Mon Cheri Cruise
From$165per person, two sharingread 28 Oct 2026A guide, not a quote — we confirm the live rate when you enquire.
Details →Orchid Trendy is a twenty-cabin steel boat on Lan Ha, and the reason to pick her is the three-day trip, whose middle day goes by day boat round Cat Ba: bicycles through Viet Hai, a lagoon swim, lunch on the water. The one-night trip ends with a morning in Trung Trang Cave. On the halongbaytours.com listing read on 8 October 2026, the Deluxe Balcony for two was $330 for the night: from $165 per person, two sharing.
Every one of her twenty cabins has a balcony, and one guest confirms the count in a review. She was launched in 2017 and sold for a time as Azalea, and one listing dates a renovation to 2021: murals, new sofas and a large jacuzzi at the front of the boat. There is a spa as well, and Wi-Fi that drops out at sea. She belongs to Orchid Cruises, part of the Pelican group, which sells four boats under nearly the same name, so get “Trendy” on your confirmation.
The Deluxe Balcony. Twelve of them sit on the first deck at 28 m². The six Premium Deluxe Balconies on the second deck are the same size, one deck up, for $40 more a night. The two Exclusive Suites, also on the second deck, are 45 m². A family of four can take two Deluxe cabins connected, 56 m² between them; a family who did report them clean, cool and quiet, with hot showers and balconies they used.
The halongbaytours.com rate sheet read on 8 October 2026 prices the Deluxe Balcony at $330 for two on the one-night trip, the Premium Balcony at $370 and the Exclusive Suite at $490, with the Family Deluxe, the two connected Deluxe cabins, listed for three at $620. That is from $165 per person, two sharing. Two nights, priced for the whole stay, run from $580 a cabin to $1,090 for the family cabin, for three. The same listing in August was $45 lower on the Deluxe, so the date on a quote matters.
The fare covers meals, an English-speaking guide, the cooking demonstration, tai chi, squid fishing, a welcome drink, insurance, sightseeing fees and VAT. Drinks, massage and the road from Hanoi are extra; the operator’s shared limousine is $45 a person for the round trip, collecting from the Old Quarter between 07:50 and 08:20. Ask the agent for the total per cabin, for two people, on your dates, and get it in an email.
Into Lan Ha Bay from the Orchid lounge on Lot 32, Tuan Chau Marina. Check in between 11:00 and 11:30; the speedboat takes you out at about noon and lunch is from 12:45. The afternoon stop is the Frog Pond area, Ao Ech, and she spends the night at Tra Bau. The next morning you go ashore on Cat Ba for Trung Trang Cave, inside Cat Ba National Park, then brunch, and you are back at Tuan Chau between 11:00 and 11:30. Some departures swap the afternoon stop for Dark and Bright Cave or the beach at Ba Trai Dao, so ask which your date runs. Which harbour you leave from explains why your driver needs the lot number.
You spend it somewhere else. A guest who gave five stars and a guest who gave one describe the same morning from opposite ends: breakfast, off the Trendy by eight, onto a larger day boat, bicycles through Viet Hai village, kayaks and a swim in a lagoon, back to your cabin late in the afternoon. The operator’s timetable runs the day boat from 07:45 to 16:30. A five-star guest in 2025 called that day excellent. The one-star review calls it being moved off a boat you paid to sleep on, with no option to come back early. Both are describing the product accurately. Which of them you agree with is the whole decision on this boat; our guide to two days or three helps.
The complaints that name this boat are ordinary and specific. One guest, otherwise complimentary about the crew, gave one star mainly because of bass-heavy music played through breakfast and dinner, and says asking about it went nowhere. Another reports food poisoning on the first night and writes that the boat manager treated it as a cold. A third booked three days starting on 3 October 2025, lost a night, three meals and the Cat Ba day to Typhoon Paolo, and came away unhappy with what was refunded.
The operator’s own terms cover that case. If the authorities cancel before you leave Hanoi, you get a full refund; once you are in Ha Long or aboard, you pay for what you used and the rest is refunded. For up to three rooms, cancelling 30 days or more ahead is free, from 29 to 15 days costs 50%, from 14 to 7 days 70%, and inside a week the full fare. Read the one-star reviews on Google before you pay a deposit, and check which Orchid boat each is about.
The good record is large and it is mostly about people. Guests name individual crew unprompted, several times in the same review. One guest who ran large hotels for twenty years writes a paragraph about a single member of staff.
Couples and families who want the longer trip and understand that the longer trip means a day out on a different, busier boat. It sits on the Lan Ha list and the best-value list. If you have not settled on a bay yet, the three bays compared is the page to read before you pick a boat at all.
Anyone who wants a quiet dinner. One guest gave a single star over loud bass music at breakfast and dinner, and twenty cabins in one dining room is not a small crowd.
