At the moment, all vessels sailing daily on Halong Bay have only stairway (except for Golden Cruise 9999 – the only cruise with escalator until this moment) so it is inconvenient for travellers with disabilities to access to the boats. Also with many activities involved water activities during the itinerary, it will be unsafe for disabled travellers to participate in some of them.

Halong Bay is generally safe for tourists. However, it’s important to choose reputable tour operators and follow safety instructions during boat trips.

In Halong Bay, restaurants gather in crowded areas of Halong City. If you are fans of vegetarian food, and want to enjoy delicious and nutritious dishes, you can search for these names below:

• “Cơm chay Bảo Tịnh” restaurant on Le Thanh Tong Street, Halong City
• “Love Hut” restaurant at No.149 Cao Thang Street, Halong City
• “Cơm chay Hạ Long” restaurant in “Khu đô thị C5, Đường Sông 3, Hòn Gai” – C5 Urban area, River Road No.3, Hon Gai ward, Halong City

Don’t be shocked if you still see beef, pork or chicken in those vegetarian restaurants, they are just fake meat skillfully prepared from vegetable and cereals.

Besides, vegetarian food is easy to find in any normal restaurant, just choose the dishes you would like to have, and notice the restaurant that you are a vegan, they will recommend you appropriate dishes. Vegetable is so popular in Vietnam at really cheap price, so it’s a great chance for you to “fill your stomach”.

There are a few Halal restaurants in big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, but there’s not even one in Halong Bay. So if you stay on land, the solution is choosing a big restaurant, which has many different dishes in its menu. The chefs can cook for you many delicious foods made from beef, chicken and seafood. And our advice is focusing on seafood. There are many kinds of special seafood, which you cannot find in any other places in the world. Take your chance! 

Also, Vietnamese usually uses just one kind of meat for one dish, but they do mix different types of meats for stuffing dishes with ground pork as the basic ingredient, so you better be alert with stuffing dishes such as Spring Roll, Stuffed Squid, Stuffed Crab or Meat Ball.

You can order pasta and pizza in many fast food restaurants and coffee shop around the city. For good pasta and pizza, you should go to some restaurants, which belong to franchise systems and focus on these Italian dishes such as:

• Pizza Hut: No.2 – 4 Cảng Mới street, Bach Dang ward, Halong city
• Halo Pizza: two addresses: No.23 Gieng Don road and on Tran Quoc Nghien road, Hong Ha ward, Halong City
• Pizza Cones: No.94 Gieng Don road, Halong City

To be fair, the quality of pizza and pasta here cannot be compared with the original flavor from Italia or other bigger cities where they have been served many moons ago. However, you can still feel satisfied with basic recipes like Capricciosa, Seafood Bianco or Hawaiian.

Also, cake and coffee, tiramisu and ice-cream (or even gelato) can be found in many bakeries and coffee shops around the city. Cappuccino or café latte is not strange items in menu of many cafés. However, don’t expect too much about flavor as they have been adjusted to match Vietnamese taste buds.

Actually, there are some differences in cooking method or rate of spices between two countries’ cuisine style. Hence, if you are looking for a real Chinese taste, you should go straight to a Chinese food restaurant. There are two big ones in Halong City:

• Quan Hải Lầu Restaurant. Add: Near Bai Chay Tourist Wharf, Halong road, Halong City. Tel: (+84) 333 847 037
• Bảo Long Restaurant. Add: No 122, Group 6, Zone 8, Pillar 5 Urban Area, Halong City. Tel: (+84) 913 267 878. This one has an abundant Chinese food menu.

There are not any restaurant specializing in gluten-free food. Luckily, Vietnamese food doesn’t often made from things contain gluten, so you can walk into any restaurant you like. However, you should be careful if you enter a Western food restaurant. Read menu and ask waiter carefully about ingredients. If you have celiac disease, highlight that you cannot eat foods containing gluten, even if they are just spices or drinks.

After boarding, the very first and basic thing that any reliable and responsible crew member would do is giving passengers a brief instruction for emergency cases. Crew members should also show you where to get life jackets, lifeboats, lifebuoys, fire extinguishers, emergency hammers (to break glasses to make exit ways) and how to use them properly. Please pay your fullest attention to this valuable instruction in case of emergency. In emergency situations, you will easily recognize by the evacuation signal by horn blast and annoucement from crew.

During summer, especially May, June, July, before going to swim, you should ask your tour guide or cruise captain for advice because it is when the (mild) poisonous jellyfish are most active. There can be a lot especially near fishing villages. Jellyfish mostly do not cause too much trouble but popular symptoms such as hives, and rashes… Other than that, no need to worry about sharks or other marine creatures.

Halong Bay Cruise staff mainly focuses on English. But if you don’t speak English, don’t worry and relax! Cruises crews have rich experience in serving international tourists from different countries. So even if you cannot speak any English words, they have enough skills to help you, especially in luxury cruises. Also, cruise trip is an awesome chance for you enjoy peaceful ambiance with wonderful scenery so the crews do not talk much, they let you have your own space to feel Halong Bay.

Halong Bay’s free wifi only offer free access to some basic information pages (mostly belong to the government). Besides, after a few years, the network now no longer work well and is not covered the bay but only mainland. So to address the problem, on land, most of the hotels, hostels, restaurants offer their own free wifi for guests.

On the sea, almost all the cruises in Halong Bay offer free wifi, especially luxury cruises. However, just like any other places in the world, the signal on sea cannot be strong like on mainland, even for the mobile phone signal. So wifi or 3G seem to be useless most of the time onboard. Still, wifi can be used, works best when you are near the modem, normally in public areas like restaurant and reception area of the cruise. Wifi will be weaker when the cruise is moving and going through high islands.

In general, customer’s luggage is sent directly from shore to ship and back by cruises staff. Thus, for stuffs like clothing, footwear or bulky items you can put in a suitcase then check it in, the staff will take care of it from there. For hand luggage, Discover Halong recommend you to bring your valuables, fragile or perishable things, money, passports or other identification document and keep them by your side. Also, you better keep in mind that flammable and dangerous goods, such as firearms, ammunition, firewood, weapons,… are not permitted on boat.