There are no shortage of Phuket boat tours when it comes to visiting the south of Thailand. There are so many that it might even get overwhelming trying to research them all. Well, I’m here to help you on your travel planning journey! We took 3 different boat tours during our week-long vacation in Phuket and this was all paid out-of-pocket. I’m not affiliated with these tours in anyway and all of the opinions are of my own and the experiences that I had. So, you know this is going to be a true unbiased review. Also, I’ve posted photos and reels of each tour so you’ll get a better sense of what it’s like. Hope this helps!
- Related Article: Top 7 Things to Know Before Going to Phuket
Phuket Boat Tours
Hype Boat Club
The first Phuket boat tour that we took was from Hype Boat Club. They offer different types of boat tours but the one we took was Hype Catamaran. I specifically was looking for a company that had a catamaran where we could lay out on the boat while the boat took us to different islands. I wanted to enjoy the journey just as much as the destination. A lot of the speed boat tours will get you to these places faster, but they are usually super noisy, bumpy, and uncomfortable. I especially had such a great time on this short Hawaii catamaran tour a couple years back that I was looking for something just like it in Thailand. Luckily, Hype Catamaran checked all of the boxes!
Hype Catamaran is a double decker catamaran that includes a DJ, lunch buffet, and two island destinations off of Phuket. There are three types of seats that you can purchase:
- Hype Seat (2,900 THB or ~$79 USD): This is pretty much just a general ticket where you can sit by the DJ or out of the bean bag chairs in front of the boat.
- Shared Bed (3,900 THB or ~$106 USD): This option gives you your own private table. The catch is that the minimum is at least 19,500 THB (~$530 USD) for the table which is 5 people. You can have less people but they will still charge you 19,500 THB. The table has a max capacity of 6 people which they do charge another 3,900 THB for a total of 23,400 THB (~$636 USD). Since we had 5 people in our group, this is the option that we booked.
- Private Bed (7,800 THB or ~$212 USD per 2 people): This option is on the top deck and is probably more for couples or people that want to have more privacy. You get a lounge type day bed for two people for 7,800 THB.
For the Hype Catamaran itinerary, you can find it here. My favorite beach out of our whole Phuket trip was on this tour. It’s called Banana Beach and it was on Coral Island. I really wished we had more time there, but at least I’ve experienced it and would recommend it to all my friends. Racha Island was the other island we went to, but we didn’t actually make landfall. Instead, we anchored off the coast and were allowed to go snorkeling and even jump off the boat!
Hype Catamaran was truly a fun boat tour especially if you are with a bunch of your friends. Some might see this as a party boat and get put off by it, but I’m here to tell you that it’s not that type of trashy party boat at all. Yes, people are drinking and dancing but it’s contained to the back of the boat. If you want to get away, you can just hang out in the front of the boat and soak in all the views. They do a really good job of separating the spaces so you can move around the boat as you please. Overall, highly recommend this Phuket boat tour!
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Simba Sea Trips
Simba Sea Trips was the second Phuket boat tour that we took on our trip. I found this company because I was desperately trying to visit Koh Phi Phi, specifically Maya Bay, without having the throngs of crowds there. We were also staying in Patong Beach in Phuket at the time and didn’t want to move accommodations either so I tried to find a boat tour that would take us to Koh Phi Phi. I know that there are a lot of general speed boats that take you to Koh Phi Phi Don (the main island) but the times are very limited and you pretty much have to navigate your own way to Maya Bay which is on Koh Phi Phi Leh (the smaller island). Also, all of the speed boats get there the same time so I would have been stuck in the same crowds I was trying to avoid.
So, after much Googling and research, I finally came across this highly-rated boat tour called Simba Sea Trips that offer a special sunrise boat tour from Phuket to Koh Phi Phi. The cost was 4,455 THB (~$121 USD) per person and we had to be up and ready by 4:30 a.m. To be honest, it took my group and myself a couple of days to really commit to this. I mean we were all on vacation and the last thing anyone really wanted to do was wake up before the sun did. Well, after taking the tour, I can confirm that it was ABSOLUTELY WORTH the early morning wake up call. We actually got to watch the sunrise over the sea and it was truly one of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve ever seen. Our tour guide said that we were lucky since the clouds usually cover the sun at the horizon. Not sure if he just tells everyone that, but the sunrise was so spectacular that I didn’t even question it.
