Velar of the Sea Cruise

Clean

Food can be bit better

Service

We really liked the room we had. The food was very good. The ship manager really was great helping us when trip was completed. Over all had great time.

Elevator only was available for going up doors wouldn’t open going down it also always smells or rubbish. I didn’t like the choice of excursions as much as I did the last time I took a Halong Bay cruise. Really wanted see big cave again. I did more excursions on one night cruise then did on this 2 night.

Nice view from windows of the honeymoon suite. Large room. The minibus transfer from hotel to boat was very good. The chap doing the transfer was communicative, friendly, on time and approachable.

The pictured private deck and room size of the honeymoon suite was correctly pictured in the promotional material. What they don’t tell you is that when the boat is moving, the fumes from the engine make it impossible to sit out on the private deck which was located at the back of the boat. Not great for the high price paid. Windows were a bit dirty. Floor and furnishing were a bit rough around the edges and could be cleaner. Mini-fridge was dirty and hadn’t been cleaned. Our honeymoon suite’s sliding doors to our deck had broken locks. They did come and fix it quite quickly though it was a bit of a ‘Heath Robinson’ job with a screw which could have ripped a hole in your foot if not careful. Still, at least it locked then I guess. The thing is, the 5* rating of this cruise should ensure that these things are checked each and every time. It’s not good enough to rely on passengers themselves drawing attention to what’s wrong. Passengers just don’t want to spend what is a special trip having to complain about multiple things. It doesn’t make for a relaxing time. The activities were VERY rushed and jam-packed in. It felt like a Butlins’ compulsory activities jaunt. ‘Squid fishing’ was pretty non-existent in reality and consisted of being directed to some rods - no instruction; ‘cookery class’ was being shown how to put some ingredients into some rice paper and roll up to eat …; passengers were left to figure out how to turn on the karaoke machine themselves - there was no evening entertainment other than that; overpriced drinks; tip envelope left on everyone’s table at final brunch was tacky; being told to take money for tips for the boat cave rower when the overnight stay/2 day excursion was already costly was a bit much. The company should pay the rowers a decent rate in the first place.