Lan Ha Bay, private charter, three days
Two nights aboard a small boat that carries your party and nobody else. You set the sailing hours, the galley cooks to a brief you write, and the anchorage on the second night is chosen for you rather than fixed by a schedule.
At a glance
- Duration
- 3 days, 2 nights, both aboard
- Party size
- 2 to 12, the whole boat is yours
- Starts
- Hanoi hotel pickup, 08:00
- Ends
- Hanoi or Noi Bai airport, Day 3
- Effort
- Easy — ladder transfers, optional kayaking
- From
- USD 1,390 per person
Who this is for
Chartering the whole boat changes one thing above all others: the timetable stops being a compromise between your party and thirty strangers. A scheduled cabin boat has to move when the slowest guest is ready, feed everyone at the same hour, and anchor where its licensed route says it may anchor. Take the whole boat and all three of those become yours to decide the night before, in conversation with the captain.
The people who get the most out of this are parties of four to twelve who already know each other: two couples travelling together, a family with grown children, a group of friends who would rather eat late than eat at seven. It also suits two travellers who simply want the deck empty, although two people carrying a whole boat is the most expensive way to buy this trip and the price table says so plainly.
Three days is the right length for a charter. One night aboard barely repays the chartering premium, because the first afternoon and the last morning are largely spent moving. Two nights give you a full middle day with no drive in it at all. If a charter is more boat than you want, the same bay with one night on a shared small boat is the four-day Hanoi and Ha Long trip, and a land-based version sleeping on Cat Ba island is the four-day Cat Ba route.
Day by day
Hanoi to the pier, board your boat
Pickup is from your Hanoi hotel at 08:00. The run to the Hai Phong pier is 170 km and takes 2 hours 30 to 3 hours, expressway for most of it, with one stop at a place chosen for clean lavatories rather than for the commission a jade showroom pays. Your guide travels with you and stays with the boat for the whole charter.
Boarding is around midday. Because nobody else is embarking, there is no queue at the gangway and no safety briefing delivered twice: it is given once, to your party, and then the boat casts off. Lunch is served as you clear the harbour. Lan Ha entry is about 30,000 VND a head and is already in your price, along with the route fee — the central Ha Long day routes run 240,000 to 290,000 VND by comparison, which is one reason a Lan Ha itinerary is not simply a cheaper Ha Long one.
The first afternoon runs south into the arms of the bay where the fish farms are still worked. You can kayak, swim if the water is over 24 degrees, or sit on the sun deck and do neither. The captain will hold an anchorage as long as you want it, which is the part of chartering that people notice first.
A whole day on the water, no drive at all
This is the day the charter is bought for. There is no transfer in it, no check-out, and no fixed departure hour. Breakfast is whenever your party asks for it — parties with small children usually take 07:00, parties without usually do not.
The morning normally goes to the quieter southern channels: a beach the boat can reach and a scheduled cruise cannot, an hour or two of kayaking between the towers, and a pass by Cai Beo, one of the oldest floating settlements in the bay and still lived in. Where you go is decided at dinner the night before, with the captain reading the forecast and the tide table out loud rather than handing you a printed route.
The galley cooks to a brief you give us before departure. Crab and mantis shrimp come off the farms you pass; if half your party does not eat shellfish, say so in writing and the kitchen buys differently at the market rather than improvising at sea. Late afternoon the boat moves to the night anchorage, which on a charter can be a bay with one other mast in it instead of a mooring field with forty.
Slow morning, then back to Hanoi
Sunrise on a chartered boat is a private event. Coffee goes up to the deck early for whoever wants it; nobody is required to be anywhere. Breakfast is full rather than rushed, and the boat cruises for a final hour on the way back in.
Disembarkation is late morning, usually around 11:00, and it is later than on a scheduled boat because the crew is not turning the cabins round for an afternoon group. The pier to Noi Bai airport is 190 km and 3 hours 30, so a flight after 17:00 is comfortable and one at 15:00 is not; back to a Hanoi hotel is 170 km and 2 hours 30 to 3 hours. If your onward flight is late in the evening we can put a day room in Hanoi on the quotation rather than leave you sitting airside.
What it costs
| Party size | Comfortable | Excellent | Exceptional |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 travellers | USD 3,290 | USD 4,210 | USD 4,770 |
| 3 – 4 | USD 2,290 | USD 2,930 | USD 3,320 |
| 5 – 8 | USD 1,690 | USD 2,160 | USD 2,450 |
| 9 – 12 | USD 1,390 | USD 1,780 | USD 2,020 |
The three columns are the boat, not the service. Comfortable is a well-kept steel or composite boat of eight to ten berths with air conditioning and a shaded upper deck. Excellent is a wooden boat of similar size with larger cabins and a proper saloon. Exceptional is a recently built vessel with twelve berths, a tender kept in the water rather than winched down, and a crew that includes a cook working to a written menu. The guide, the vehicle and the itinerary do not change between them.
For a sense of what the hull itself costs: hiring a private boat in this bay by the hour runs roughly 700,000 to 800,000 VND, and a two-night charter is that arithmetic carried across two days plus crew, fuel, food and mooring. Nothing about the pricing is mystical — it is a fixed cost divided by the number of people who show up. The supplier-level breakdown is on what a Vietnam trip costs, and the deposit and cancellation terms are on how to book.
