Walk through Hoi An's old town and every other shop advertises a "lantern making class" for $20–35. It photographs beautifully, it's on every itinerary, and it's one of the things we tag skip. Here's the honest reason, and the better alternative if you actually want the craft.
What you actually get
Let's be precise about the product, because the marketing isn't. In the standard old-town class you get:
- A pre-cut bamboo frame.
- Pre-cut silk and glue.
- Pre-chosen colors.
- About 90 minutes to assemble it into a small lantern you carry out.
That's the honest inventory. You glue silk onto a frame someone else built.
Why we tag it "skip"
Not because it's unsafe or a scam — it's neither. Because you assemble; you do not make. The actual craft — cutting and soaking the bamboo, bending and lashing the frame, the parts that take skill — is done in advance, off-site, before you ever sit down.
The tell: for roughly the same money, you can buy a finished lantern from the same shop. When the "class" costs about what the object costs, you're paying for a photo op dressed up as a craft experience. Marketed as authentic craft, it's a 90-minute glue-and-fabric task.
That's the gap between the marketing and the reality, and closing that gap is the entire job of this site.
When it's actually fine
Honesty cuts both ways — it isn't worthless for everyone:
- Traveling with kids? It's a genuinely nice, low-stress souvenir activity. Children don't care that the frame was pre-cut; they care that they made something colorful.
- Want a keepsake and a good photo, and you know what you're buying? Then $25 for a pleasant hour is a fair trade. The problem was never the activity — it's the overselling.
If you want the real craft
The frame-building step — the part that's actually a skill — is where the real experience lives. Look for full-day workshops outside the old town (the Sa Huynh-area workshops are the ones that come up) that actually teach bamboo cutting and framing. You'll spend more time and get the thing the old-town version only pretends to offer.
The bottom line
The old-town lantern class is fine as a souvenir hour and honest fun with kids — but it is not a craft class, and it's priced like a keepsake, not a lesson. Go in knowing you're assembling a kit, and either enjoy it for what it is or seek out a real full-day workshop if you want to learn the craft.
Either way, don't book it believing the marketing. That's the whole point.
Honest disclosure
We earn nothing from this listing — there's no affiliate link on a "skip." We flag it because plenty of travelers feel quietly let down by it, and a heads-up beats a bad surprise. Methodology on the about page.
See what we do recommend in Hoi An — cooking, cycling, tailoring — on the Hoi An guide.