Phuket Boat Tours to Phi Phi and Phang Nga Bay

Mu Ko Phi Phi: 400 THB per adult, in cash

Every island on the Phi Phi circuit — Phi Phi Leh, Maya Bay, Pileh Lagoon, the Viking Cave, Monkey Beach — sits inside Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park. Foreign adults pay 400 THB, children 400 THB's half at 200, and under-3s go free. The rate structure is published by Thailand's Department of National Parks, and the park's own visitor information covers the closures that go with it.

Operators collect it in cash at check-in, before you board. On the $43 speedboat the listing spells this out — "mandatory to pay by cash at the check-in point" — and on the $44 day trip it sits in the not-included list. The Sea Angel boat and the power catamaran have already paid it for you.

Bring baht. There is no card machine at a check-in desk on a pier at seven in the morning, and one of the two tours that excludes the fee also adds about 5% for card payments on anything else you buy.

• Mu Ko Phi Phi: 400 THB adult, 200 THB child, free under 3
• Ao Phang Nga: 300 THB adult, 150 THB child aged 3 to 14
• Khai Island landing fee: 20 THB, and one tour already includes it
• Mu Ko Similan, for comparison: 500 THB adult — and shut for the monsoon

Ao Phang Nga: 300 THB, and both bay tours cover it

James Bond Island is really Khao Phing Kan, and the thin needle of rock offshore is Ko Tapu. Both stand inside Ao Phang Nga National Park, where foreigners pay 300 THB per adult and 150 THB per child aged 3 to 14 under the fee schedule in force since June 2022.

Here the picture is simpler: both Phang Nga tours on this page include the fee. The 7 Wonders circuit lists it, and so does the sunset cruise. Neither collects anything at the pier beyond what you choose to buy on board.

The wider point is that a park fee is not a scam or an upsell — it funds the ranger boats and the reef work that closed Maya Bay for four years. It is simply a cost that some listings show you and others do not.

The comparison the platforms will not run for you

Sort any booking platform by price and you get the two tours that exclude the park fee at the top. Add 400 THB per adult and the order inverts: the $43 speedboat becomes about $55 and the $44 day trip about $56, while the $51 Sea Angel boat stays at $51 with the fee already paid.

That is roughly a dollar or two per person, not a fortune. It matters because it flips the ranking, and because a fee collected in cash at a pier at 08:00 is the single most common source of "nobody told us" in Phi Phi trip reports. Two travellers on a tight budget who booked the cheapest listing end up paying more than they would have for the boat with better ratings.

One detail that goes the other way: the $43 speedboat includes the 20 THB Khai Island landing fee that the others leave you to hand over on the sand.

The annual closure runs 1 August to 30 September

Maya Bay closes to visitors every year from 1 August through 30 September so the reef and the beach can recover, and 2026 is running to that calendar. It reopens on 1 October.

The boats still sail. Every Phi Phi tour on this page runs its normal day during the closure and sightsees Maya Bay from the water instead of landing — one operator explicitly reallocates the time to Phi Phi Don, and another states that the boat may only pass by. Nothing is cancelled and nothing is refunded, because nothing was promised as a landing.

If standing on that particular beach is the reason you are booking, go after 1 October. If the day out is the reason, the closure barely dents it: Pileh Lagoon, the snorkel stop and Khai Island are the parts most reviewers actually rave about.

Swimming in the bay is banned all year

Since the bay reopened after its long closure, swimming inside it is not allowed. You can walk in to about knee depth, and rangers enforce that line rather than suggest it. Boats cannot approach or anchor at the beach either: they come in through Loh Samah Bay at the back of Phi Phi Leh and a short boardwalk carries you through to the sand.

The Sea Angel listing states both rules on the booking page — "Arrive at Loh Samah Bay and follow the official walking route", "Swimming at Maya Bay is not permitted" — which is a fair signal of how the rest of its small print behaves. Others leave you to discover it at the boardwalk.

The practical upshot: the swimming everyone photographs at Phi Phi happens at Pileh Lagoon, twenty minutes away, and at the snorkel stop. Judge a tour on how long it gives you there, not on how long it gives you at Maya Bay.

