Calista Cruise

Calista is a five-deck steel ship launched in 2025, with a 225 m² heated pool, a gym and a spa on it, sold from $340 a cabin for one night.

On halongbaytours.com’s rate table, read on 6 August 2026, the cheapest grade, Calista Ocean, is $340 per cabin for two people on the one-night trip. Bay is $360 and Legacy $390. Above those the ladder climbs quickly: Horizon at $690, Majesty at $790, and the President cabin at $1,680. Two nights in Ocean cost $670, and in the President cabin $3,170. Split two ways, the Ocean cabin is $170 each for two sharing.

Two guests say what they actually paid. One writes that they paid USD 447 as a couple for the Bay cabin over two days and one night, with a one-way road transfer from Hanoi included. Another gives $450 for the same length of trip, transfers in both directions. The road from Hanoi is not in the operator’s own fare, and Origin Vietnam quoted the round-trip shuttle at $38 a guest in August 2026. The operator itself advertises the two-day trip from $159 a person and the three-day from $349. Get the grade and the total in writing.

What you are booking

Thirty-eight cabins over five decks, for up to 114 guests and a staff of 60, on the operator’s figures. Every cabin has a private balcony or terrace. On deck there is the Oceanus pool, 225 m², heated and open all year by the operator’s account, the 130 m² open-air jacuzzi on the second deck, a gym, a kids’ centre and the Amber spa, where treatments are charged. That is a lot of hardware for a boat that starts at $170 a head on Ha Long Bay. Kayaking is included.

So Calista has standard rooms of 30 to 33 m² and genuinely large suites, and the Horizon, Majesty and President each have a private jacuzzi. The suites also come with VIP dining, wine, a butler and a massage. In every grade the fare covers four meals on the one-night trip including a barbecue dinner, afternoon tea, the pool and jacuzzi, the cooking class, squid fishing, wifi, guides, tickets and VAT. Drinks, the spa and the road from Hanoi are extra.

One guest took a cabin on the lowest deck, liked being close enough to the water to get into it easily, and mentions hearing chairs move in the dining room overhead. Not disruptive, in their words. Useful if you sleep lightly and are choosing where on the boat to be.

Does Calista deliver what it sells?

Mostly, but not always.

The low reviews cluster on the distance between the sales language and the day itself. A guest in the Horizon cabin on the three-day trip lists perks that were sold as included and then charged for on board. Another booked two nights and spent roughly eight and a half hours of the second day on a different day boat, which was not the trip they chose. A third had the itinerary changed without warning after paying about HKD 2,000 a head through a reseller. The vegetarian case is the one we would want to know about in advance: flagged weeks ahead, questioned several times about whether chicken or lobster might do instead, and finally served something out of the freezer.

The good reviews are specific about people: reception staff named twice in the same review, a crew who took the baby at every meal so the parents could eat, an anniversary someone had bothered to note down.

Where does Calista go?

The classic Ha Long loop on the first night, and Bai Tu Long on the middle day of the longer trip. You come aboard at 11:30 at No 37, Tuan Chau International Port, with the briefing and cabins at 12:30. Luon Cave follows at 14:15, by bamboo boat or kayak, then Sung Sot Cave at 16:00, sunset and a cooking workshop. The next morning starts with Vovinam or tai chi, Titop Island at 07:20, check-out at 09:30 and the end of the cruise at 11:00.

On the three-day trip a day boat takes you into Bai Tu Long for Thien Canh Son Cave at 10:00, lunch as you pass through Cong Do, and the Vung Vieng fishing village by bamboo boat at 14:00, before you are back on Calista at 16:00. If you are still choosing between the bays before you choose a boat, the three-bay comparison is the page to read first.

Who it suits

Couples buying a specific cabin grade at a specific price, who want a new boat with a pool and a gym on it, and who will pin the inclusions down in writing first. On that basis it competes well with the rest of the best-value list and with the other recently launched boats.

Who should look elsewhere

Anyone whose trip depends on the promise being kept exactly. The complaints here are not about a tired ship or a cold cabin. They are about being sold one thing and handed another, and that is harder to insure against than a noisy engine.

Where these facts come from

The pier, the times, both programmes, the cabin grades with their sizes, counts and decks, the facilities, inclusions, capacity, staff and the from-prices are from calistacruise.com, read on 10 August 2026; three sources give 38 cabins and the same pier. The 2025 launch and the steel hull are from listings read on 6 August 2026, as is the rate table. Guest remarks are from Google reviews.