Sapphire Princess Docking in Phuket

[harfield]

We are on a 20 day cruise on the Sapphire Princess and docking in Phuket on the 8th March 2019. I am trying to find out where we are actually docking either in Patong Beach by tender or the main port in Phuket.  I have looked on the web and it says if you are visiting Phuket between Nov and April you will most likely be docked and tendered off in Patong Beach, which we prefer.

Have contacted Princess who are a bit vague and they say the main port and tender.  

Has any one docked here and where. If at the main port are there plenty of taxis and TukTuks, how much etc as we just want to go straight to Patong Beach and No sight seeing tours of diamond shop etc. 

Thanks

[leck57]

4 hours ago, harfield said:

We are on a 20 day cruise on the Sapphire Princess and docking in Phuket on the 8th March 2019. I am trying to find out where we are actually docking either in Patong Beach by tender or the main port in Phuket.  I have looked on the web and it says if you are visiting Phuket between Nov and April you will most likely be docked and tendered off in Patong Beach, which we prefer.

Have contacted Princess who are a bit vague and they say the main port and tender.  

Has any one docked here and where. If at the main port are there plenty of taxis and TukTuks, how much etc as we just want to go straight to Patong Beach and No sight seeing tours of diamond shop etc. 

Thanks

 

In the itinerary on your Cruise Personaliser it usually states if it is a tender port. As you are getting close to April, Princess might be being cautious. Also by being uncertain a few more people might think it safer to book a ship tour if the port is unclear, however you certainly don't need a ships tour in Phuket.

If you do anchor off Patong and get tendered in, then you are right in the action. If you dock at the port there will be heaps of taxis and other transport to take you to Patong. Just make sure you set the price first and due to the distance I wouldn't take a tuk tuk as it might be an uncomfortable ride. If you take a tuk tuk watch for the passenger picked up along the way who might sit next to you and have straying hands heading for your pockets or bags. I've caught many tuk tuks there and while 90% have been fine, I had one where a local got on late and I felt his hands near my camera which was in my pocket. I slowly moved one of my hands near to his and then quickly grabbed it. He smiled profusely as I almost broke his wrist, and then got off. 

Our cruise on the Sapphire calls at Phuket in early Feb and we are showing as a tender.    

[Buzzbird]

Hi we are also on this cruise and have been having trouble getting the same info as you require ,nobody seems to know which port it’s supposedly Patong or Deep water ,nowhere near each over ,I would also like to know cost of taxi to Patong or a good beach near to port .

you wouldn’t think it’s so difficult to get info

 

[mike x ftc]

We've recently come back from the Sapphire and we were lead to believe we would be at Patong beach and even the info they gave us in the daily paper said Patong but in fact we tendered into Dolphin Pier in the South West corner. We had no idea where we were (all our research had been based on going to Patong)  but it is closer to Phuket town.  There were plenty of taxi's but we didn't get one so I wont be much help there.  Just be prepared for anything!!  The Sapphire is lovely by the way!!

[Buzzbird]

Hi thanks for info on your experience don’t know now what to do now about touring / Beach etc..?

[epic999]

Would also like to know about a good beach near the port.

[Buzzbird]

You would have thought somebody had docked at Deep 

port on a cruise or does everybody stay on the ship?

[PescadoAmarillo]

We were there in December on the Sapphire Princess. We did not tender into Patong, but into a non-descript area offering nothing aside from numerous souvenir stands. Here is how we spent our day. 

 

Phuket, Thailand