What the closure means for the two bay tours

Nothing at all — Phang Nga Bay has no equivalent closure. James Bond Island and the six-island circuit run their full itineraries through August and September, which is one reason to look north-east rather than south-east if you are here in the monsoon months.

The other reason is the water. Phang Nga Bay is a shallow, island-shielded basin, and the crossing to it is short. The run to Phi Phi is an hour of open Andaman Sea, and in low season that hour is where the seasickness happens.

Phi Phi is a swimming day across open water

The Phi Phi group lies about 45 kilometres south-east of Phuket, out in the Andaman Sea. Four tours here make that crossing, and all four are speedboats or a power catamaran because anything slower would eat the day. Reckon on an hour each way at speed, in open water, with the boat slamming if there is any swell at all.

What you get for it is colour and water: Pileh Lagoon between vertical cliffs, a snorkel stop chosen on the day for visibility, an hour and a half on Phi Phi Don with lunch, and a beach hour on Khai. Four tours, four slightly different orders of the same stops.

Book this if the point of the day is being in the sea. Skip it if anyone in the group is a nervous sailor between June and October.

Phang Nga Bay is a scenery day in sheltered water

North-east of Phuket the sea turns into a shallow basin studded with limestone towers, mangrove channels and caves you enter lying flat in a canoe. The crossing is short and the water is protected by the islands, so this is the route that keeps working when the Andaman is up.

The six-island circuit is the fullest version: Ko Yao Yai, the Panak caves, canoeing at Hong Island, lunch in the stilt village of Koh Panyee, James Bond Island and a last swim at Naka. Its 4.8 from 2,616 reviews is the strongest evidence base on this page after the sunset cruise.

The sunset cruise is the other shape entirely — a big catamaran with day beds and a DJ, kayaks at Hong Island, and dinner served as the light goes. It is by some distance the most expensive day here, and the only one that gets you back after dark.

Which one if you only have a day

Take Phang Nga Bay between June and October, when the Phi Phi crossing is at its worst and Maya Bay is either closed or unswimmable anyway. Take Phi Phi between November and April, when the sea flattens out and the water clarity that the snorkel stops depend on is at its best.

If you want both and have two days, do them in that order — the Phi Phi day is the more tiring of the two, and the bay makes a better recovery day than a warm-up.

One more consideration nobody mentions on the listings: the 7 Wonders tour states plainly that it is not suitable if you have a flight, a cruise or an evening appointment the same day. Hotel drop-off after the boat lands can take another hour and a half in Phuket traffic. Take that seriously on any of these tours, not just that one.

The numbers the listings do give

Only two of the six state a capacity. The $43 speedboat says 40 to 42 guests on a three-engine boat, which is normal for the Phi Phi run and is the number to picture whenever a listing stays quiet. The sunset cruise states a maximum of 95, which sounds enormous until you see the boat — it is a wide catamaran with a top deck, a dance floor and a bar, designed for exactly that.

The other four say nothing, and a comparison site should not invent numbers for them. What we can say is that all four run the same class of shared speedboat or catamaran out of commercial piers, and none of them is sold as a small-group product.

If a small boat matters to you, this is not the page's strength: private charters out of Phuket start well above these prices and are a different market. Phuket charter operators quote roughly 16,000 to 36,000 THB for the boat for a day — about $490 to $1,100, checked August 2026 — which is worth doing arithmetic on for a group of six or more.

Crowding is the most common complaint, and it is fixable

Across the review summaries for the Phi Phi boats, the recurring criticism is the same one: the speedboat feels cramped and reviewers would prefer fewer people per boat. It is worth knowing rather than worth avoiding — the fix is choosing your seat and your departure rather than a different tour.

Sit toward the middle-rear of a speedboat if you feel the slamming, toward the bow if you want it. One reviewer noted the guide telling them exactly that: where to sit if you dislike the bouncing, where to sit for the adrenaline. Ask on boarding.

The other fix is timing. The $43 tour sells a late 10:45 departure alongside the standard 09:30, which puts you at the busy stops behind the main wave and gets you a sunset on the way home. The catamaran runs the circuit backwards for the same reason.

