Phuket island tours: Phi Phi, Phang Nga, Similan, Coral and Racha (September 2026)

Five island trips, four piers

Phuket sells five island days and they leave from four different piers, which matters more than the brochures admit because the pickup loop and the drive to the pier are where the hours go. Phi Phi speedboats leave Rassada Pier in Phuket Town on the sheltered east coast. Phang Nga Bay boats — the James Bond trip — leave Ao Po Grand Marina or Bang Rong Pier in the north-east corner near Pa Khlok. Coral Island, Racha and most sunset boats leave Chalong Pier in the south-east. The Similan speedboats do not leave Phuket at all: they run from Tab Lamu, south of Khao Lak on the mainland, an hour and a half to two hours by van from a Phuket hotel. The Khai islands, a half-day beach stop ten kilometres east of the island, go from Rassada too and are often the last stop of a Phi Phi day.

Ranked by the per-adult median in September 2026: Coral / Racha $39 (n = 7), James Bond Island $52 (n = 12), Phi Phi Islands $63 (n = 6) and Similan Islands $76 (n = 6). The Khai half-day is not a segment of the index, so this page gives it a pier, a crossing and a description but no price — a rule of the site rather than an oversight. All four priced trips are join-in seats with hotel pickup, lunch and snorkel masks; private speedboats and longtails are priced per boat and left out of the sample.

Crossings and the west-coast swell

The four trips sit in two kinds of water. Phi Phi and the Similans are open-water crossings — forty-five to sixty minutes to Phi Phi Leh, an hour to an hour and a half to Koh Miang — and they feel every metre of Andaman swell. Coral Island and Racha are short runs south of Chalong: fifteen to twenty minutes to Koh Hey and thirty-five to forty-five to Racha Yai, with Chalong Bay sheltered behind the island. Phang Nga Bay is enclosed on three sides by the mainland and Phuket's east coast, so the water inside it stays workable when the west coast is white.

The west-coast marine normals used on this site put the calm months at January, February, March, April, October, November and December — a median of zero to two rough-sea days — when every crossing runs to schedule. May and June bring swell: three to eight rough days, a Phi Phi crossing that slams on some mornings and the occasional speedboat held in port by the Harbour Department. July, August and September are rough, with nine or more rough days in a typical year; the Similans are closed, Maya Bay is shut in August and September, and Phang Nga Bay is the island trip to book. A Harbour Department cancellation is refunded or rebooked; a cancellation by the passenger the night before usually is not, so in the swell months the sensible order is Phang Nga first and Phi Phi on the calmest morning of the week.

Park fees, rules and closures

Three of the five trips enter a national park and pay for it in cash on the day, outside the ticket: 400 THB per foreign adult (200 THB per child) at Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi, 300 THB (150 THB) at Ao Phang Nga, and 500 THB (250 THB) at Mu Ko Similan, rates checked Sep 5, 2026. Coral Island, Racha and the Khai islands are outside any park and charge nothing at the beach beyond sunbeds and drinks. The Phi Phi ticket covers Maya Bay, Pileh Lagoon and Bamboo Island on the same day; the Phang Nga fee is collected before landing on Khao Phing Kan; the Similan fee at the park headquarters on Koh Miang.

Two closures shape the calendar. Maya Bay closes from 1 August to 30 September every year for reef recovery, and Phi Phi tours run through it with Bamboo Island or Pileh in its place; for the rest of the year boats moor behind Phi Phi Leh, visitors walk in through Loh Samah, and swimming inside the bay is banned. Mu Ko Similan opens on 15 October and closes on 15 May; from 16 May to 14 October nothing runs and a listing that sells the trip is selling something else. Inside every park the rules are the same — no touching or standing on coral, no feeding fish, reef-safe sunscreen, no shells or sand — and the rangers and the crews enforce them.

Which island trip, by what you want

For the photographs, Phi Phi — $63 (range $43–$91, n = 6) —: Maya Bay, Pileh Lagoon, the Viking Cave, lunch on Phi Phi Don and a beach in the afternoon, eight to ten hours with six or seven on the water. For water clarity and snorkelling over hard coral, the Similans — $76 (range $67–$120, n = 6) —, at the cost of a 05:00 pickup and a twelve-to-fourteen-hour day. For children, non-swimmers, older travellers and anyone visiting between May and October, Phang Nga Bay — $52 (range $35–$109, n = 12) —: sea-canoeing through tidal caves with a paddler doing the work, the James Bond rock, lunch in the stilt village of Koh Panyee, and calm water when the west coast is not. For a short, cheap sea day with no fee and no early start, Coral and Racha — $39 (range $33–$60, n = 7) —, or the Khai islands if a half-day is all the holiday can spare.

The spread between the cheapest island trip (Coral / Racha, $39) and the dearest (Similan Islands, $76) is mostly fuel and distance, not quality. What moves a price inside one segment is the boat: a big-boat Phi Phi day is about half the speedboat price and sees less; the classic big boat with canoes is the cheap end of the James Bond range and the speedboat with beach stops the dear end; a longtail from Rawai to Coral Island is a different, cheaper product than the Chalong speedboat. Compare the stop list before comparing the price.

Piers: where they are and how long the van takes

The pier table below gives straight-line kilometres from each area's centre to each pier, and minutes from a stated model — 1.4 × the straight line at 30 km/h on the island (55 km/h on the mainland highway to Tab Lamu), rounded to 5 minutes — indicative, not measured. The model is there to show which pier is close to which area, not to promise a time: a hotel pickup runs a loop through several hotels before the pier, which adds twenty to forty minutes, and the west-coast hill roads slow to a crawl on a wet-season afternoon. Phuket Town, Panwa and Chalong are the natural bases for Rassada and Chalong Pier; Bang Tao, Layan, Surin and the northern beaches are closest to Ao Po and Bang Rong for Phang Nga Bay and to the highway north for Tab Lamu; Patong, Kata and Karon sit in the middle of every loop and are collected first and dropped last. Guests who want the Similans without the drive stay a night in Khao Lak, where the same boats leave with a short pickup.

Booking an island trip

The operator's own price is the lowest published one, the marketplace price is within a few dollars of it with a refund policy attached, and the hotel-desk price is the same seat with a commission added on the day. Booking a day ahead removes the third price; the buttons under the table are marketplace links for the standard version of each trip, disclosed as affiliate links, and the medians on this page do not depend on them. Carry baht for the park fee, fins and the paddler's tip, confirm the pickup time in writing — 06:30–07:30 for Phi Phi from the west coast, 05:00–06:30 for the Similans — and, in the swell months, keep the last calm morning of the week free for the open-water crossing.