were terrible, the rooms were not very clean. We splurged on a one night cruise thinking it would be the highlight of our 15 day trip and it was the worst part. Ha Long and Lan Ha Bay were also terribly polluted with trash. The beauty of the view is ruined by the constant view of surrounding ships leaving brown trails of their sewage dumps all around you. The activities and terribly exciting either. The main activity was the "cave" which consisted of a very short boat ride being rowed under a natural bridge and then back to the dock. Nothing to see. The kayaking activity was a boat ride to a "floating fishing village" which was really just a tourist dock advertising boat rides and a small fenced in area where you're allowed to kayak. The manager and the staff were all kind, so at least there was that. If you indicate that you had anything less than a great time they do corner you to try to persuade you to leave a good review. I can't say that any of the other cruises would have been any better due to the pollution of the bay, but I do think everyone should realize that you will pay a lot of money for this and not get a luxury experience. Spend your money elsewhere. We went to Ninh Binh, and found it to be fabulous. If I had a do-over, I'd skip the bay entirely.

Clean

Food can be bit better

La camera era molto ampia e pulita. Il bagno elegante e in generale ben arredato. Staff molto cordiale e disponibile, unica pecca è la difficoltà nel comunicare in inglese. Nota di merito per Tommy, molto cordiale, disponibile e sempre sorridente. :)

Troppa fretta nelle attività e nella gestione dei tempi, purtroppo la nave si muove solo una volta a/r per un escursione per il resto rimane ferma in rada. Cibo non eccezionale e prezzi con target prettamente turistico, non ai livelli del resto del Vietnam. Una delle attività del mattino era fissata per le ore 6.20 ma una volta arrivati stava già terminando dato che è iniziata alle 6.00.

Nice view from windows of the honeymoon suite. Large room. The minibus transfer from hotel to boat was very good. The chap doing the transfer was communicative, friendly, on time and approachable.

The pictured private deck and room size of the honeymoon suite was correctly pictured in the promotional material. What they don’t tell you is that when the boat is moving, the fumes from the engine make it impossible to sit out on the private deck which was located at the back of the boat. Not great for the high price paid. Windows were a bit dirty. Floor and furnishing were a bit rough around the edges and could be cleaner. Mini-fridge was dirty and hadn’t been cleaned. Our honeymoon suite’s sliding doors to our deck had broken locks. They did come and fix it quite quickly though it was a bit of a ‘Heath Robinson’ job with a screw which could have ripped a hole in your foot if not careful. Still, at least it locked then I guess. The thing is, the 5* rating of this cruise should ensure that these things are checked each and every time. It’s not good enough to rely on passengers themselves drawing attention to what’s wrong. Passengers just don’t want to spend what is a special trip having to complain about multiple things. It doesn’t make for a relaxing time. The activities were VERY rushed and jam-packed in. It felt like a Butlins’ compulsory activities jaunt. ‘Squid fishing’ was pretty non-existent in reality and consisted of being directed to some rods - no instruction; ‘cookery class’ was being shown how to put some ingredients into some rice paper and roll up to eat …; passengers were left to figure out how to turn on the karaoke machine themselves - there was no evening entertainment other than that; overpriced drinks; tip envelope left on everyone’s table at final brunch was tacky; being told to take money for tips for the boat cave rower when the overnight stay/2 day excursion was already costly was a bit much. The company should pay the rowers a decent rate in the first place.