Saigon on Your Own: when does it arrive & leave?

[Suskies]

We'd like to take Celebrity's Saigon On Your Own bus into Ho Chi Minh City and then book a private city tour. Does anyone know when the bus arrives in HCMC and when it leaves? It's impossible to schedule anything otherwise! Thank you!

[NantahalaCruiser]

Don't remember exactly - but it's about 90 minutes each way. Celebrity's shore excursions should show departure times - seem to remember that in fall of 2016 there were 2 or 3 departure times. The should also give a total time for the excursion.

 

So as an example, with an 8am departure and an 9 hour total time, your expected arrival/departure in downtown Saigon would be 9:30am through 3:30pm. But in scheduling an independent excursion, I would either make sure that they were flexible and able to adjust to your actual in town times or use a more conservative time range like 10am to 3pm.

 

Also, you maynot know where your drop-off/pick-up point is until you are on-board the bus. So you might need to have a cell phone that will work in Vietnam, in order to contact the independent excursion company. That's how the coordinator of our CC roll call group managed our group's combined use of Celebrity's DIY and our independent excursion.

 

Best wishes for a wonderful visit to Saigon.

[budbo]

We did "Saigon on your own" from the Millennium in March. I don't know how much the excursion varies, but we were dropped off/picked up at the Bitexco Financial Tower. We actually traveled around town on our own so the Bitexco Tower was a great meeting point because it was so easy to spot.....it towers above most buildings in the city.

 

As long as you're planning to book a private tour anyway, I'm wondering if it might be more cost effective and less complicated if you book a tour that will just pick you up right at the ship?

[Suskies]

Thank you both for your help. Celebrity's shore excursion descriptions are really vague. Our last few cruises have been on Princess, and they have minute-by-minute descriptions that are very helpful.

 

We don't want to book a tour that picks up at our ship because we want some wandering-around-on-our-own time. We were thinking about finding a 3-hour tour and then filling in the rest of the time ourselves.

[capsplace]

We did "Saigon on your own" from the Millennium in March. I don't know how much the excursion varies, but we were dropped off/picked up at the Bitexco Financial Tower. We actually traveled around town on our own so the Bitexco Tower was a great meeting point because it was so easy to spot.....it towers above most buildings in the city.

 

As long as you're planning to book a private tour anyway, I'm wondering if it might be more cost effective and less complicated if you book a tour that will just pick you up right at the ship?

Thanks for this information. We are booked on the Saigon OYO in Nov on the Millennium. Any highlights of your DIY you’d like to share?

[budbo]

Thanks for this information. We are booked on the Saigon OYO in Nov on the Millennium. Any highlights of your DIY you’d like to share?

 

We had a great time in Saigon, despite the brutal heat....it was mid-90's with 95% humidity when we were there in March. Hopefully Nov will be cooler. Right after we were dropped at Bitexco Tower, we headed off on foot to Ben Thanh Market. Since it was hot we decided to take a ride in one of the many Tri-shaws that were all over the city. That was a mistake because the drivers tried to scam us, which apparently is very common. They took us about 1/2 mile in the wrong direction, told us the market was just down the street and tried to get us to pay 100x the amount we had agreed on. That wasn't the best intro to Saigon but the day went great after that.

 

We stopped and had some pho for a snack, spent some time in the market then headed towards the City Hall area which was really nice and had a park with water fountains. Right there is also the Rex Hotel where the war correspondents all hung out back in the day. There are many high end places to shop but we spent much of our time wandering down the old style street markets. Had a great seafood lunch buffet at the Sheraton Hotel (?) which was actually just as much about cooling off and hydrating as it was about having lunch. We got back to Bitexco Tower early and enjoyed all the street vendors that were there......apparently that's a popular place for buses to pick up because there were big crowds of tourists hanging out waiting for their rides.

 

Does your cruise overnight in Halong Bay? A large number of cruisers on our sailing chose to do the Halong Bay overnight cruises and raved about them. We really wanted to see Hanoi so we booked a car (Hanoi Transfer Service) for roundtrip transportation. We stayed at a little boutique hotel in the old part of Hanoi and really enjoyed the atmosphere in that part of the city, although crossing streets is really scary because motorbike traffic is crazy! We were happy with the choice we made for that port. Others that we spoke to had taken day tours to Hanoi (mostly ship tours) and they said it was just a brutally long day and they regretted it.

 

In Chan May we took Celebrity's "Hoi An on your own" and were happy with that too. Hoi An is an old fishing village with small shops, restaurants and a few temples. Very scenic, quaint and laid back compared to the other Vietnam cities that we visited.

 

Hope you have a great time, we'd like to go back!

[capsplace]

We had a great time in Saigon, despite the brutal heat....it was mid-90's with 95% humidity when we were there in March. Hopefully Nov will be cooler. Right after we were dropped at Bitexco Tower, we headed off on foot to Ben Thanh Market. Since it was hot we decided to take a ride in one of the many Tri-shaws that were all over the city. That was a mistake because the drivers tried to scam us, which apparently is very common. They took us about 1/2 mile in the wrong direction, told us the market was just down the street and tried to get us to pay 100x the amount we had agreed on. That wasn't the best intro to Saigon but the day went great after that.

 

We stopped and had some pho for a snack, spent some time in the market then headed towards the City Hall area which was really nice and had a park with water fountains. Right there is also the Rex Hotel where the war correspondents all hung out back in the day. There are many high end places to shop but we spent much of our time wandering down the old style street markets. Had a great seafood lunch buffet at the Sheraton Hotel (?) which was actually just as much about cooling off and hydrating as it was about having lunch. We got back to Bitexco Tower early and enjoyed all the street vendors that were there......apparently that's a popular place for buses to pick up because there were big crowds of tourists hanging out waiting for their rides.

 

Does your cruise overnight in Halong Bay? A large number of cruisers on our sailing chose to do the Halong Bay overnight cruises and raved about them. We really wanted to see Hanoi so we booked a car (Hanoi Transfer Service) for roundtrip transportation. We stayed at a little boutique hotel in the old part of Hanoi and really enjoyed the atmosphere in that part of the city, although crossing streets is really scary because motorbike traffic is crazy! We were happy with the choice we made for that port. Others that we spoke to had taken day tours to Hanoi (mostly ship tours) and they said it was just a brutally long day and they regretted it.

 

In Chan May we took Celebrity's "Hoi An on your own" and were happy with that too. Hoi An is an old fishing village with small shops, restaurants and a few temples. Very scenic, quaint and laid back compared to the other Vietnam cities that we visited.

 

Hope you have a great time, we'd like to go back!

More great info! Thank you! Your driver experience...we've had similar in Stockholm and Prague, even tho' we were thinking we were cautious. Good info though, thank you; we'll be on the lookout. Yes, we are overnite in Halong Bay and already have a couple tours for the two days lined up, but not an overnight. We too are doing Hoi An OYO. Seemed to us, after looking at info about the town, it made sense to tour on our own, rather than an organized tour, private or thru Celebrity(except for the trans to HoiAn). Thanks again for the great info.