Planning a Saturday trip to Trang An from Hanoi and I am slightly worried about the crowds. Do the boats actually sell out on weekends, or is it just a longer queue? We cannot do a weekday, so Saturday it is.
Also, can you even book the boat in advance, or do you just show up and buy a ticket at the dock? Our hotel mentioned a private boat option, has anyone done that, is it worth it?
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Go on a weekday if you can. We went Thursday afternoon and walked straight onto a boat, zero wait. The karst looks better in the late light anyway.
Weekends do get busy, we queued about 40 minutes on a Sunday morning. You cannot really book the boat itself in advance, you just buy the ticket at the dock. But you CAN book a private boat through your homestay, which skips the whole queue.
Replying to Mandy Willis
A private boat sounds tempting. Is it much more expensive than the regular shared boat?
Replying to Janet Allan
We paid 800k for the private boat versus 250k per person for the shared one. For two people it was actually barely more, and we could stop wherever we wanted for photos.