Facts on this page come from orchidcruises.com (read 14 October 2026) and the halongbaytours.com listing read on 6 August, 8 October and 28 October 2026.
Chosen by price proximity within the same bay, computed from our dataset — not by commission. We add no booking fee to any of them.
The boat itself draws consistent praise and we believe it. What we would want settled before paying is the second day and the total per cabin, so get both in an email from whoever sells you the cabin.
28 m², private balcony, on the 1.
28 m², private balcony, on the 2.
45 m², private balcony, on the 2.
56 m², private balcony, on the 1.
From the operator's own published terms, read 14 Oct 2026.
Guest reviews
Placed on Google (76 boats · 544 reviews) and Booking.com (54 boats · 101 reviews).
Medians: Google 76 boats, Booking.com 54.
Google five-star share: 97% · median 86%, among boats from 42.9% to 100%. Booking.com score: 9.1 · median 9.1, among boats from 7.8 to 10.0.
Read 23 October 2026 · medians across the matched boats that show each category (53; Free WiFi 29)
Value for money: 8.6 against a fleet median of 8.8. Facilities: 9.2 against a fleet median of 9.3. Staff: 9.6 against a fleet median of 9.7.
praise complaints
Praise · the crew“Attentive, friendly and helpful staff.”
Google review, 8 Oct 2026
Complaint · value for money“On day 2 of the cruise you are forced to eat breakfast and depart the cruise boat by 8am and moved to a day boat only to return to your cabin at 5pm.”
Google review, 2 Feb 2024
We count every Google review of this boat in our file, read on 26 October 2026, after setting aside any that turn out to be about another boat or another business. The Google reviews run from August 2022 to October 2026. Of the 544, 526 have text, in 14 languages. A review counts as positive when it gives four or five stars and reads positively, and as critical when it reads negatively or gives one or two stars. Themes are counted when a review mentions them, so a theme can sit on both sides. Quotes are word for word from the 392 English Google reviews and link to the original. We hold Google reviews for 76 boats; this boat's five-star share is 97% against a fleet median of 86%, which places it above 80% of them.
Booking.com's score, review count and category scores are its own figures, read on 23 October 2026. We hold Booking.com property scores for 54 boats whose listing we have matched to the boat and that show at least 10 reviews (median 9.1 out of 10), so Booking.com is placed. Category medians are across the matched boats that show each category (53; Free WiFi 29).
The headline says, for each placed source, whether the boat sits above, level with or below that source's fleet median. It appears only when the boat can be placed on at least two sources, and a source is placed once we hold it for at least 20 boats. Placed sources: Google above its median; Booking.com level with its median. Level means the gap to the median is smaller than this boat's own sample can tell apart (for the Google five-star share, within 1.96 standard errors of this boat's share; for the Booking.com score, within 0.1). Each comparison bar runs from the lowest to the highest boat we hold on that source, with the median marked.
The theme bars pool the reviews with text we read on Google. Each bar is the share of that pool that mentions the theme and reads as praise or as a complaint.
Up to 3 rooms: 30 days or more before departure: free. 15–29 days: 50% of the fare. 7–14 days: 70%. 1–7 days: 100%. 4 or more rooms: free from 45 days; 30–44 days 50%; 14–29 days 70%; 1–14 days 100%. Whole-boat charters: free from 60 days; 45–59 days 25%; 30–45 days 50%; 1–30 days 100%. Bank fees are paid by the guest; no refund for no-shows.
Bring a birth certificate for each child to show at check-in.
No separate supplement: rates are per room per night for single or double occupancy, so a solo guest pays the full cabin rate.
The authorities can postpone, shorten or cancel a trip. Cancelled before you leave Hanoi: full refund. After you reach Ha Long: services used (meals, transfer, day boat) are charged and the rest refunded. Shortened while on board: completed services are charged and the rest refunded.
Not included in the fare. Shared limousine between the Hanoi Old Quarter and Tuan Chau port: US$45 per person return. Pick-up 07:50–08:20.
Per the operator's own terms on orchidcruises.com, read 14 Oct 2026. Rates, group sizes and booking channels can change the terms; your booking confirmation is what applies.
Stops as published across the sources we track. Operators reorder them with the tide and the weather, and the provincial authority can close a cave at short notice.
Tuan Chau Marina. Drivers do occasionally go to the wrong harbour, so give the full name when you arrange your own transfer.
Read for this boat: the operator's site, 3 independent listings. One dot per source, filled when that source publishes the figure. How we verify
We add no booking fee. The figure we show is half the cheapest cabin for two on the rate table we read, dated the day we read it.
From$165per person, two sharingread 28 Oct 2026A guide, not a quote — we confirm the live rate when you enquire.
Details →From$165per person, two sharingread 28 Oct 2026A guide, not a quote — we confirm the live rate when you enquire.
Details →From$168per person, two sharingread 11 Aug 2026A guide, not a quote — we confirm the live rate when you enquire.
Details →