What time is hotel pickup for Phuket tours from Patong, Kata, Karon, Kamala, Bang Tao, Rawai and Nai Harn

Island tours leave early because the boat sails from a pier, not from your beach, and the van has to bring you there first. Below is what four operators publish about hotel pickup (Phuket Tour, Love Andaman, Tisland and Simba Sea Trips), checked on 3 November 2026, our own drive times from seven beaches to the main piers, and what to do if the van does not come. Phuket Tour is the operator our site works with, so read its times as one operator’s programme cards, not as a market rule.

Is there a pickup window for each beach?

No. We read the tour pages, FAQ and terms of the four operators on 3 November 2026, and none lists a window for Patong, Kata, Karon, Kamala, Bang Tao, Rawai or Nai Harn. What they publish is one time per programme and a few rules:

• Phuket Tour. One hotel transfer time on each programme card. Where a card also gives the arrival at the pier, the gap is 60 minutes: Coral Island 07:30 to 08:30, the James Bond catamaran 07:00 to 08:00, Krabi by speedboat 08:00 to 09:00. The FAQ says early departures start from 4 a.m. and that a nonstandard transfer, for example from remote districts, is paid
• Simba Sea Trips. Pickup is about one hour before departure and the exact time is confirmed the day before. A booking made after 21:00 the night before has no transfer, and you must reach the marina 30 minutes before departure
• Tisland. A pickup window on the card (05:15-05:30 on its early Phi Phi catamaran) and a list of areas where the transfer is free
• Love Andaman. One pickup time per programme and 300 baht per person extra for a hotel transfer within Phuket

Pickup times on programme cards

Hotel pickup, when the boat leaves and when it is back at the pier, on 3 November 2026. Card times are for the programme, not for your hotel.

The Simba line is our reading: its tour page says the boat leaves Boat Lagoon Marina at 6:00 and its terms put the pickup about an hour earlier. Simba confirms the exact time the day before, and Phuket Tour’s FAQ says the voucher names the date, time, route and meeting place. Where the pier is named, Love Andaman sails from the private Visit Panwa pier, Tisland and Simba from Boat Lagoon Marina, and Phuket Tour from Rawai pier on Coral Island. Phuket Tour’s other cards do not name the pier.

How long is the drive from each beach to the pier?

Our calculation, not an operator’s figure: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, driving profile, run on 3 November 2026 from the centre point of each beach (the coordinates of our beach pages) to the pier. The calculation has no traffic and no stops for other hotels, so a minibus collecting guests takes longer. Each cell is minutes by car, then kilometres.

Phuket piers:

Piers in Phang Nga, which Similan tours and Phang Nga Bay land tours drive to:

The piers are Rassada (east of Phuket Town), Chalong (south), Boat Lagoon (Royal Phuket Marina, east), Ao Po (Ao Po Grand Marina, northeast) and Rawai (south). Our pages on Khai Islands and Phi Phi say which piers operators use, and the Similan Islands page explains why those tours drive to Thap Lamu. The Visit Panwa pier is not in our tables.

How to read them:

• Coral Island. Phuket Tour allows 60 minutes from pickup to Rawai pier. By our calculation the drive from Bang Tao alone is 49 minutes, so for far hotels the hour is mostly driving: ask whether your pickup is earlier than the card
• Similan Islands. The card puts pickup at 06:00 and the boat at 09:00. The road to Thap Lamu takes 84-111 minutes from these beaches, which with the breakfast and boarding at the pier accounts for most of the three hours
• Which beach. Rawai pier and Chalong are 6-16 minutes from Rawai, Nai Harn, Kata and Karon and 24-49 minutes from Patong, Kamala and Bang Tao. Boat Lagoon is 23-24 minutes from Patong, Kamala and Bang Tao and 29-35 from Kata, Karon, Rawai and Nai Harn

Why is the pickup so early?

• Distance. The Similan boat leaves at 09:00 and reaches island 9 at 10:30 on Phuket Tour’s card, after a drive of 84-111 minutes to the pier
• Crowds. Phuket Tour’s FAQ says a departure from 4 a.m. suits people who want fewer fellow tourists and a far island such as Phi Phi in one day, and that later departures meet more people. Its Phi Phi, Bamboo, Khai and Maiton card sends the boat to Khai first, for beach time before the main crowd. Wikivoyage, a crowd-sourced guide, says Maya Bay is quiet before 08:00 and that from 09:00 speedboats arrive in force from Phuket
• Check-in. Simba’s day is pickup, check-in, light breakfast, safety briefing, boarding. Phuket Tour’s Coral Island and Krabi cards also put tea or coffee and a briefing at the pier
• Return. Most cards bring the boat back to the pier between 14:00 and 17:00; the late-departure Phi Phi catamaran, with a 09:00 pickup, is back in Phuket at 18:00

What to do if nobody picks you up

1. Check the confirmation or voucher for the time, the meeting place and the contact numbers. Simba confirms the exact time the day before, so ask if none has arrived by the evening
2. Call or message the operator at once on the number in your confirmation. Numbers published on 3 November 2026 are in the table below
3. If you are told to make your own way to the pier, ask in writing who pays for the taxi and keep the receipt. We found no operator that publishes a rule for a pickup that does not come
4. Tell the operator before you leave. Simba’s policy charges 100% for a missed departure, including late arrival by your own transport, and does not say what applies when its own pickup fails
5. If you are in trouble and cannot reach anyone, the Tourist Police hotline is 1155, a 24-hour line with multilingual staff according to TAT

Three of the four state no hours, so ask which number is answered at 05:00. Numbers can change; check them on the operator’s site and in your confirmation.

How to choose a hotel for an early start

• Stay in the free zone. Tisland lists Nai Harn (except Baan Krating), Rawai, Kata, Karon, Patong, Chalong, Kalim, Kamala, Kathu, Bangtao and Surin as free on its Phi Phi and James Bond catamarans. On its Coral and Racha catamaran Kamala, Surin, Bangtao, Laguna and Panwa cost 300 baht per person. The same area can be free on one tour and paid on another: Phuket Town is free on the Coral and Racha catamaran and falls among the outlying areas on the Phi Phi and James Bond catamarans
• Match the beach to the pier. For the Similan Islands a hotel in Bang Tao or Kamala is 84-87 minutes from Thap Lamu against 111 from Nai Harn, which is up to 27 minutes each way. For a south pier such as Rawai or Chalong the order flips
• Book before 21:00. Simba does not include the transfer for bookings made after 21:00 the night before
• Ask for the pier. One beach can be 6 minutes from one pier and 53 from another: Rawai is 6 minutes from Rawai pier and 53 from Ao Po. Phuket Tour’s cards mostly do not name it, so ask which pier your tour uses
• Remember traffic. Our times assume free-flowing roads, and we have no traffic data for early mornings

What we could not confirm

• A pickup window by beach from Phuket Tour, Love Andaman, Tisland or Simba: none is published on the pages we read
• How long the minibus loop takes in practice: our drive times are for a single trip without stops or traffic
• The pier for most Phuket Tour programmes: the cards name only Rawai pier for Coral Island
• A published rule for a pickup that never arrives, at any of the four operators
• The drive to the Visit Panwa pier, which Love Andaman uses

To see which programme fits your dates and where you are staying, use the day trip picker. Prices and inclusions are in how much Phuket tours cost, and refund terms for a tour called off for weather are in what happens if your tour is cancelled.