Angthong Marine Park Speedboat Tour

The trip to Ant Tong National Park was really disappointing. The speedboat ride was torture. The boat was so crowded that the crew had difficulty seating everyone and people were sitting too close to each other in a terrible crowd. The boat's three engines were very noisy, especially for those sitting next to them. The skipper sailed at a tremendous speed despite the waves and there were terrible jumps during the cruise. The boat's crew was really good in terms of treating the passengers, but the conditions on the boat were unbearable. Maybe a big, slow boat would be better. Because the boat is closed, you can't see the view while sailing, and on this particular cruise, you couldn't stand because of the difficult sailing conditions and the heavy load on the boat. I just waited in anticipation for this day to end.

I joined the tour with my wife and 2 children - ages 10 and 6. We were generally disappointed with the experience. Firstly, the itinerary we received said we would begin with a light breakfast. All we were offered was tea and coffee. This meant we began the day feeling hungry. We were also told there would be fruit on the boat - which there wasn’t Our first stop was snorkelling in a coral reef. We were told we may need water shoes to protect our feet. We felt compelled to take 4 pairs and were only told afterwards they were 1200 baht. There was no mention of needing these in the description of the tour. The reef felt like a boat yard, with probably 100 other snorkellers. And all the coral was dead. Our tour guide told us this was because so many other tourists had been before, and killed it. This is sad. I think a reputable company like Insea should be more concerned with conserving wildlife they are showcasing. We then moved onto Ko Mae Ko to climb a viewpoint and snorkel. Our guide gave us no information about how to manage our time. We began the viewpoint climb and came nowhere near the top, before returning and having almost no time left to do any kayaking. It felt very rushed. The guide could have advised us about which of the viewpoints to aim for with kids. And then what time we should turn back to ensure we still have some time to enjoy the kayaking element. At some point the captain decided to rearrange with schedule without telling us. So the lunch stop was pushed back to 3pm. Our children were crying with hunger, but we moved onto to Ko Wua Ta Lap. Again we were given no advice about what to do there. So just sat on an extremely congested beach. We gave up and had to buy some ice cream for our kids as they were too hungry to do anything else by this point. Finally we were taken to the lunch stop at about 3pm (the itinerary we received said this would be 12.30-1.30pm). We were collected from our hotel at 7.30am so our children had not eaten for over 7 hours. We then returned back to Samui. Finally I would add that our taxi driver to return us to our hotel drive very dangerously. Lots of heavy acceleration and braking, and beeping the horn. We’ve been in quite a few taxis in our visit to Thailand and Samui, and this was the least safe we’ve felt.

The trips were a bit long

We had a brilliant experience on the speedboat to Ang Thong marine park. We travelled as a family of four with two adult children and visited several islands and had time for snorkelling as well as a stop for lunch. Water and soft drinks (cola) provided throughout the day as well as snorkel equipment. Everything was clean and there was plenty of space on the boat, we even had chance to sit salt the font of the boat as well travelled which was a very special experience. The whole team on our boat were informative, friendly and looked after us well. I would highly recommend.

We took our kids out to see the national ocean park which was very nice however the speedboat journey was ruined by having to listen to extremely loud party style music..no one On the boat showed any enthusiasm to get up and party which the rep was trying her best to achieve.. It's not a 18/30 booze cruise if I had know this was going to be the way we traveled I wouldn't of booked it.. At very least there should be a show of hands at start asking for or against loud music even my teenage kids though it was not a great way to travel Think hard before you book the music is loud and not for us