If VN were not safe they would not be permitted to fly into America, Europe and the airspace of other counties where safety regulations are strictly enforced.

April
 

Is April a good time to visit Vietnam?

Are you asking about the climate, or anything else? What would good be for you?
Visiting all of Vietnam, or specific areas? Climate can be different between the north, centre and south depending on the season.

Mostly climate. Areas I'd like to visit include Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and a cruise on Halong Bay.

It is a good month for traveling South to North of Vietnam.

Thank you!

For added clarity and to help others avoid surprise like we did, while PRC (Mainland China) e-passport holders (aka anyone with a valid Chinese passport) are eligible for the Vietnam evisa program now, they are subject to additional special procedures that are not well documented online and were not referenced in the evisa approval or email:

- PRC passport holders can apply and receive a Vietnam eVisa; however, due to a 10 year old diplomatic dispute (see below), Vietnam will not stamp your passport and you are required to go through a special form of the Visa On Arrival process, despite already holding a valid evisa, in order get a visa confirmation that immigration is willing to stamp when arriving in Vietnam

- Your special procedure is to visit the Visa On Arrival desk area (rather than immediately follow the crowd to normal immigration), hand fill a double sided 9.5x11in VOA form (in English or Vietnamese only) detailing your personal and family history (e.g., duplicative of the evisa form, plus some added questions like mother/father's home address), provide 2x passport photos, give the form + photos + evisa print out + passport to the VOA officer, wait in the waiting area until called while officer goes through their facebook reels, and then eventually receive a loose leaf piece of paper (effectively a VOA with your photo glued to it, again, despite holding a valid evisa) in exchange for your evisa printout that you then take to the regular immigration line, queue behind several plane loads of people, and hopefully can then get stamped (instead of receiving a stamp directly in your passport like everyone else). If you skip the VOA step, expect to wait in the normal immigration queue for a while only to then be redirected to the VOA desk without explanation.

- If you don't bring physical photos, VOA desk will take a bad photo of you with their digital camera for $10 USD

- VOA desk officers don't seem to speak (and I mean in any language, they communicate only through grunts and pointing), so it can be challenging to figure out what they need or are instructing.

- Expect the added steps to add 30-60 minutes, depending on wait times (VOA area is also used by people getting real VOAs, people with visa problems or sudden flight changes, and the last-minute visa agents, with DMV-style seating while you wait for them to process your VOA and frequent interruptions by paid agents rushing the counters to expedite their cases), which is all on top of the usual immigration queue you then wait in.

- Don't lose the separate VOA paper, it's examined by your hotel and at exit immigration to make sure you are legally in the country and not overstaying

- There are no additional fees (other than the evias fee paid online like everyone else and the photo fee if not bringing your own physical photos), the only additional cost is your time and hassle

- For context, apparently modern Chinese passports contain a controversial map of the South China Sea that both China and Vietnam claim as part of their territory, hence a performative special procedure to avoid appearing to endorse China's version of the map or its claim to the territory

- There is no description of this special procedure seemingly anywhere except a non-descript sign at far-end of the immigration area (in our case, at SGN) that simply tells PRC e-passport holders with evias to go to the VOA desk -- no instruction as to what to do there or why it's needed. One may (justifiably) think this is all just some scam, but alas, it's real:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0cfe515500.jpg

If you google it, you can find 10 year old news articles about the refusal to stamp Chinese passports, but the requirement to trade in an evisa for a VOA is a relatively new thing given that PRC citizens only recently became eligible for evisas with the big expansion of evisas last summer.

In short, good luck.

Wow, what a rigmarole. Diplomacy at its finest, and ultimately something that almost everyone subject to the process has been and is unable to influence the root cause of the problem.

Hi all
Is there a Vietnam Airlines Lotus Lounge at CXR (Nha Trang) in T1 / the Domestic terminal?

Yes according to the airport's website:

Thanks but I'm pretty sure that is referring to the international terminal.

There absolutely is one in the domestic terminal.
as you exit security turn left and head to the far end of the terminal.
Was in there last August.
However I would temper your expectations, it is very basic with A/C that was quite poor and fairly limited food options.
Even the drinks fridge wasn't that cold.

Okay, thanks for the confirmation, and warning - about accords with my expectations, which were low. I'd imagine the options outside the lounge are pretty minimal too?

We are arriving in Ho Chi Minh City on February 10 at 9:45 at night. Because we are arriving on a holiday night, we would like private transportation to the Hilton. Any recommendations for a driver/transportation company? How long should it take us to clear customs and get out of the airport? Appreciate any information

We used this company in 2022 and again a week ago for an airport transfer from SGN:
https://vikadotaxi.com/
Good communication (email and whatsapp) and cars were always on time. Friendly owner (Denis) and drivers.

It took us a while to clear immigration as the agent couldn't find my husbands e-visa info on his screen at first (mine was fine and we applied at the same time). We had to go to an immigration office and get a stamp of approval before returning to the agent. Otherwise we probably would have cleared immigration in about 20-30 minutes (arriving on TK from IST, full flight). We waited a long time for our checked bag only to find out that someone had removed it from the carrousel and placed it on the floor earlier. All in all, with those 2 delays it probably took 1 hour.