Hi, the wife and I will be heading down to Thailand for a last minute trip and are in the process of booking our travel. We have our flights to Bangkok but still need to get our flights to Krabi for island hopping.

I seem to recall a few years ago flying Bangkok air into Krabi, now it looks like the only good options are Air Asia and Thai Air, with Thai Air being the only one with an early morning flight.

The pricing if booked outside of Thailand looks to be around $160USD RT. Is there a way of getting a better fare through a local agent, one I could contact BEFORE we get to Bangkok?

Secondly, our flight would land in Krabi at 9:25 and the first ferry leaves for Lanta (our first stop) at 10:30. Is that enough time to catch it?

If we are late could we catch a taxi/bus at the airport to take us directly there? If so, what is the timing and expected price for 2 people?

Thanks in advance for advice!

generally there is usually not any savings for thai flights within the country if bought on site, imo

That is really cutting it close to catch the ferry to Ko Lanta. It is possible but you may miss it. We had an early morning flight from Bangkok to Phuket and we were going to try to catch the 9:30 ferry to Ko Phi Phi. As it turned out the ferry was leaving at 10:30. I am not sure how consisitent the ferries are.

I think you can catch a ride to Ko Lanta but I don't know the cost. Does anyone else know about this?

Anyone?

you didn't like the answers given above?? just curious...

Aside from catching the ferry you have another couple of options to get to your destination of Lanta. You could catch a taxi from the airport $2000 baht or thereabouts. If you do this make sure you negotiate for them to take you to your actual hotel not just Ban Saladan in the north. You could also email your hotel and ask if they could arrange someone to meet you at the airport. Get them to quote a price first though. Another cheaper option provided by our hotel was to get a join van to uplift us $250 baht each. We were warned we would have to wait up to 1 hour after landing at the front which was correct. It was however a very average van with aircon that did the job. We also caught the same van to Ao Nang from Lanta for the same price. It is cheap travel if you don't mind waiting around.

rhk, as pointed out by the next poster after you no one had responded to the comment about a taxi from the airport to the resort. Thanks to the last poster, that's exactly what I was looking for.

Sorry brj8826 I should also say that the overland trip was scenic and took about 2 hours or thereabouts. The reason it is quite a long trip is as it involves 2 car ferries. I found the road trip and car ferries quite scenic. We did not catch the ferry as it was low season and not running. The reason I say to make sure you get the taxi to hotel is that they will often try and drop you in main town -Ban saladan to catch the local transport to hotel at extra cost when they should in fact take you all the way to hotel. This was never a problem as the hotel organised things for us. There were plenty of taxi touters at the airport willing to take us to Lanta I don't think you will have a problem. If you do want the extra assurance you hotel should help out for a cost I am sure. Hope you enjoy Lanta we loved it.

Thanks maisymoo. I'm not sure what you are sorry about, that is exactly the info I was looking for.

So the ferry vs. the land/car ferry take about the same amount of time?

I think they are comparable time wise if all goes well and everyone on time. Where are you staying in Lanta?

If you get the chance hire a scooter 200baht a day and go south to the beach the Pimalai is on and have lunch either at the Pimalai which was lovely or one of the restaurants on the beach at the other end. There is also a great lookout/open restaurant on the road that cuts through the middle of the island east to west that over looks the western side scenery which is stunning. The roads were unbelieveably quiet and I often wondered how other tourists got about as scooters seem to be the main form of transport. it was lots of fun we doubled the whole time. Just a word of caution do not try and scooter to the lighthouse at the southern tip of the island as we found the road ran out soon after the pimalai and it was all overland with lots of walking up steep hills pushing the scooter. made for a fun if not tiring trip. By the way the lighthouse was disappointing but the scenery was nice. If you have any questions bout the island feel free to ask.

Thanks for the great pointers, we will definitely do that. We love going places where we can rent motorbikes.

We only booked a room for our first night. We've been stuck too many times with a crappy place that we can't get a refund on. Right now it is the Lanta Sand Resort booked through AtSiam.com.

Any restaurant recs?

We picked restaurants at random on out trip. We often got lazy and ate at the resort restaurant mostly out of pity for the staff as us and one other couple were the only people staying there for the first three nights. We got doted on so it was nice. The food was just average though. One restaurant that really stood out was a restarant on the roadside just south of our Lanta Casuarina where we were staying. Can't rmember the name but it was really small and had a painted scandinavian flag on the outside wall. I had the best Panang curry I have ever tasted here for 50 baht. The pimalai resort had a fantasitc but pricey restaurant on a hill overlooking their pool and beach. Nice atmosphere and food. We had an absolute beach front bungalow at Lanta Causaurina for 2000 baht a night. Room 2101 if you decide to go for a nosy.

We've just returned from a similar itinerary in Thailand, we flew from BKK to Krabi and had our hotel arrange a transfer to Koh Lanta. We felt the transfer was expensive at 3500BAHT and could have negotiated a better price at the airport. There were plenty of taxis. Not sure what schedule the ferries run to but we got the impression that you turn up and wait for the next one, most of the transfer time was waiting for the ferry (crossing only took minutes when it eventually happened.) No idea how much this cost as the driver took care of but it cannot have been more than 50BAHT. There are two ferry crossing necessary to get to Koh Lanta, both of them very short.

We paid $320 for 2 return flights BKK-Krabi but we returned from Phuket to BKK and booked online with Thai Airways.

Regarding accomodation, in hindsight, you are right to book 1 night and then check out the rest in case there is anything better. There are plenty of bungalows/hotels all along the west coast. We booked the Narima Bungalows for 7 nights (highly praised on tripadvisor) but left after 5 nights. A mixture of reasons for this, but mainly we ran out of things to do that took our interest. Some people can be by the pool from morning till evening but we get bored doing this day after day. Riverside restaurant (just after the Narima) was very good and extremely cheap, restaurant at the Narima is also excellent. We ate in a restaurant in Saladan near the ferry department point, this too was excellent. A little more upmarket was Same Same But Different near the Pimalai hotel, very bad service but good food (deliver dishes but no cutlery, deliver wrong dishes and then saying they didnt have the ingredients so they made a random dish and then tried to charge the same as the original dish requested which was more expensive) Alot of beaches are rocky long the west coast and the tide goes out quite a long way.

We rented a scooter for 350baht per day, no insurance, no rental contract, bad brakes and you need to be very careful (one couple staying at the resort had an accident). It was a good way to see the island, we stopped at a bar at the southern end of the island which was built in a tree (like a tree house) and had wonderful views over the east side of the island. Also went to the old capital, which was very interesting, did an elephant trek, visited caves, went scuba diving at Phi Phi.

We paid 700 baht each for the ferry from Koh Lanta to Phuket (includes the taxi from your hotel), took 3 hours and you changed boats in Phi Phi.

Thanks to the both of you, great info. I'm printing out this thread to take with me.