Once we got done ooh-ing and aah-ing over the sunrise, we headed straight for Maya Bay! We got to the dock, our tour guides took us through the park and straight to the beach where they set up a small breakfast picnic for us. They served us coffee, banana bread, and some Thai sweets wrapped up in banana leaves. I swear that this boat tour had some of the best snacks I had in all of Thailand! The next stop was Pileh Lagoon and was probably my favorite place out of all Phuket, if not all of Thailand. The waters were so crystal clear and reflected this perfect turquoise blue. Unlike Maya Bay, you were actually allowed to swim and snorkel in Pileh Lagoon. Our tour guide even took us to certain snorkel spots where we got to see sharks, clams, and of course, Nemo!
The tour ended with showing us some other smaller signs around Koh Phi Phi and then we headed back just in time for lunch back on Phuket. Again, their food game was on point because that buffet lunch was amazing. I had two full plates of food and could have probably had a third! I would say the best part of Simba Sea Trips was definitely the crew and specifically our tour guide. He was so knowledgeable and always made sure to point different things out to us. A good tour guide can make all the difference on a trip. So, if you can muster up the energy and wake up early enough, I highly recommend taking this sunrise boat tour or any tour from Simba Sea Trips. I know I will definitely be booking them again if I’m ever back in Phuket.
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Boat and Beyond
Boat and Beyond was the third Phuket boat tour that we took and to be honest, the one I was looking forward to the most! Not going to lie, when I saw their website and pictures, I thought this boat tour is every Instagrammer’s dream and that I have to do it! We booked the exclusive James Bond Luxury Longtail Boat tour for 15,900 THB (~$432 USD) which I was excited about because my group and I haven’t been on a longtail boat yet and second, Boat and Beyond’s longtail boat just looked gorgeous. I could already imagine myself laying out in the front of the boat with those bright yellow cushions. Another reason I was excited about this tour was that it was our only private boat tour so my friends and I had the whole boat to ourselves.
We had scheduled Boat and Beyond on our last day in Phuket (‘saving the best for last” kind of thing). They picked us up from our Airbnb and drove us almost 45 minutes to the east side of Phuket. We get to the dock and all of us got on the boat until we notice that the boat sounded like it was having engine problems. Well, long story short, our longtail boat wasn’t working and they only had two longtail boat available. The other one worked just fine (it was right next to us) but there was already another group in it.
So, here where it gets a little bit frustrating. The tour guide literally just told us that the engine was broken and that they had no other option for us. All they can do was just drive us back the 45 minutes back to our Airbnb. Mind you, this was our last day in Phuket and we were looking forward to going to James Bond Island and Phang Nga Bay. It was upsetting because they were just like, “tough luck.” It’s even more upsetting because they could have checked the engine WAYYYYYYY before we got there. But since they waited until the last minute to check their engine, we were already too late to book any other tour companies since they would have already left for the day.
At the very last minute, our tour guide said that she found us a speed boat that could take us to the islands instead. Granted, it’s not the cute longtail boat I was dreaming of but at least we still got to go to James Bond Island and Phang Nga Bay. She said that it would take 45 minutes for the speed boat to arrive so we stuck around the pier and just started drinking beers from a nearby convenience store. Because at this point, “why not?”
Well, can anyone tell me why this speed boat took over 1.5 hours to get to the dock? Who knows except to just chalk it up to “Thai” time I guess. The boat tour was supposed to start at 8:30 a.m. but we did not leave that dock probably until like 11:30 a.m. At this point, I just wanted to get on the boat and get going. The rest of the tour went pretty basic for me. There were some questions of safety like when we went to one of the caves, why did every other tour group have helmets and we didn’t. This was even more noticeable since my friend and I hit our heads pretty hard inside the cave. Second, lunch was supposed to be this cute picnic on a private beach, which it was, but our tour guide literally set up our picnic and then left back to the boat. She didn’t say what the food was or even let us know that we could start eating. She just literally left! Don’t get me wrong, she was super nice and accommodating, but the level of service wasn’t what you would expect from a “luxury” boat tour.
Anyways, all of us made the best of it since we’re really here to enjoy each other’s company. The speed boat ended up being clutch since it got us to every destination faster albeit it was super noisy and we couldn’t really talk to each other. Overall, I wish I could recommend Boat and Beyond, but from my personal experience, I just can’t right now. Hopefully, one day I’ll get to try that longtail boat and by then, maybe the service will have improved as well. This company definitely has potential, especially in the Instagram world, but as a luxury tour operator, they need to step up their game a little bit.
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