Hi all.

I will be heading to Hanoi in April for 8 days/9 nights and am wondering what strategy to use for booking both my hotel and a Halong Bay tour. I don't know exactly which days I will spend at the bay, or if I will be doing any other tours. After reading some hotel reviews, my first thought was that I could simply book a hotel in Hanoi for all 9 nights and arrange any tours through them.

If I wound up booking 9 nights but only stayed at the hotel for 4 or 5 of them due to tours outside Hanoi, would the hotel be OK with that, or would I face any fees? Would it depend on whether I booked a tour through the hotel? Or is it better to go ahead and plan what days I want to spend on a tour, and then book my hotel for the other nights? I would think questions like this are pretty common, but I haven't found a definitive answer yet.