Phuket Travel Forum

I am traveling to Phuket this July and planned for a speed boat trip to phi phi islands. I found Andaman blue sky group website quite good and I e-mailed them and they replied but I am yet to confirm.

Its a speed boat day trip with an English speaking guide and they have assured me that they wont take more than 15 persons in one speed boat, and its 2000 THB per person. I find the price quite reasonable but before I would confirm I would also like to know if anyone have previously dealt with Andaman Blue Sky Travels?
http://www.andamanbluesky-travel.com/

Tina.

Well, at a price like that I am sure they will service you well. You can obviously get a much cheaper rate. You need not pre-book. Once you get to Phuket, go find a tour operator and get a better price. There is however a site that helps you get information on the cheapest or best way to get to your destination as they are a specialist in excursions, etc.... www.thaihideaway.com or just write to info@thaihideaway.com and they might get you better information.. cheers...by the way, if you are concern with the damages to corals and saving our planet, give Phi Phi, Egg Island and Coral Island a skip and find another location. Let the corals grow back, please!

I agree, the price is HIGH.

The night before, simply go into a few shops and ask, "How Much?".

With it being LOW season, and since they need the business, you'll get a great deal.

I disagree that the price is high. For a quality tour with relatively few people on the boat, this is a pretty good rate.

Furthermore, I NEVER encourage people to just show up and ask around at tour vendors in little booths on the street. They will sell anything at all--safe, unsafe, licensed, unlicensed--and they will always promise whatever the customer wants to hear. Your recourse if the tour ends up having "issues" are non-existent. You want to book with a reputable company that keeps their boats well-maintained, has emergency procedures and trained staff, has radio capacity/working life jackets, carries insurance, etc. It's quite simply the case that many, if not most, of the "cheap" boat operators lack some or all of these features. I don't know whether the company you are considering complies with the above, but it is worth asking.

A savings of a few baht is not worth the risk of using the lowest common denominator of tour operators.

You should book your ferry ride Phuket to Phi Phi or Krabi while in Phuket. Price should be much cheaper.
I don't know Andaman Blue Sky Travels, but 2,000 THB/person seems a bit steep.

You have to compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges. In other words, you cannot simply say a price is "steep" without stating what parameters you are considering in the pricing. If quality of service is unimportant, then yes, there are lots of speedboat ops out there with lower prices, and yes, the ferry is the least expensive way to get to Phi Phi.

However, the OP states that the speedboat in question will carry only 15 passengers. The price is THB 2000. The price of the "cheap" snorkel trips is about THB 1500 for an adult and there may be 25 or more passengers crammed on the boat. The price differential is not enough to call THB 2000 "steep" for the services promised. In addition, the ferry takes maybe 150 passengers. What sort of quality of service will a customer receive in these conditions? Finally, July is monsoon season. If I were on a boat with the potential for heavy seas, I'd prefer to be on a smaller boat with trained staff rather than a ferry of any kind (where the staff stand around paralyzed with fear and the life jackets are locked away someplace).

Believe me when I say that you get what you pay for. I've said it before in this forum and I'll say it again. When you are considering tours on Phuket, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. If you want a quality tour with a company that adheres to safety standards and has insurance, TAT licensing, etc., you will need to pay a little more than peanuts.

(Having said this, I am not familiar with Blue Sky and don't know what speedboat op they use. These comments are offered as a basis for asking the "right" questions when booking.)

Agree with Quero. We went on a cheap trip (booked on a stall in Patong) to some of the small islands between Phuket & Phi Phi (Khai Nok, Khai Nai, Khai Nui?) specifically because we wanted to spend a whole day snorkelling.
Lucky we took our own snorkels because their equipment was sub-standard. We had to rent flippers but they were old, and because I have small feet could not get the right size. Got major blisters but no big deal, we had a great day, and a lovely seafood lunch on one of the islands. Problem was, we had a group of Japanese youths on our boat, and all they did on the way & the way back was sleep (hello - the views of Anadaman Sea are just fabulous) and they even had the cheek to ask the tour guide if we could leave and go back to Phuket early so they could shop....Needless to say we outvoted them, only just because they made up half of our boat load. We paid (although cheap) for this trip, why would we want to go back early? Unless this was part of a package that they had already paid for as part of their trip?
We have no prob's with Japanese but really, why would you spend the money to do this only to want to go back early? Suely if they were that tired they should have just skipped the day.
So yes, better to pay more & have a better experience

Thanks all, for your response.
Quero, I totally agree with you. Wish the weather doesn't spoil my trip. I will post my comments after am back from Phuket. :-)

Tina.