Apr 18, 2025
Very Friendly Staff Members and Nice Beaches - The staff members are truly entertaining and friendly! The beaches in the Similan Islands are spectacular and crystal clear along with the parts of the sea I snorkled to! I would love to go back again just to enjoy the beaches!
Review provided by Viator
Mar 18, 2025
Top organized tour to the Similian Islands! - Well organized tour to get to the Similian Islands. We were even able to postpone the tour for a day without any problems. The guides were very nice and tried. We were also constantly provided with drinks and food 👍🏼
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Mar 1, 2025
Fantastic similan is a well organised large tour company - Great organization and people, there were a lot of people but well organised, would recommend it. There was plenty of time for activities, the boat ride did feel long.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Apr 21, 2024
Great Day Out. - We enjoyed this tour. We saw lots of different variety of fish when snorkelling.
The crew were excellent (Lady Gaga).
Review provided by Viator
Mar 29, 2024
Wonderful places to see - Very good organization👏 but too many tourists. If you want to enjoy the beaches in peace, it won't happen. But the places we visited were beautiful, breathtaking 🤩 Our guide Tee was unique. Day well spent, I will never forget it 👌🏼🌞
Review provided by Viator
Mar 27, 2024
Touristy but worth it - Yes very touristy but well organised. Free drinks and snacks on the boat plus the bfast lunch and dinner. Staff is helpful and makes sure u get the best photos on the beach. Yes it’s a lot to travel car ride is 2 h from phuket south plus waiting time and boat ride. Total travel time 3-4h one way. 5h on the beach/snorkelling. Pick up in Karon beach at 6am and you reach phuket Karon beach back by 7:40pm. But for the type of turquoise water and white sand the trip is worth it. You don’t l get such beaches in Phuket. Bring water shoes for the big rock beach as it has white coral stones inside the water which one needs to cross to get to the deeper waters. Facilities at the checkin point are great they cater to many groups of travellers, despite the hundreds of ppl no chaos on the tour. Lunch was also okay the veg soup was delicious. They have one veg set lunch option and two other meat options. They provide a free big beach bag baskets with a mat towel mask and fins. Trip is Good for solo travelers too.
Review provided by Viator
Mar 6, 2025
FUN ADVENTURE. - It was a wonderful day! The trip was well - organized. We were picked up at our hotel on time. The van ride to the tour office was about an hour and a half, but comfortable. Drive through different towns was interesting.
We were provided with brightly-colored bags with towels and snorkel gear. Breakfast was provided. The participants were divided into groups of about 30 per boat.
Similan Island is stunning and the view from the top of the mountain is spectacular. The path up was rocky in places, so it is well-advised that you wear sneakers or water shoes. They sell them ( water shoes) at the sundry shop for 150 Baht.
The place we stopped at for snorkeling didn’t have a lot of fish. Disappointing, but the water is beautiful - warm and refreshing.
Lunch was also provided and it was good and plentiful. Standard picnic fare PLUS delicious shrimp.
The afternoon snack was a nice treat before we boarded our van back to the hotel.
We thought we had a good value for the money we paid and it was fun.
We recommend this excursion.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Feb 27, 2025
Well organized snorkeling trip - They have quite an extensive setup at the pier (a huge hangar hosting multiple groups of people that constantly get in/out and take their assigned boats. Overall they are well organized so there isn’t a lot of ambiguity in terms of what is going on, where we need to meet and at what time.
What was not so comfortable was the extremely long trip (by car, then by speed boat) to the islands. While the car is OK, the speedboat is packed (rows of 3 + isle + 3 chairs) and the chairs are not comfortable. The seats are too high so you have your legs hanging most of the time which sucks. Another issue is that the smell of gasoline is constant during the boat ride.
Food is OK, nothing spectacular, but not bad either.
I had my own snorkel and fins that I brought with me. I think they do give out snorkels but I haven’t seen many other people with fins. Since some of the snorkeling spots are around the boat (in deep water) I highly recommend bringing fins with you.
They ask for passport photos in advance. I provided this to their whatsapp number but received no reply/confirmation. Eventually they just made us fill in a table with the passport numbers at their pier so don’t bother. I believe it is for insurance.
I don’t know why they don’t include the 400THB fee for the access int he price. This is not that convenient. Also, make sure to insist getting the 200 THB for any children you have in your group. Although this is mentioned on Viator, our guide asked us for 400 THB initially. I had to tell her and insist a bit about the discount for children which she eventually went with, after talking with her colleagues.
During snorkeling we saw
- fish (various species)
- corral
- crabs (up on rocks)
- 2 sea turtles
Review provided by Viator
Feb 18, 2025
Adam - Ottawa, Canada Review of Similan Islands - Beautiful views/scenery, the transportation ride was a bit long despite having the convenience of hotel pickup and drop off which was a great option. Furthermore, we found the hotels should have been in closer proximity to one another so the travel time back home would be slightly less/stuck in traffic. The staff was professional and friendly and the food was overall decent, would recommend, reason for 4 star was due to transportation and the travel time was a bit lengthy. - Adam & Keven (Ottawa, Canada).