Which pier each boat leaves from

The Sea Angel speedboat runs from its own pier at Koh Siray, 10 to 15 minutes from Phuket Town, past the fishing harbour after the bridge. Because the company owns the pier, the boats and the crew, it also sells a meet-at-pier fare below the hotel-pickup one — worth taking if you are staying anywhere near town.

The $43 speedboat checks in at Roong Siam Pier and drops off at five locations including Kata Beach and Chalong. The catamaran uses a lounge at Royal Phuket Marina. The 7 Wonders tour leaves from Boat Lagoon Pier with thirteen pickup zones covering most of the island. The sunset cruise boards at Ao Por Pier in the north-east and returns to Yacht Haven Marina.

That geography matters if you are staying in Patong or Kata: the northern piers mean a long van run at both ends of the day.

• Sea Angel Cruise Pier, Koh Siray — 10 to 15 minutes from Phuket Town
• Roong Siam Pier — five drop-off points including Kata and Chalong
• Royal Phuket Marina — lounge, breakfast and briefing before boarding
• Boat Lagoon Pier — 13 pickup zones, 45-minute van leg
• Ao Por Pier — north-east coast, returns to Yacht Haven Marina

An eight-hour tour is an eleven-hour day

The 7 Wonders listing is unusually straight about this: pickup between 07:00 and 08:00, back at the pier around 17:00 to 17:30, hotel drop-off up to another hour and a half depending on traffic and where you sleep. That is a genuine eleven hours door to door against a listed eight.

The same arithmetic applies everywhere on this page. The $44 day trip shows a 105-minute van leg before the boat even starts and a one-hour transfer home afterwards. The shared van is the hidden cost of every hotel-pickup option, because it collects from several hotels in sequence.

Two practical consequences. Do not book any of these on a departure day — one operator says so outright. And if the van run bothers you more than the fare, the meet-at-pier options are the cure, not a cheaper tour.

The surcharges that are stated up front

Outlying areas cost extra and the listings do say so. The sunset cruise charges 3,300 THB per van from Khao Lak or Bang Sak and offers no transfer from Krabi at all. The $44 day trip charges 1,400 THB for a private transfer from Mai Khao, Ao Por, Yamu and Pa Klok, 2,500 THB from Khao Lak, and adds around 5% on card payments.

On the day, the usual extras are fins at 100 THB a pair, beach chairs, and the long-tail photo boat at Pileh Lagoon that several reviewers say was worth it. One review summary for the Sea Angel tour mentions upselling at the pier and asks for clearer information on those optional costs in advance — so treat the list above as your advance information.

None of that changes the ranking in the price table. It is simply the difference between a day that surprises you and one that does not.

Pack for a wet day, not a beach day

Cash in baht comes first, and not only for the park fee: fins are 100 THB a pair, beach chairs cost money, the long-tail photo boat costs money, and card acceptance at a pier is unreliable. A dry bag matters more than a towel — every one of these boats gets spray over the bow, and phones die that way weekly.

Sunscreen should be the reef-safe kind; one operator asks for biodegradable outright. Water shoes are worth the space on the Phi Phi tours, where you board from the water at some stops and the sand at Khai has broken shell through it. Motion-sickness tablets go in before boarding — one tour includes them, the rest expect you to have thought of it.

Leave the drone at home. Two of the six listings ban them explicitly, and national park enforcement around Phi Phi Leh is not casual.

• Cash in baht for park fees, fins and extras
• Dry bag, and a strap for your phone
• Reef-safe or biodegradable sunscreen
• Water shoes for boarding and for Khai's shell sand
• Motion-sickness tablets, taken before you board

The rules that get enforced

No swimming inside Maya Bay, at any time of year. No feeding or touching the macaques at Monkey Beach — one listing bans both in writing, and the monkeys bite. No drones over the national park islands. No littering, and no smoking on several of these boats.

Some restrictions are about who can board rather than what you do: pregnant travellers are excluded on all six, and one speedboat also excludes travellers over 80, over 100 kg, or with recent surgery, along with back, heart and mobility conditions. Read that list before you book for an older parent.

The itineraries themselves are conditional. Every operator here reserves the right to change the order, drop a stop or replace one, for tide, swell, crowd control or park rules. In low season they use that clause, and a tour that skips a stop in a storm is doing its job rather than short-changing you.