The worst tourI'veeverbeen on! I totally advise against wasting your money and time with Ao Nang Photo Travel Tour. We wereliterally herded into theboat which should havebeen maximum 50 persons (which is already a lot). The tourguide pushed us and shouted for us to take our seats, but theboat wasn't even equipped with enough life jackets that she had to borrow some from theboat next to ours! We all sat packed tight like a can of sardines. I counted 58 people, but according to theboat license that I asked to see, theboat was only legally allowed to carry 54 people! When I confronted thelady about it, sherefused to acknowledge me.
Theboat that we were on seemed to be made for maximum capacity and minimum enjoyment- It was rows of seats and you could not even see out of theboat at all. The "tourguide" if you can call therudelady with us seemed like she was only with us to shout at us and made sure we were seated the during all therides. During the trip, the "tourguide" was rude and never offered any information about theislands or anything at all, except to give us commands to sit down or stand up to take pictures orexcuses why we couldn't swim orembark.
The tour was totally different from the program stated on thebrochure- half of theislands that were advertised on thebrochure of which we paid to visit were just a 1 minute pause for us to stand on our seats to take photos. At Monkey Bay where we were supposed to go swimming and see monkeys, theguide told us that we would not begoingbecause "the monkeys are dangerous so we cannot swim here". and out of theboat we saw heaps of happy people on thebeach and swimmingin the sea. Then she changed her mind, "it's raining a lot so the monkeys don't come out". At Pileh Lagoon where we were supposed to stop to swim, she says "we don't stop herebecause all the people who are swimming now are on private tour so their programs are different", when it was so obvious that they weren't even privateboats!
So of the 7 islands advertised, 3 were actual stops where you weregiven 40 minutes to quickly explore theislands amongst the throngs of people and for a swim. Phi Phi Don was just a canteen stylelunch and the other 3 were just "Ok, this is XXX. Stand on your seat to take photos."
Overall theislands werebeautifulbut it was overcrowded. There wasn't even much place to swim because the shores were just full of boats comingin and out or docked. The "tour" should also havebeen from 9 am to 4pm, but we were only picked up from our hotel at 10am and arrived back at 3.40 pm!