Swan Cruise

Start from what it costs, because the price is honest about what it is. On the halongbaytours.com listing read on 6 August 2026, the cheapest cabin for two was the Deluxe at $270 for the night: from $135 per person, two sharing. The operator’s own site, read on 14 October 2026, starts at $180 a head, so compare the two before you choose a seller.

Most of the pictures published for Swan are of Bai Tu Long rather than of Swan. That matters here, because the guests who complain about this trip complain about the boat itself. One of them puts it plainly: it is not like the photographs.

Swan Cruises has run boats on this coast since 2015, and its Hanoi office also manages Sena in Lan Ha Bay. Swan itself is a steel boat of eighteen cabins.

Which cabin should you book?

The Suite Balcony, if you can get one. Only two cabins on the boat have a balcony, and one agency lists a jacuzzi bathtub in them. The operator describes its eighteen as ten doubles or twins, four triples and two family connecting rooms. Prices are for one cabin, the highest rate the halongbaytours.com listing showed for each grade on 6 August 2026; sizes and counts are from halongbaytours.com and besthalongcruises.com.

The family room for four works out at $131 a head and is the cheapest way onto this boat. Under the operator’s terms one child under five sharing a bed is free, five to eight pay half, nine to eleven pay 75%, and twelve and over count as adults. Solo travellers pay a single supplement, so ask for it on the quote.

What does the fare include?

The cabin, an English-speaking guide, entrance and sightseeing fees, every meal on the programme, a cooking demonstration, the sunset party, kayaking, a welcome drink, two bottles of water per cabin, the service charge and insurance. Wifi is free for two devices, weak in remote water, and two guests, in 2018 and 2019, found none on board. Drinks, tips and massage are extra; the spa menu starts at 600,000 dong for a massage and 400,000 for foot reflexology. Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and Tet carry a surcharge, and paying by card adds 4%.

Swan’s shuttle bus collects from the Old Quarter between 07:45 and 08:30 and costs $30 a head for the round trip; you are back in Hanoi between three and half past. What is not included covers the usual extras.

Where does Swan go?

Into Bai Tu Long, from Ha Long International Cruise Port in the city. Be at the waiting lounge between 11:40 and noon; the tender runs out by half past twelve, and lunch is served under way. The afternoon goes to the water around Cong Do and Cap La, for kayaking and a swim, followed by a sunset party and a cooking demonstration. Next morning you climb into Thien Canh Son Cave, pack when you get back, and are ashore by a quarter past eleven. None of those names will be familiar from a search for Ha Long Bay, and that is the reason to consider this trip at all. If you have not settled on a bay yet, the comparison of the three should come before any boat. Give your driver the full name of the port; the harbours here are easy to confuse.

The two-night trip moves you to a day boat for the middle day: a kayak into Thay Cave, then Vung Vieng, the floating village where pearls are farmed. Thien Canh Son moves to the third morning.

What do the low reviews say about Swan?

That the boat is tired, and that the second night can repeat the first. Two guests, writing separately, report bed bugs. One says the bites lasted days. The other was given an embroidered souvenir by way of apology and no refund.

Condition is the second theme, and it arrives in two languages: outdated in English, vieillissant in French. One guest in a balcony cabin found a gap where the window met the balcony door, which made the air conditioning useless and let the mosquitoes in. Some guests describe the kayaking beach as dirty, with rubbish in the water; that is Bai Tu Long as much as it is Swan.

The three-day trip is where this boat loses people, and the reason is the changeover. New passengers join partway through, and one guest on the two-night trip says day two repeated day one, kayaking again, and that the boat slept in the same spot both nights. Another gave the first day five stars and the second three. One guest spent much of the longer trip on the smaller day boat with a handful of other people and loved it. If you want two nights, ask which vessel you are on for the second one and where it sleeps; two days or three sets out that choice.

Two guests report the overnight leg cancelled in bad weather and dispute what they were refunded. The operator’s terms: if the trip is cancelled before your arrival day you get everything back; a two-night trip cut to one night is charged as a one-night trip. For one to five cabins, cancelling more than fifteen days out is free, seven to fourteen days costs half, and inside a week the full fare. Have the terms that apply to you in writing.

Against all of that: the guides. Sunday is named and praised in ten reviews, and the pattern is a tired boat with people on it who are trying.

Who it suits

Second-time visitors who have already seen the main channel and want the quiet water instead, on one night, at a price that does not pretend the boat is new. Families of four, for whom the connecting room is the cheapest way aboard. Within the best-value bracket she is among the cheaper ways into Bai Tu Long.

Who should look elsewhere

Anyone who will be looking closely at the cabin. Two bed bug reports and a chorus about maintenance is a pattern, and the other small boats and the rest of the Bai Tu Long boats are worth comparing at similar money.

Where these facts come from

The pier, the times, both programmes, the cabin mix, the inclusions, the spa prices, the shuttle fare and the cancellation, child and weather terms come from swancruiseshalong.com, read on 10 August and 14 October 2026; halongbaytours.com and besthalongcruises.com name the same pier. Cabin sizes and counts are from those two agencies, read on 6 August 2026, and prices from the halongbaytours.com listing of the same date; they move with season, so confirm yours on the quote. Guest remarks are from reviews we collected.