Off The Beaten Track

“Best Way–BY FAR–To Visit Halong Bay!”

After considering other ways to see and experience Halong Bay, we chose Blue Swimmer for a more intimate and customized experience. And boy were we glad. Instead of the huge, steamer style boats carrying lots of people and featuring 30 minutes of kayaking, we had a grand wooden boat all to ourselves–with a great guide, Thang, a solid captain and a very good cook. We could kayak all we wanted. And instead of the more crowded Halong Bay, we focused on Bai Tu Long. From our first email, Mr Kevin was terrific to deal with. We had a kind of complicated timeline, which he worked with–even arranging transport to Haiphong from the Hanoi airport, and having someone meet us at the hydrofoil dock with prepaid tickets. Everything went smoothly from beginning to end. The kayaking was good. Everybody loved jumping off the top deck to swim. And the food was terrific–and plentiful. The boat was very spacious, with two bedrooms for the four of us, each with its own bathroom including shower. There was also a living area for eating. But we spent most of our time in the four lounges on the main deck, watching the karst islands go by, looking at the floating villages, and enjoying the changing scenery. We are experienced kayakers, so doing a fair amount of paddling was important to us. Especially on the second day, we got plenty. And the boats were in fine shape. Most important, as we cruised by the other, crowded boats, we said to ourselves over and over: ” Sure glad we chose Blue Swimmer.”