Received a message about our night bus that it will leave 45 minutes earlier than expected, which we were quite happy about, the sleeper bus itself is also nice and relatively cozy. We even had toilet on board. Since we didn’t have any stop and there was not much traffic, we arrived 2 hours early. It was 03:30, instead of 05:30, so we had to book an extra night in a hotel. I would have enjoyed the extra time during daytime, but nothing to complain about.
Überraschend für mich war, dass ich 2 Mal das Fahrzeug wechseln musste. Davon hatte ich nichts gelesen. Die Fahrt hat insgesamt eine Stunde länger gedauert als angegeben.
ดานัง ไป ฟ็องญา, รถบัส เคบิน 34, Ha Long Bus Travel, 17 ม.ค. 2025
This was a really great trip! Bus was clean- quiet- stopped halfway through 7.5 hr trip from phong nha to ninh binh for a break- comfy and overall great. 40 mins late but this was communicated via whatsapp. But -something to be aware of;
- when we got on, staff usherd me and my partner to the back and pointed to one of the booths. ( I believe he planned for us to go in one together) . I stopped halfway and advised I would sit in one and my partner in the one beside me. I booked two tickets =two booths. I believe they do this to fit more locals on. There were many locals sharing one booth - and a couple of tourists that likely felt pressured to squish in.
- the driver had a few cigarettes whilst driving ( I can easily get over this given the trip was generally good) but given in aus where smoking is not allowed in public it made me want to throw up- disgusting smell).
Like I said, I would 100% use this company again- if they had made us share a booth I would have requested a full refund and been pretty p***ed.
ดานัง ไป ฟ็องญา, รถบัส ห้องโดยสาร VIP, Luxury Van Limousine (Luxury Van Limousine), 5 ต.ค. 2024
I’ve been surprised when a mini bus (shuttle bus) picked us up with delay one and a half hours then in a few hours they dropped us to the 34 seater bus.
Long story short.
Very bad English or to say no English at all. The lady at the pick up place was unkind and not helpful at all.
The attitude was very rude and build impression that we owed them something.
IMPORTANT!!!
We got to destination in one piece)
I booked this bus mainly because the advertised journey time was very attractive — only 5 hours, from 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM.
The day before the trip, the operator contacted me and confirmed the booking. They told us to arrive 20 minutes before departure. We arrived on time. The bus was nowhere to be seen.
There was another bus parked nearby, but it was empty and there was no driver around. I contacted the operator and asked where our bus was. Their answer was that our bus was stuck in traffic and that we should wait.
So we waited.
One hour passed. Then another.
The bus finally arrived at 9:30 AM — 2.5 hours after the advertised departure time.
But here comes the best part: we were the only passengers who had been waiting there since 7:00 AM. All the local passengers showed up at 9:30, exactly when the bus actually departed.
So apparently the local passengers have some magical ability to know the real departure time better than the people who actually booked the 7:00 AM bus. Either that, or the operator has a very creative understanding of what a “departure time” means.
Even more interestingly, we didn't actually leave on the bus that arrived at 9:30. We left on the exact same bus that had been sitting there all morning.
So I have a very reasonable question: was our 7:00 AM departure simply cancelled, while we were being fed the “stuck in traffic” story for 2.5 hours? I obviously can't prove what happened behind the scenes, but from a passenger's perspective, that's exactly what it looked like.
The bus itself was actually quite decent and comfortable. However, the USB charging port in my capsule didn't work, which isn't great when you're supposed to spend 6.5 hours on the road.
Instead of the advertised 5 hours, the journey took around 6.5 hours. In total, we lost roughly 4 hours of our time — 2.5 hours sitting around waiting for a bus that apparently wasn't coming, plus another 1.5 hours spent on the road beyond the advertised travel time.
The bus is fine. The organization is not.
If you value your time, I would definitely recommend choosing another operator.
