Boat Tours & Day Cruises from Phuket

Fourteen well-reviewed boats leave Phuket on a normal high-season morning, and almost all go to one of four places. Phi Phi, Maya Bay and Bamboo Island from $43 is the trip 21,382 reviewers have taken; Phang Nga Bay from $68 is the karst-and-lagoon day; Coral Island from $45 is the short one; and the Khai Islands at $23 is the cheapest thing on the water here.

The figure nobody prints on the booking page is the national park fee. Phi Phi Leh, Maya Bay and Bamboo Island sit inside Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park, and the Department of National Parks charges foreign adults ฿400 and children ฿200 in cash. Phang Nga Bay costs ฿300 and ฿150. Most operators exclude it, and it is collected at the ranger desk on the way to the boat — the full list is below.

Then there is the pier. Chalong, Rassada, Royal Phuket Marina, Ao Po Grand Marina and Bang Rong sit on three coasts, and the gap between the nearest and the furthest is over an hour of island traffic. Almost every tour includes a hotel transfer, which hides the distance until you book one that does not. Which pier sends what is the first thing to check on the voucher.

Chalong Pier, in the south-east, is the busiest and serves the near islands: Coral Island (Koh Hey) is fifteen minutes away by speedboat, Racha and Maiton thirty to forty-five, and almost every dive boat loads there. From Patong allow an hour by road, closer to two in the school run — Aussie Divers, who send guests there daily, publish a best case of just over an hour. Rassada Pier, three kilometres out of Phuket Town, is the ferry terminal: scheduled boats to Phi Phi, Krabi, Koh Lanta and Koh Yao Noi plus a large share of the joined-up Phi Phi day trips, and the only pier with air-conditioned halls, luggage storage and an ATM.

Royal Phuket Marina and the neighbouring Boat Lagoon load the premium Phi Phi boats, the catamarans and the charter fleet, from a pontoon rather than off a beach. Ao Po Grand Marina, at the top of the east coast, is the Phang Nga Bay pier, which is why the six-island bay tour and the James Bond and Hong Island run both start there. Bang Rong, south of it in the mangroves, is the local pier for Koh Yao Noi, Koh Yao Yai and Koh Naka at ฿300–400 a head; almost no packaged tour uses it, which is why the Yao islands stay quiet.

One departure point is not fixed at all. The floating beach club moves with the season: its own location page puts check-in at Royal Phuket Marina from the end of March to mid-November and at Patong Pier from mid-November through early April, with a shuttle out every twenty minutes. A voucher printed in one season and used in the other sends you to the wrong side of the island.

The jump from $43 to $107 on the same Phi Phi route buys about twenty-five fewer people: thirty minutes at each stop becomes an hour, and Bamboo Island becomes a place you swim rather than photograph. Catamarans answer a different complaint — a speedboat crossing in light chop is ninety minutes of slamming, and the catamaran at $125 and the Phang Nga sunset yacht at $106 cover the same water with a fraction of the motion.

Rain rarely stops a boat here; the wind behind it does. The south-west monsoon blows onto the Andaman coast from roughly May to October at ten to thirty knots, and in the worst spells pushes wave heights to two or three metres, with the Thai marine authorities warning small craft ashore. Phi Phi, Koh Lanta and Koh Lipe crossings are pulled first; Phang Nga Bay sits behind the karsts in sheltered water, so the James Bond Island run often sails on a morning when the Phi Phi boats have cancelled.

Two hard closures come from the Department of National Parks rather than the weather. Mu Ko Similan and Mu Ko Surin close from 16 May to 14 October, which is why no Similan day trip appears on a Phuket menu in that window. And Maya Bay closes from 1 August to 30 September for coral rehabilitation, reopening on 1 October; Phi Phi tours run at the same price through those months but pass the bay rather than enter it.