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Apr 4, 2024
Rubbish snorkeling, overcrowded and uncomfortable, poor food but pretty beach. Not worth all the travel - Similar islands review
Me and my partner went on a similan islands tour on 01/04/24. We went to the similan islands as it is regarded as the second best place to snorkel if you are holidaying in phucket (1st best being surin island, but the tours are not regular ). (the reason we didn't go to surin island is because the tour was further away so would have to be up even earlier, it did not run everyday like th similan tour, and was more expensive).
The similan islands are actually located much further in the north, a 2 hour drive north from Kata beach. Then you get the speedboat to the similan islands which takes a further 1 hour 30 minutes. So in total it is 3 hours 30 mins trip from Kata beach. This meant we had to get up at 5.30am for it as we got picked up at 6am.
This was a long time of travelling but I was expecting that as it had been fully explained how far away it was. And this would of been worth the travel if the snorkeling was as described, some amazing fish and coral. But to be honest the snorkeling was not very good at all. I felt a bit robbed of my money with our tour. I had read reviews beforehand and people were saying that surin island are better than similan for snorkeling but they said it was a close call and that the similan islands were still really good. But from mine and my partners experience we did not think the snorkeling was good at all. Very little fish, and the fish that there was were just the standard fish that I have seen doing the phi phi island tour.
There was 2x stops for snorkeling and 2 X stops for island / sunbathing. they advertise it as 45 minutes in each snorkeling stop and roughly an hour to relax at the island stops. And it was planned as: set off -snorkel , island, snorkel, island - go home.
I didn't time when I got off the boat and on again, but 100% it was not 45 minutes for each snorkeling spot. Maybe 20/25 minutes max snorkeling at each place which was more than enough anyways as there was not much coral or fish.
The 2x island relaxing stops were very beautiful and picturesque, with a lot of people getting off the boat for photos as the water was crystal clear and the sky bright blue. However, there was no sunbeds on either of the islands so you had to either be in the sea or hide under the trees to get some shade.
The first island stop was where we had our lunch that was included in the price of the ticket. It was a really unpleasant meal as it was not in an air conditioned building or anything. It was outside on uncleaned picnic benches which were wet and sticky as loads of other boats were coming to the island to get lunch at the same place. Due to the fact that we had snorkelled beforehand I felt sticky already from the saltwater and sand on me and did not like the fact that everyone just had to find a space and such onto these unclean picnic tables with 6 other people. There was flies everywhere but we did have some shade from the trees. The food was in metal trays with plastic lids. The food was cold and consisted of: two fried chicken wings, spaghetti with a tomato sauce on, rice, bag on vegetables in a tomato sauce and a small bottle of water.
Me and my partner rushed this meal so that we could go back in the sea where it was cleaner. The waves were really strong and everyone was clearly loving being in the sea and enjoying getting knocked over by the waves. The sea was super clear and there was no jellyfish or anything in the water. On the first island there was also a walk up to a famous rock where you could get a photo of an Ariel view of the island and sea below. Me and my partner decided not to do this as we did not need the photo from above as we were happy with our photos from the ground and were enjoying being in the waves. There was nowhere to shop on the island if you enjoy shopping, apart from a tiny store to buy a ice-cream etc .
After this island stop we were told we were going for or second snorkel so we all got back on the boat which took some time , counting people on and setting off again and we didn't leave the island . We just drove to a section of water off of the beach. We could of swam to it quicker than we got to it on the boat, it was pointless getting back onto the boat. And again at the second stop the snorkeling was ever worse than it had been at the first stop. Common fish, not that many fish / coral, very deep so can barely see the lower down fish.
The second island we went to was a lot smaller than the first island , it was more like a cove. Trees were overhanging the water along the full beach cover so all the water had twigs and leaves in. And there were massive rocks and boulders in the water which looked great for photos as they stood out so much from the clear water. But. The island was very rocky, stoney and full of shells / twigs so it was hard to walk on if you were not wearing water shoes. But again the waves were massive and it was fun to be in the water. However, there is many beaches including Kata which have great waves so this trip really was not worth it as a snorkeling tour, and I am very shocked by people saying it's a great snorkeling tour. To me it seemed more of a tour for photos as on the last island most people were posing on the rocks or on the swings facing the water.
After this island it was a 1 hour 30.mins ride back to the island. The speedboat was jam packed with 64 people on so you all had to sit up there was nowhere to lay or get conformable.
When we got back from the tour there was food for us which was good as I didn't eat most of lunch due to how packed the place was. So I was pretty hungry by 5pm.when.we got back to the port so I ate some of the food there before we got a taxi back to our hotel which was another 2 hour drive.
I would not recommend this tour it was 7 hours traveling for substandard snorkeling, not relaxing beaches, overcrowded , underwhelming food and massively overpriced for what it is.
Review provided by Tripadvisor