I have been wanting to do this for a long time and was keen on it after seeing the cruise in the Victoria Harbour area on my past few trips. The ability to board a traditional Chinese wooden junk boat and cruise the Hong Kong Victoria Harbour sounds lovely. They also have various cruise packages such as high tea cruise, sunset cruise or the Victoria Harbour Symphony of Lights cruise that I took. This is one of the best ways to check out the Victoria Harbour. It comes at a premium as compared to the usual star ferry. It is a 45-minute cruise tour.

Booking & Prices

There are a couple of ways to go about booking the cruise. You can simply book it directly from their website or check out some third-party online travel agency. Do note that the cruise does not run daily and there are slight changes in their schedule from day to day. I chance upon the cruise on Pelago, an OTA that offers tours and experiences in collaboration with Singapore Airlines. The cruise costs 330 HKD for adults and 220 HKD for children. The price difference is due to the alcoholic beverage. Pelago was running a promotion where SQ customers enjoyed 30% off. I ended up paying about 46 SGD or 268 HKD per person.

Arrival

When booking the cruise, you can choose to board at either the Central Side or the Tsim Tsa Tsui area. Do note that they have different timings. Aqualuna pick-up points are at Central Pier 9, Tsim Sha Tsui Public Pier 1, Wan Chai Public Pier & Hung Hom Public Pier. Do check which one yours is departing on. We went to the pier roughly about 15 minutes in advance, there will be a staff there on hand to help with your arrival and boarding.

Aqualuna Junk Boat Cruise

Seating is on a first come first serve basis and even when we got to be the first to board, there are already guests onboard. Perhaps the cruise runs on a running basis. For my respective cruise, they already boarded customers from TST at 7.30pm before picking up the Central customers at 7.45pm. As such, it makes more sense to always board at the first boarding point whether it is at Central or Tsim Tsa Tsui. This will allow you to get the best seating possible since it is on a first come first serve basis.

Most of the first deck and seats by the side are already taken. We managed to get something on the upper deck and in the corner. At least it got us an unblocked view. The staff then came over to get drinks orders. The cruise comes with a complimentary drink. We got some wine. It is decent but nothing memorable. You can also move around the boat during the cruise. It was rather lovely with the light show and sea breeze.

Conclusion

I did enjoy the cruise. It is rather pricey, yes! But I will still recommend travellers to Hong Kong do this once. It is worth the splurge and the novelty is there. I certainly won’t mind doing it again and will probably choose a sunset cruise the next time to get better pictures while it is bright. You can check out my Instagram for some videos of the cruise.