Cu Chi Tunnels and Ho Chi min City

[Princess Jessie]

Am docking in Phy My for two days on Hal Volendam cruise Dec 13.

 

Can someone recommend how to get to Cu Chi ? Do we need private guides or are taxis good enough?

Where is Cu Chi in relation to Phy My and Hcmc?

 

Thought of doing HCMC one day and Cu Chi the second but then don't want to be retracing our journey of two hours each way both days.

 

Would appreciate help and advice from anyone who has been

 

Thank you

[Busybean]

Am docking in Phy My for two days on Hal Volendam cruise Dec 13.

 

Can someone recommend how to get to Cu Chi ? Do we need private guides or are taxis good enough?

Where is Cu Chi in relation to Phy My and Hcmc?

 

Thought of doing HCMC one day and Cu Chi the second but then don't want to be retracing our journey of two hours each way both days.

 

Would appreciate help and advice from anyone who has been

 

Thank you

 

 

You need a private guide. We were there in February & arranged a tour through Stefan of Best Cruises Travel his E mail address is sales@bestcruisestravel.com. The company has recently changed its name to Vietnam Private Tours. The distance from Phu My to Cu Chi is 2 hrs minimun with the same time between the tunnels & HCMC & from there beck to Phu My. We had an overnight in HCMC & I cannot recommend this --or Stefan's organisation enough.

[Princess Jessie]

Thank you so much for your quick answer.

Can you give me a rough idea of how much he charged?

And where did you stay in HCMC?

Did Stefan arrange this or did you?

 

Thank you

[Busybean]

Thank you so much for your quick answer.

Can you give me a rough idea of how much he charged?

And where did you stay in HCMC?

Did Stefan arrange this or did you?

 

Thank you

 

Hi I think we paid US$250 per person for the overnight stay. It was Chinese New Year when we were there & we had a group of approx 9 people on the tour gathered together from CC. Stefan also arranged a 4 hour tour in Halong Bay + a day tour to Hanoi. All worked very well. Cant recommend him enough

Sue

[John Bull]

Phu My (not been there) is apparently at least 90 mins SW of Saigon (HCMC), Cu Chi tunnels are about 90 minutes north of Saigon. And you broadly need to go thro' Saigon to get there.

 

Well worth booking an overnite hotel, they're cheap. Make it a central hotel, use the Rex Hotel as a landmark for "central".

 

For your evening in Saigon, consider the traditional water puppet show

http://www.goldendragonwaterpuppet.com/HowIs.asp

 

You don't really need a guide or transport in Saigon, all the main sights are easily walkable - Re-unufication Hall, War Remnants museum, HCM museum, Ben Thanh covered market & Notre Dame. And the post office, opposite Notre Dame, is a historic building in its own right & has an excellent tourist info desk & currency exchange.

You can travel to Cu Chi cheaply by taxi, even cheaper in a hot & dusty minibus. We went by speedboat, an exhilarating way to get there from Saigon. Took about the same amount of time, including a couple of stops. Hired one in advance & found sharers. But nowadays you can buy seat-in-boat, try googling Cu Chi speedboat.

Guides at Cu Chi are included in the admission price. And there's a lot more to the place than tunnels, all of it interesting, some of it quite gruesome.

 

The real krunch is transport between Phu My & Saigon.

We were berthed right in the city, easy.

But do take advice on that transport, everyone advises to fix up ship's tour or "on your own" transfers, or fix up a private transfer or guide over the 'net. Winging-it with taxis at Phu My is not recommended.

 

 

Diff'rent folks, diff'rent strokes but since you'll be needing transport to Saigon anyway, you might want to take Busybean's advice & book a guide.

But if you do that, ask the guide to give you details/costs of hiring a speedboat Saigon/ Cu Chi. So much easier for him to do than for us - or you. We pre-booked an eight-seater at the top of our budget not knowing whether we'd find sharers - and we had to fight off sharers. In the end the cost was less than ship's coach trip from Saigon to Cu Chi, about $50 to $60 pp. :)

And just such a totally better experience than in a bus or taxi.

 

JB :)

[PaulaJK]

I strongly recommend a guide for the tunnels, whether it be a ship's tour or a pvt. guide. You don't need an entire day for the tunnels so you can drive through Saigon as you return and get the basic sights pointed out before being dropped at your hotel.

 

Staying overnight in a hotel allows you to sample some of Saigon's excellent cuisine as well as invites you to walk and see the city on your own. There are shops, churches and a wonderful market.

[Keith1010]

As others have said a guide or ships tour are the way to go.

 

I would do a search on this board as several guides have been recommend.

 

One that I would mention is Zoom.

 

Keith

[Princess Jessie]

Yes, I have seen that Zoom and Smile seem to be the ones most people are recommending although there was I seem to recall a negative review of Zoom.

[John Bull]

Yes, I have seen that Zoom and Smile seem to be the ones most people are recommending although there was I seem to recall a negative review of Zoom.

 

Shame about a bad review for Zoom, he's certainly highly-respected but I guess everyone's entitled to screw up from time to time. Or mebbe the client was problematic. Or even a ghost review by a competitor - it happens.

 

But it brings me to a worthy point.

Smile is a common tour-operator name in Vietnam & Thailand.

And wannabe's have been known to try to trade on the good name of others.

So don't just google "smile" or "zoom" - look for recommendations with a link to a specific website or e-mail address.

 

JB :)

[banditoo]

Just back from an overnight in Saigon (HCMC) as Voyager overnighted in Phu My port. We booked overnight in Rex Hotel...gorgeous and economical compared to North American prices (we paid $144 for the night plus tax) and were upgraded to a suite. Too bad we had little time in the hotel as we were so busy doing our tours of Saigon and the Mekong Delta. But we did have fantastic tour experiences...the best of our whole trip!

Also, the private van transfer between Phu My port and Saigon took closer to 2.5 hours...traffic was busy. I highly recommend you do not return to the ship if in port overnight and plan to be back to ship at least 1 hour before 'all aboard' in case of unforeseen occurrences. Voyager did not originally offer an overnight on your own excursion but added it while we were on the cruise...still a lot more expensive than what we paid for round trip transfer of $150 USD divided between our group.

I believe a different group from our roll call used Ann Tours to do the Tunnels one day and Saigon the other. You may want to get a few quotes.