Round-Trip Hanoi to Ninh Binh Private Vehicle Charter

The company is very serious and the cars are very clean and new. All the drivers are very professionnel and we felt safe with them. We did 4 transfers (beween 1h30 and 3h30 drive each). The main contact Hoang NGuyen is very responsive and constantly connected

I'd like to highly recommend Mr. Hoang and his car booking services. We traveled around Vietnam for almost  a month and have relied on Mr. Hoang's services such as transfers between cities and full day tours in various cities. We received help with planning our trip before we arrived in Vietnam,  Mr. Hoang was always available both by email and Whatsapp to answer any question and was able to confirm our plans in advance.   The drivers that we had were always professional and friendly. We always received contact details in advance for all drivers so that everything went smoothly.

DONT BOOK My husband and I booked a private car with an English speaking driver to go to Ninh Binh. The description says the driver should speak English and it is for a full day. Unfortunately, our driver did not speak English at all, which led to delays throughout the day as we had to rely on translation apps and it was more difficult to meet and find each other after stops. At 3:40 PM we were at the Bear sanctuary and our driver told us to hurry and leave as soon as possible since he wanted to get back to Hanoi sooner. We were unable to stay until 4:30 when the main Bear viewing time is. The whole experience was disappointing since it did not match the description and we missed out on parts of the day we were really excited for. I requested a partial refund from Viator and they denied us without reason.

Our driver Trần was excellent, the whole day went beautifully thanks to him. Highly recommend the private car option if you want a more customised trip.

Mr Hoang is very responsive and helpful with our enquiries. And the driver Mr Phuc is very friendly and helpful throughout the 2 days service. We had a very enjoyable trip in Ninh Binh. We had a very enjoyable 2 days trip in Ninh Binh.

Second time going to Ninh Binh, decided to try out a new car company. Driver came on time, drove safely, was very communicative on WhatsApp (English), and flexible with our itinerary. Car was also clean and comfortable. We did however ask our driver to take us somewhere for lunch, and were taken to a restaurant with overpriced but poor food. Do your research in advance and choose your own lunch spot 🙂

We booked a day trip to Ninh Binh and were quite disappointed in the service we got, which is surprising given all of the other tripadvisor ratings. Maybe we got unlucky with the driver, as they have several drivers it seems. The positives is that the person we interacted with on email was quite professional and offered us flexibility in the stops we had. The price was also one of the lowest from 5 different companies we emailed, but not by a significant margin to make a difference. The driver was punctual and arrives early to our hotel, and we got to see all the sites we wanted to see, even squeezing in an extra one beyond the standard itinerary. Ninh Binh itself is really stunning and the landscape was extremely impressive. In terms of negatives, firstly, the driver did not speak english, which is not what we expected given we were booking with a tour agency company, so were not told anything about the sites we visited and communicating about waiting times, etc. was hard. Secondly, after dropping us off at Tam Coc for the boat ride we asked for the driver to meet us in 1 hour or so when we return. We got back after just over an hour and he wasn’t there. We found wifi in a cafe to whatsapp / call him but no response. 30 minutes later he arrives telling us he fell asleep, which he seemed to think was funny. We asked in advance to be taken for a good lunch that they recommend with the traditional local goat dishes. He drove us to a restaurant (A Phao) where unsurprisingly it turned out the waiter was his friend and we had only just gotten out of the car, when the waiter right in front of us hands him some money laughing, which I assume is the driver’s cut for bringing us to the restaurant. Whilst that is to be expected, it can be done a lot more subtly and not in full view of the customer. Furthermore the restaurant then overcharged us more at the end, saying the prices on the menu were old (the menu showed the mains we chose as 200k but we were charged 300k) - we were not told this in advance, we tried to argue but was pointless. Service was very unprofessional with the waiter snorting and sneezing right next to us as ordered. However the food was quite good and the only saving grace of the experience. We were then taken to the wrong destination which was not on the route we had agreed, having asked for Bai Dinh and instead being taken to Trang An. When we came back to where the driver was, he was on his mobile playing games. As we told him this is not where we asked to go, he seemed uninterested and just walked us back to the car whilst continuing to play the game on his phone. Lastly, the driving to and from Hanoi was quite erratic - lots of honking, aggressive lane changing and overtaking. We’ve driven a lot in Vietnam and whilst not as safe as in Europe, its generally been fine, but here for the first time it felt the driving was unnecessarily aggressive, not to mention headaches we both got from constant honking to overtake other vehicles. The driver struck us as relatively young, probably early 20s, so likely lacks experience or proper training on how to behave, and this is not entirely his fault. However it would be good for the company to provide him with the training required to drive people around professionally, which is why we wrote all this details from our experience so that it can be corrected for future travellers. We have hired dozens of private drivers in south east asia for day trips and this ranks amongst the most disappointing experiences.

I had a great experience today with Hanoi Booking car. My driver was Li and he was super nice and kind from the very moment he came to meet me at the airport. He drove me around very patiently based on a very ad-hoc itinerary agreed with his brother Hoang (which made this organisation so smooth - thank you!!). The car was very comfortable and Li had plenty of bottles of water for the day. He took me to places and negotiated prices for my purchases as well as my entry tickets to main attractions in Ninh Binh. He had some very nice advice for sightseeing and restaurants, which were greatly appreciated. His and Hoang’s English were really good and communication was very smooth. I would definitively book them again should I come back to Hanoi and surely recommend them to a friend/colleague.

The car is on time. Driver and guide very friendly. Their charges are reasonable. Can be booked directly on Whatsapp. Very reliable

Everything was perfect: car (espacious, clesn and in perfect condition) and driver (safe and care driver) Just me and my wife Highly recomended