Ha-Long Bay

http://www.flowerpod.com.sg/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t1965-50.html

Near the end, there is a section:

Halong Bay-Cat Ba island
About tours:
Halong Bay-Cat Ba island 3 days 2 nights is quite alright
I went with the travel agent Ocean Tours for US$65 (booked thru the hostel). For this package, there is a limit to max 16 travellers for the group. I was lucky that my group in total had only 6 travellers... so the junk was like a private junk to us... not crowded at all. What i heard is that the other cheaper package has no limit to the no. of pax travelling in the group and they would visit only 1 cave instead of 2 caves.

We stayed 1 night on junk and another night in a hotel (yup, this is a proper hotel room if you are wondering) at Cat Ba Island. 1st night was to visit the 2 caves - Sung Sot and Me Cung Caves and sleep over in the junk. (there would be women rowing their little boats trying to sell you some food and drinks, it would be much cheaper to buy then from them, e.g. dalat wine for 1 big bottle is around 30,000 dong. Interesting right, vietnam also produce red and white wine and vodka too If I remember correctly. Btw, the tour package exclude drinks, so pls remember to pack some drinks for yourself 1st as the drink on board is really expensive!

I would say the promised seafood lunch and dinner for the 1st night was dissappointing. It was like sotong balls, fish, french fries, cucumber salad, vegetables (you call that seafood).

the 2nd day was much better, it was really seafood food bbq on a mini beach after kayaking. however it was only 1 portion for each - 1 big prawn, 1 mini lobster alike, bbq pork, salad, 1 shellfish (cant figure what type of shellfish is it, not mussels.. but nice). The food was bbq but the boat captain, who incidently is the chef.

btw, there is an option between kayaking and trekking. Kayaking was really good. There were 2 travellers who took the trekking say there was nothing much. They had to walk 5 Km, trek 5Km and walk back 5Km. That was really tiring and not much sightings.

Kayaking was much more fun, when we get to kayak thru caves and around the islands. The water was pretty calm too so it was quite alright.. although kayaking was like 4hours long.. (still tiring though it could be made worst if its choppy water)

After which, we head to Cat Ba Island. It was already near sun setting. So we only had the time to take a good shower and head straight for dinner. Seafood Dinner was good too.

There wasn't much for us to see around Cat Ba Island as it was already nightfall. If you have a little more time, maybe you could extend 1 more day there and explore. One of the travellers in our group decided to extend 1 more day, and our group was down to 5 travellers the next day when we depart.

Day 3 was really a cruise back to halong city. there was suppose to be a swimming stop enroute, but i suppose the guide saw that none of us were really interested and decided to cruise all the way back.