Included and not included
What the price includes
- Two nights aboard your chartered boat, in the class you choose
- Whole-boat charter: the hull, the crew, fuel and mooring for two nights
- Private air-conditioned vehicle and driver, Hanoi to the pier and back
- A private English-speaking guide who stays aboard for the whole charter
- All meals shown day by day: 2 breakfasts, 3 lunches, 2 dinners, cooked to your brief
- Lan Ha Bay entry and route fees, kayak hire and the tender
- Drinking water, tea and coffee aboard and in the vehicle
- A 24-hour number answered by a person in Vietnam, not a ticketing system
What it does not include
- International flights — quoted separately at cost if you ask
- Vietnam e-visa, USD 25 single entry, applied for at evisa.gov.vn
- Travel insurance, which we require you to hold and will ask to see
- Alcohol and soft drinks aboard, billed by the boat at the end of the charter
- Meals not listed, including dinner in Hanoi on the evening of Day 3
- Tips for crew, guide and driver — customary, never included, never invoiced
A chartered boat is taken off sale for your dates the moment we confirm it, so the cancellation terms on this trip are tighter than on our other northern routes. The boat deposit becomes non-refundable earlier than the land arrangements do. The exact dates are written on your quotation before you pay anything — see how to book.
Pictures from this route
Who this trip is not for
The charter premium is real money, and there are parties who should not spend it.
- Two travellers on a tight budget. At party size two you are carrying a whole hull, and the per-person price is more than double what a party of twelve pays. One night on a good shared boat in the four-day Hanoi and Ha Long trip costs a fraction of this and puts you in the same water.
- Anyone who wants Hanoi as well. This route gives the city nothing but a pickup and a drop-off. If it is your first time in the north, the city deserves two nights of its own and this trip does not contain them.
- Travellers who cannot manage a gangway and a ladder. Transfers to the kayak tender and to a beach are by ladder into a small boat. A rower can be substituted, but tell us before booking rather than on the pier.
- Parties expecting a swimming pool, a spa and a lift. These are boats of eight to twelve berths. The largest cabin on the finest of them is smaller than a modest hotel room, and the engine is audible when the boat is moving.
- Anyone travelling between June and September who cannot absorb a cancelled sailing. Tropical storms suspend bay sailings two or three times a season, usually with 12 to 24 hours notice. We move you ashore and refund the unused nights, but a charter that does not sail cannot be made up inside a three-day trip.
What chartering actually changes
The clock is yours
Breakfast at 06:30 or at 09:00, a two-hour swim stop, dinner at nine. On a scheduled boat every one of those is fixed by the cabin manifest. On a charter they are settled at dinner the night before.
The galley cooks to a brief
Send the brief with your booking: allergies, a party that does not eat shellfish, a child who wants plain rice, a birthday. The cook buys at the market in Hai Phong accordingly rather than adapting a set menu at sea.
The anchorage is chosen, not assigned
Scheduled boats work licensed routes and share a handful of overnight mooring fields. A charter can take a smaller, shallower bay for the second night, which is the difference between waking to forty masts and waking to one.
Nobody else boards
No second safety briefing, no waiting at the gangway, no stranger on the sun lounger next to you. Twelve berths is the ceiling and your party is the only party.
Have a party size and a month?
Send both and we will name the boat we would charter for those dates and what it costs, usually within one working day.
Questions travellers ask most
Does a charter mean the boat goes anywhere we ask?
Within Lan Ha, largely yes. You choose the sailing hours, the length of each stop and the overnight anchorage, and the captain sails to that plan unless weather or the harbour authority says otherwise.
What a charter cannot do is leave the bay system, cross into a zone the vessel is not licensed for, or sail after the harbour master suspends departures. Those limits apply to every boat on the water, chartered or not, and no operator who tells you differently is being straight with you.
Why does the price fall so sharply with party size?
Because you are buying a hull, not a seat. The boat, the crew, the fuel and the mooring cost the same whether two people or twelve sleep aboard, so the whole figure is divided by however many of you there are.
That is also why we show four party-size rows rather than one headline price. A party of nine to twelve pays about USD 1,390 a head in the Comfortable class; two people chartering the same boat pay USD 3,290 each for exactly the same two nights.
Can we add a third night aboard?
Yes, and on this trip it is the upgrade we recommend before any change of boat class. A third night adds a second full day with no transfer in it, which is where the charter earns its money. It appears as an option on the booking form and adds about USD 390 per person.
Adding the night changes your flight planning: the pier to Noi Bai is 190 km and 3 hours 30, so build the extra day in before you buy the international ticket.
What happens if a storm cancels the charter?
The Hai Phong harbour authority suspends sailings when winds pass a set threshold, usually giving 12 to 24 hours notice. It happens two or three times in a season between June and September.
If it happens before you board we refund the boat nights in full and move you to a hotel ashore at our cost, or reschedule if your dates allow. If it happens mid-charter the boat returns to the pier and the same applies to the unused nights. Booking between October and April reduces the risk considerably — see when to go.
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