We had a horrible experience with the tour operator. After pick up during the first rest area stop our tour guide 'Pink!' told us that the boat initially booked was full and we would be moved to a different boat, which we thought would be for everyone. However, it was just us who were moved to a different boat (a junk boat called Anam Junk). As you can see from the conversation with the Easy tour person, the boat was not even ready for departure and they were waiting for government permission to depart. Eventually it started around 2 hours late, because of which they cannot follow the tour schedule to go to Surprise cave first and went directly to Titop island. That was the only thing that was done on the first day. The cooking show was just a guy on the boat show you how to roll rice papers. No other entertainment and they finished dinner by 7 and left you to spend a long night on a shabby room. No squid fishing or any other things. It was a nightmarish night we were hoping to end soon. There were two more families on the boat, one couple from New Zealand and a group of 5 from France. The boat was in pathetic condition with shabby rooms, and bathrooms. There was a huge gap as you can see in the picture between the room and the bathroom door, offering almost no privacy. The cruise only kept two of the promises - took us to Titop island and next morning only for 45 min took people to Surprise cave. Rest of the activities mentioned in the program was not followed. The cruise also was in a hurry to end. Asked people to check out by 9.30 instead of 10.30 that was mentioned in the program and docked by 11.10. Overall it was a huge disappointment, compared to the other cruises we could see and rooms we could see from our ship. This is borderline fraud and I am not sure how Viator allowed these people to sell it through their site. we paid 140$ each and then spoke to other people who had way better experiences and rooms at $125 or less. As a matter of fact you can find better deals if you book through local operators at Hanoi old quarter, where there is an agent at almost every corner selling cruises. The highest price we saw there was $85. In addition, our guide Pink kept telling us all the boats have same program, which if we believe her, provides a glimpse what kind of tour 'Easy tour' and 'Sunlight travels' are running. Rather book locally and make sure you get the name of the boat and programs in writing. Lastly, when we complained to viator, the agents were asking us what we wanted to do rather than providing any remedy. And we are also not sure what we wanted to do when we are in middle of the bay/ sea. Viator should know better to handle customer experiences in a better way than they did. Until now we had good experience with tour operators connected with Viator, but the credibility is now taking a toss.





















