Originally Posted by
lovefly88
From the research my wife saw we were just going to look for a boat that might take us around for $5-10. In Phi Phi Islands last year we did an entire morning for $20 for both of us. She thought it looked even cheaper in Vietnam. Looks like we might have got it wrong though?
I live in the south not the north, but a few things to add here. First, the type of trip you're trying to arrange is not common for FT'ers, so you're not getting exact answers to some of your questions and your questions reveal a few misunderstandings. In keeping track of the VN forum for a few years now, I can't recall anyone trying to book their own little ride. You might find the lonely planet forum more useful for this type of trip and budget.
The typical trip, just so we're on common understanding here, involves roundtrip transportation from your hotel as crazyinteg mentioned. It's not from a bus terminal, and costs extra if you're outside the normal tourist area. The many boat options are also complicated by triple or quadruple that amount of tour companies selling the tickets to the boats. Your transportation will be on a bus or shuttle bus, and others on the vehicle might be on your boat or might not, but probably booked via the same tour company as you since they are the ones who arrange the transportation. Bus rides are 4 hours each way before the new highway, I'm still not sure if the new highway is used by the buses or if that's just private vehicles that take it. But that cuts it down to like 2 hours or something. I think the OP for the thread commented on this awhile back.
There is definitely a bus to Hai Phong and that area, but finding the schedule might take some time and digging by you. It will have a few stops and take longer. It is unlikely to be as convenient, and I would guess you do have to go into Hanoi for that bus. You might find a stop along the path to Hai Phong which would be hard to reach and require a lot more digging for a bus connection or a (relatively) expensive taxi, as the airport is not on that path. But you still have to go past Hai Phong to get on the boat, so you need a bus or taxi that goes to the departure area for the boats. Overnight tours mostly (all?) depart from Dao Tuan Chau nowadays. I don't know if the day trips depart from there too, though, so you might be able to book a boat from Hai Phong or another location closer to that city. With only one day to accomplish this, and going by public bus, it would be hard to imagine getting to the port in time for a trip on a scheduled boat for a day tour after all that though. Since you want to private hire a boat though, I think Cat Ba island is more what you're looking for. So you would need to get there, but then you would have it easier to find the type of boat you want to hire.
Lastly when I checked before, getting from Ha Long area or Cat Ba to the HPH airport is quite a long bus ride, and doesn't run often. Also the flight options are limited to a few flights a day to most places.
So I believe this is why the posts above suggest doing the normal method for $60 (quoted, not my number) versus trying to make your own way to save $10 or $20. But you can certainly do it your way if you really want to.