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Phu My Vietnam port and tour


ChrisBuck
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We are just back from the Mariner of the Seas (Hong Kong to Singapore via Phu My Vietnam). Mariner docked at Phu My which is a container port and there is nothing at the pier (no shops, no taxis, no buildings etc). A few tour operators have the necessary paperwork to enter the container terminal and drive to the ships gangway (as do the shore excursion busses). We arranged a tour in advance with Ann Tours and our guide (Viet) met us at the pier. It was a 2 hour 15 minute drive into Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) and was a 2.5 hour drive back. However it was worth it as the city has much to see. We were very pleased with Ann Tours and equally happy to see Vietnam. Our ship was in port from 7:00am to 7pm. A few notes, we arrived/were cleared about an hour later than expected. The tour operator needed the passport details of every person in our group. Our tour price included all the admission fees (including the van entry to the port area) and it is a long day!:)

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So good to hear from someone who has been on the mariner info is very few and far between. Thanks for info on hcmc. I hope you will be posting a review as anxious to find out about food bars staff entertainment etc as we are on her for 8 days on 7th march 2014. We have 2 days Singapore first and 3 days shanghai after. So looking forward but little worried as so little info available. Thanks for any help or info you can give:)

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  • 2 weeks later...

We will be on the Volendam arriving in Phu My on March 10, 2014 I have been reading some scary things on CC about doing your own tour and getting back to the ship on time. I have booked a private tour with Zoom of saigon private tour. I am wondering if it would be safer to take the HAL shuttle into the city and start a tour their. The problem is HAL says they will drop off at a central location. Anyone have where that central location may be?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Chris Buck

 

Thanks for sharing your experience on board the Mariner of the Seas in regard to Phu My.

 

Just wondering if it is compulsory to pay for the Vietnam visa even if we do not want to go down. DH does not like long coach rides of over 2 hours each way. However if I am able to change his mind, are there multiple shuttles that go back and forth during the day and there is no set time to return apart from the last coach arranged by Royal Caribbean?

 

We are Australians.

 

Thanks.

 

koolgal

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We will be on the Volendam arriving in Phu My on March 10, 2014 I have been reading some scary things on CC about doing your own tour and getting back to the ship on time. I have booked a private tour with Zoom of saigon private tour. I am wondering if it would be safer to take the HAL shuttle into the city and start a tour their. The problem is HAL says they will drop off at a central location. Anyone have where that central location may be?

 

Presume its the REX hotel.

My wife and I are on your cruise and will probably do the ship transfer this time as Rex hotel is well located.

We did the CC organised Zoom tour last year ( whilst on Amsterdam )

all went very well.

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Presume its the REX hotel.

My wife and I are on your cruise and will probably do the ship transfer this time as Rex hotel is well located.

We did the CC organised Zoom tour last year ( whilst on Amsterdam )

all went very well.

 

Apologies we went with Smile Tours to Saigon NOT Zoom

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Thanks for the help. We have decided to go with Zoom. He has a good reputation so he should be able to get us back to the ship without a problem. I guess you always take a bit of a chance when you do a private tour. We do them anyway because you just get a lot more bang for your buck and we don't like traveling with bus loads of people.

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Hi Chris Buck

 

Thanks for sharing your experience on board the Mariner of the Seas in regard to Phu My.

 

Just wondering if it is compulsory to pay for the Vietnam visa even if we do not want to go down. DH does not like long coach rides of over 2 hours each way. However if I am able to change his mind, are there multiple shuttles that go back and forth during the day and there is no set time to return apart from the last coach arranged by Royal Caribbean?

 

We are Australians.

 

Thanks.

 

koolgal

Yes everyone has to pay the compulsory visa to get off the ship. RCI Voyager of the Seas was in Phu My port overnight so anyone doing independent and staying in Saigon overnight paid the higher fee for independent visa. Others who were not staying in overnight paid the cheaper group visa fee. Both are available on board the ship. It took at least an hour after arriving in port for the authorities to start letting people off the ship even though the ship had our passports for inserting visas from the start of the cruise. There are no shuttles, ship operated or otherwise running between Phu My port and other parts of Vietnam as it is all too far for shuttles. The ship offers a 1 way in and 1 way back do it yourself excursion and drops and picks up at the Rex Hotel. Originally RCI said there would be no ship option for going in with ship transfer 1 day and returning the next with ship transfer however a few days into the cruise, they sent around a notice saying they had also decided to offer the transfer in 1 day and transfer back the next. We had already booked our own private tours...best tours of many trips we have done. You will miss a lovely country if you just stay on the ship. Even the drive in shows a lot of the countryside and culture.

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Hi Banditoo ! :) just wondering who were the tour guide group you went with ? Just organising my trip now and would be happy to hear some advice from you . cheers

We used Vietnam Vespa Adventures http://www.vietnamvespaadventures.com/tours and had the time of our life! I put together a small group from our roll call...couple Canadians, couple Americans, couple from new Zealand, mostly Aussies and we did two separate day tours on the back of the motorbikes but you can do single day tours and they pick up from Phu My port. We were in Phu My port overnight so stayed overnight in Saigon. We did the Saigon Insider day tour and the second day the Glimpse of the Mekong Delta countryside. Everyone agreed this was a fantastic way to tour and was the best tour of our whole cruise. Ages ranged from 15 to 70 in our small group. If you love an adventure and want a real cultural experience this is the way to go. My detailed review and many others are on tripadvisor http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g293925-d2004786-r182585717-Vietnam_Vespa_Adventures_Day_Tours-Ho_Chi_Minh_City.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT Let me know if you have other questions.

