Phi Phi tour from Phuket, all seven compared

Phi Phi Leh and Phi Phi Don sit out in the Andaman Sea, and every boat on this site ends up in the same handful of bays. What a phi phi tour from Phuket changes is the shape of your day: you buy the water twice over, once on the way out and once on the way back, and the listing counts all of it as the tour. That is why the shortest figure any of these seven puts in writing is eight hours, while the three- and four-hour outings sold on this site all begin on Phi Phi itself.

Read as a Phuket to phi phi day trip, the seven split cleanly by how much of the day they take. Three book for eight hours flat. One is written as «8 hours - 1 day» and another simply as «1 day», which is the operator’s way of saying a full day rather than a measured one — it is not twenty-four hours, and it is not a number you can divide into the fare. One books for nine hours and one for eleven.

The honest gap in the data is the crossing itself. Not one of the eighteen descriptions says how many minutes the water takes, how far the islands are, or what time the boat leaves. What you can plan around is the total: book a phi phi tour from Phuket and the whole day is spoken for, and the listing tells you how many hours that is before you pay.

All seven descriptions name a speedboat or a speed catamaran. The slow open longtail days are sold on Phi Phi itself, with one exception at the top of this price range, which pairs a shared speedboat with four hours of private longtail.

How much of the day it takes

Three of the seven book for eight hours, one for nine, and the eleven-hour one is the private day that adds a longtail leg on the islands. Two give no single number at all.

What the fare works out at per hour

Divide fare by hours and the cheapest of these days runs about $4.50 an hour, door to door — the whole booked day, travel included, since no listing says how much of it is spent in the water. Two of the seven cannot be divided at all.

Which bays the description names

All seven name Maya Bay. Four add Bamboo Island, four add Pileh Lagoon, four name Viking Cave. Two call at Khai Island, one at Maiton Island, and three name Monkey Beach or Monkey Bay — nothing in the data says whether those two names mean the same water. A Phi Phi Islands boat tour from Phuket is sold on its stops, so read them twice.

What is written about food and kit

Five of the seven name lunch or meals; two say nothing about food. Six name snorkelling — the nine-hour premium day is the one that does not, and talks about the beach and the table instead. Where a description is silent, the booking page is the only place to check.

For most people the best phi phi island tour from Phuket is «Phuket: Maya, Phi Phi, and Bamboo Island with Buffet Lunch» at $42. Not because it is the cheapest — it is not — but because the evidence behind it is on a different scale: 21,589 reviews at 4.6, where the next Phuket departure has 4,262. Eight hours, a buffet lunch, Maya Bay and snorkelling at Bamboo Island, for $6 more than the cheapest seat here.

Book the $36 day instead if the stop list is the point: five places, three meals and a SUP board, on 4,262 reviews. Book the $99 day if a quieter nine hours with a proper lunch appeals more than snorkelling, which that description does not promise. Book the $393 day only if having the longtail to yourselves is worth more than the hours of boat around it.

And one comparison worth making before you book at all: the cheapest seat on this whole site is $18, a four-hour longtail outing that starts on Phi Phi rather than in Phuket. If you are already staying on the islands, a phi phi tour from Phuket is the wrong page for you — you are paying for a crossing you do not need to make.

Every phi phi tour from Phuket here is sold as a whole day, and the number on the listing is the number to plan around. Three say eight hours, one says nine, one says eleven, and two give no single figure: «8 hours - 1 day» and «1 day». Treat those last two as a full day and nothing more precise — they are a label, not a measurement.

What none of the eighteen descriptions gives is a clock. There is no departure hour written down, no meeting time, no crossing time and no return time, on any listing on this site. That matters most for the two long ones: an eleven-hour day and a nine-hour day have to start early to end in daylight, but how early is on the booking calendar, not in the description. Check it there before you book anything else into that day.

Day tours from Phuket to these islands eat the whole day in a way a Phuket day trip along the same coast does not. If you want a half day on the water, this is not the page: every outing on this site shorter than seven hours starts on Phi Phi itself.