Have often thought of a stopover in Phuket but have just read about the Tuk Tuk Mafia in the Sydney Morning Herald which rather scares me. According to the article http://www.smh.com.au/travel/phuket-...0203-ncy3.html you can take a taxi from the airport but they are not allowed to pick up a return passenger so they charge you double. Tuk Tuks seem to cost about ten times as much as they do in Bangkok and if you argue you are likely to get thumped. Are things really this bad? Is it possible to arrange transfers in advance?

The trick is to negoiate ahead of time. Get them to give you a set price for the place you want to go. I'm sure your hotel can arrage for transfers.

Both taxis and tuk-tuks are very expensive in Phuket, but the thuggery is probably not as bad as portrayed in the press. That said, the situation does seem to have gotten out of hand, with increasing calls for the authorities to "do something."

As the previous poster said, the rule is that you MUST negotiate the fare in advance before you get in the tuk-tuk. If you follow this guideline, you won't have a problem.

From somewhere like Club Andaman in Patong around to the Holiday Inn area in Patong is B 200 take it or leave it. The minimum charge is about B 150 ( AU$ 5 ). From Patong to Karon can be B 300-400.
Problem is unless take a car+driver or tuk tuk for a day about 1,500 you are stuck.

http://www.phuketwan.com has a lot on this

Transport from and back to airport is easy, which beach you stay at also affects need / no need to use. Phuket is expensive, and the drivers probably looking for their share of the income.
Years ago there was no issue with tuk tuks, they were cheap, no worries. There's a lot more background on this but it gets complicated - if you are in Kata and you want to go to say Karon and the price for all of you is B 300 ( AU$10 ) I would not stress over it. It's the price.
If you want to travel around, perhaps go to Phuket town and a few other places arrange a car+diver / van for the whole day.

Off topic but to appreciate price difference in Phuket - The new Phuket water park is offering 'special discount' prices of THB 1,795 + tax and service = THB 2,100 = AU$ 73 !!

HE'S BACK!!!

off-topic cont...

AUD73???

That's more expensive than Wet'n'Wild on the Gold Coast.
http://wetnwild.myfun.com.au/Park-In...ket-Prices.htm

Seems very expensive... and the price for Thai is?

I've just heard one bad thing after another about Phuket for several years now what with the tuk tuks, the jet skis, people getting beaten up etc. Maybe if you're content to stay cocooned inside some resort it's okay but otherwise I've heard enough to strike it off my list of places to visit.

Even my Thai neighbour was telling me a story the other week about how she got ripped off and will never go back. I have some friends who used to go to Phuket but tried Bali after all the airport problems... they're not going to Phuket anymore, they decided Bali was friendlier and better value.

Thanks for the responses and the information. With all the things we've heard think we'll give it a miss and have the stopover somewhere else. There are now more and more Asian cities on the way to Europe and several that we haven't visited yet.

Tuk Tuks are not the be all and end all of transport though. There are also proper taxi's which I recommend over any Tuk Tuk.

The problem comes when you go to Patong mainly, although Kata and Karon do have their fair share of problem with TukTuks. My advice is and will always be - Avoid them at all Costs - Take a proper taxi, it has aircon as well as being a lot safer than a tin can.

From the airport you can get a Minibus for 100-150 that will pretty much take you everywhere around the island to drop you off.

But its true, if more foreigners avoided this place, maybe something would eventually get done. But while people come here, its hard for anything to change.

Suksan

JamesA is right about some transport prices being unnegotiable. We tried to bargain with some taxi drivers at Kata Beach for a ride back to the port where our ship was. Can't remember how much exactly, but the tarif was (we thought) sky high. No one would come down. So we naifs started walking, thinking some entrepeneurial fellow would follow us and cut his price. Wrong. They knew we had no other way to get back from that area (not a tuktuk in sight). And all the drivers were flying very high on something. After walking up and down steep hills for 30 minutes, it was getting dark, and we finally found down a woman taxi driver and took the fee she insisited on.
I was very disappointed in Phuket; much too developed and touristy for us, and full of drunken, sunburned young package-deal hooligans.

IMO Phuket is a top class destination for a high budget vacation. All the best hotels are situated on the best beaches and Phuket's fame does come from these places. To expect Phuket to be a bargain place is wrong and you will run into problem if you're seeking a holiday there on a budget.

So this is a case where competition among suppliers drives up the cost! They likely can't get a return fare due to competition so they charge double. That's fresh.

Actually, the root problem is lack of competition. Transportation on Phuket has long be controlled by a sort of mafia, which keeps taxis from picking people up outside the airport, and collects hefty cuts from the people they "allow" to drive a taxi or tuk-tuk.

Hanuman, I'm sorry but do you have a problem with something I wrote?

Yeah, Hanuman, I hear the Aman is wonderful, and if I had the income of a yakuza, I'd check in. But there are too many wonderful places in the world to see, and I like to leave the hotel grounds once in a while. I was only there for two days, taking day tours from a ship, so I admittedly didn't see much. But I was highly unimpressed. On the islands off the coast where we snorkeled, the coral was mostly dead. Sad.

Zeer,

No problem with your opinion but it just seem that most if not all of your post are on the negative side. Made me curious as to what part of the world you are from.

LAleslie,

I first visited Phuket over 30 years ago, during my teen years and Phuket to me has never been about diving but more about the beaches and the stunning coastal view. Diving or snorkeling in Phuket is a long boat ride away IMO and it does offer some of the best diving in the area if you know where to go. I learn to dive around Khoa Racha Noi and Racha Yai about 25 years ago and on a recent diving trip to the same islands a few years ago it still look to the same IMO. The Similans and Burma Banks are still pristine with some coral bleaching but I've seen that all around the world.

If you want more budget destination with diving or snorkeling right off the beach then you should try Khoa Nang Yuan.

Present day Phuket to me is about being by the beach, good golfing, shopping, dining and fantastic accommodations. I'm afraid it comes at a steep price and the popularity with high budget travellers have propelled Phuket into one of the most expensive real estate in Thailand and S.E. Asia. For someone looking for a budget vacation they will be best served going elsewhere. A good comparison is trying to go on vacation and stay in Beverly Hills or Manhattan for under $200 a night. All you will find is crappy hotels, location and will probably get scammed at every opportunity.

If somebody is looking for a moderate price vacation in Phuket I suggest they go in the off season and take their chances with the weather.

MichaelBKK, I was referring to the article linked in the OP which included:

Patong's police chief, Colonel Grissak Songmoonnark, says there are too many tuk-tuks on Phuket. There are about 500 in Patong alone, he says, not including unregistered vehicles. "Two hundred tuk-tuks would be enough for the whole island," he says.

"Problems arise because of the rivalry between the tuk-tuk groups, which means they often cannot make pick-ups so return trips are usually made empty. It should be 150 baht to travel from Karon to Patong but because the driver has to return empty, he charges 300 baht."