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  • 1 year later...
So good to hear from someone who has been on the mariner info is very few and far between. Thanks for info on hcmc. I hope you will be posting a review as anxious to find out about food bars staff entertainment etc as we are on her for 8 days on 7th march 2014. We have 2 days Singapore first and 3 days shanghai after. So looking forward but little worried as so little info available. Thanks for any help or info you can give:)

 

Join our Port of Call site for this sailing . . . I haven't seen you on it yet. Did you register for meet and mingle? A group of us on the Port of Call site are meeting at the Sky bar after muster. Hope to see you at the Port of call site:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1960579&page=8

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Hi Chris Buck

 

Thanks for sharing your experience on board the Mariner of the Seas in regard to Phu My.

 

Just wondering if it is compulsory to pay for the Vietnam visa even if we do not want to go down. DH does not like long coach rides of over 2 hours each way. However if I am able to change his mind, are there multiple shuttles that go back and forth during the day and there is no set time to return apart from the last coach arranged by Royal Caribbean?

 

We are Australians.

 

Thanks.

 

koolgal

 

Hey Koolgal, when are you going? We are going March 7 on Mariner. If you are too, you should join our Port of Call site (everyone there is on this cruise)

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1960579&page=8

 

If you are I hope to see you there.

 

PS if you haven't gone yet, Phu My is an INDUSTRIAL port. You will see NOTHING if you don't travel from the ship. Vung Tau is closer (only 45 min).

 

Maps, info, etc are at our port of call site.

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  • 2 years later...

We are planning an Asia cruise with stops in Vietnam (Phu My and Chan May). We are using a local travel company (Shore Excursions Asia/Viet Visions Travel) to arrange shore excursions. They claim to need our passport details so they can apply for access permission to the port to pick us up at the ship. Is this correct? We are uncomfortable providing this information.

Thanks,

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We are planning an Asia cruise with stops in Vietnam (Phu My and Chan May). We are using a local travel company (Shore Excursions Asia/Viet Visions Travel) to arrange shore excursions. They claim to need our passport details so they can apply for access permission to the port to pick us up at the ship. Is this correct? We are uncomfortable providing this information.

Thanks,

 

This is questionable but many travel agents do it to justify charging each person an extra $25 USD per head which is claimed to be passed on the the port authorities to allow the tour bus to collect you inside the port.

 

It is a way of extracting tea money for the port authorities.

 

If you are visiting two ports the charge could well be an extra $50 per person just to cover that aspect?

 

 

I would tell then you are not going to provide the details and that you would like to be collected at the Port gate in order to avoid the extra charges.

 

Come back to this forum and let us know how you get on - your reply might help a lot of other fellow cruisers, save them money and cut out the rort being imposed by the port authorities.

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Actually, I'm not concerned about the "port fee." After all, it's included in the agreed upon shore excursion charge and we prefer to be picked up at the ship. I'm only concerned about the risk of sharing passport information with an unknown foreign company.

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Actually, I'm not concerned about the "port fee." After all, it's included in the agreed upon shore excursion charge and we prefer to be picked up at the ship. I'm only concerned about the risk of sharing passport information with an unknown foreign company.

 

Well I certainly know of travellers who have prebooked a private tour from the port including shipside pick up who did not provide passport details so I would be telling your agent you do not want to provide the passport numbers if this is a concern for you.

 

(Personally I would not be concerned, everyone in Vietnam, including all hotels insist on taking your passport numbers for the police check)

 

I think to get your business they will go along with it.

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The problem is HAL says they will drop off at a central location. Anyone have where that central location may be?

 

HAL transport drop off is at the Bitexo Building. It is fairly close to the main Market area and a short taxi ride from most of the other sites of interest ( Remnants Museum, Cathedral, Post Office, etc.) We were there with HAL in December of 2016. It was a wonderful journey, start to finish.

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry for my delayed response.

When I went 2 years ago passports were not required by tour operators, but Vietnam is a little tricky and constantly changing. I would search it on google. I do know when we went there was constant changing of port visa fees and such, it fluxuated daily.

 

The port is considerable far from the city and didn't have public transportation when I went.

 

I would recommend to do A LOT Of research, narrowing down your results to the last month because it changes constantly.

 

 

I also recommend you have seperate email for local contacts there when you travel overseas. Anything needing prepay I paid on PayPal.

 

 

Keep money split up in different pockets in case there is any occassion you need to say "that's all I have" you will still have back up. Again, this did not occur, but I always try to have contingency plans.

 

I can say in all my travels (30+ countries) the only place I got my credit card stolen and was taken advantage of was Mexico (one washing my windows, one filling the tank, one talking to me so I failed to notice they did not reset the pump to start at Zero, realized later there was no way that car could hold that many gallons of gas . . . . lesson learned, being down cash I used my credit card ONCE at another gas station and the next time I attempted to use it a week later it had been maxed out. The scanner employee (you don't do it yourself there) had copied my card. Easy to determine since it was the only place I used it. Thankfully, I always carry a separate back up, and with our credit card I didn't have to pay the fraudulent charges. But unfortunately there was no justice for it even when I knew exactly when, where and who did it. Even sadder, the gas stations are run by the government in Mexico . . . .

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  • 6 months later...
Actually, I'm not concerned about the "port fee." After all, it's included in the agreed upon shore excursion charge and we prefer to be picked up at the ship. I'm only concerned about the risk of sharing passport information with an unknown foreign company.

 

I actually had the same concern (more less), but thats what they need to sort out the trip, i send the company i contact to arrange the trip from the port and so far, everything went well. Here is the company and the guy name is Hamid: http://www.vietnameseprivatetours.com

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