Bai Tu Long Bay cruises: the small, quiet end

Eleven boats in our set of seventy sail Bai Tu Long. Thirty-six sail Lan Ha. That ratio is the whole argument for the bay and most of the argument against it.

What actually differs

	Bai Tu Long	Lan Ha	Ha Long
Boats we track	11	36	23
Median cabins	14	24	22
Wooden hulls	4 of 11	3 of 36	6 of 23
Median rate, 2 days 1 night	$140	$145	$148
Usual pier	Hon Gai	Tuan Chau	Tuan Chau

The cabin row is the one that matters. A median Bai Tu Long boat carries fourteen cabins against twenty-four next door, which is roughly forty fewer people sharing your sundeck, your tender and your anchorage. That is a different holiday, and it costs five dollars less at the median.

Thirty-six percent of the Bai Tu Long fleet is wooden against eight percent of Lan Ha. If the look of a timber boat is part of why you are coming, this is where they are.

The pier is different, and nobody warns you

Four of the six Bai Tu Long boats where we could establish a departure point leave from Hon Gai Pier rather than Tuan Chau Marina. Every Lan Ha boat we confirmed leaves from Tuan Chau.

Hon Gai is a different part of Ha Long City. If you have booked a shuttle to the marina because that is what the internet told you, you are in the wrong place, and the boat does not wait. Confirm the pier by name.

Five of the eleven boats never state a departure point at all, so this is a question to ask rather than to look up. Our guide to getting there covers what the journey costs and how the fares are quoted.

Where these boats go

Stop	Boats listing it
Thien Canh Son cave	8
Vung Vieng floating village	6
Cap La	5
Cong Dam	2
Hon Co island	2

Thien Canh Son on eight of eleven is close to a default. It is a small dry cave with a stairway up to it, nothing like the scale of Sung Sot in Ha Long, and nobody would put it on a poster. That is the point of the bay in one stop.

Cong Dam and Cap La are the stops that need a longer sail, which is why they cluster on the three-day itineraries. If those names are why you are booking, check the length of the trip before the price.

You will not see Sung Sot, Titop or Viet Hai village here. Those are Ha Long and Lan Ha stops, and no Bai Tu Long boat in our set lists them. Our caves and islands guide has the counts for all three bays.

What guests say, with a warning attached

Bai Tu Long guests write about the water more than anyone else. Kayaking or swimming comes up in 16.2% of their reviews against 12.7% in Lan Ha and 5.9% in Ha Long.

That fits the itineraries. There is no famous cave to queue for, so the day is built around being on and in the water instead.

The warning is sample size. Our Bai Tu Long numbers rest on 567 reviews across six boats, against 4,902 across twenty-nine for Lan Ha. Six businesses is not a category, and one boat having a strong year moves the whole bay figure. Treat the 16.2% as a direction rather than a measurement.

The rate of one and two star reviews is 5.8% here against 5.0% in Lan Ha, which is a difference small enough that we would not act on it.

The catch

Fewer boats means fewer options, and it bites in three ways.

You have eleven boats to choose from rather than thirty-six, and nine of those eleven have a page on this site. If the one you want is full on your dates, the substitute may not be similar.

The bay is quieter because less is there. No Sung Sot, no Titop staircase, no floating village of the size Ha Long offers. Travellers who came to Vietnam to see the photograph they have already seen will not find it here, and some of them write that afterwards.

And what you give up is amenity. The median boat is fourteen cabins, so the pool, the spa and the second bar are mostly not on board. That is the same trade covered in our guide to boat size, and in Bai Tu Long you are largely making it whether you meant to or not.

One limitation of our own to state plainly. Two of the eleven boats have no page here yet because we could not source photographs we were willing to publish, so our coverage of this bay is thinner than of the other two.

Common questions

Is Bai Tu Long cheaper? Marginally, at a median of $140 against $145 and $148. The range runs from $110 to $510, so the individual boat decides far more than the bay does.

Is it really less crowded? Fewer boats sail it, which is a fact rather than an impression. Whether your particular anchorage is quiet depends on the day, and no operator publishes anchorage occupancy.

Can I combine it with Ha Long? Some three-day itineraries cross between the two. Ask for the stop list in writing, because the crossing is what makes the difference and it is not always there.

Which pier will I leave from? Hon Gai for four of the six boats we could place, Tuan Chau or the international port for the rest, and unstated for five. Ask.