Penang - Phuket

Phuket Trip - Part 1. Getting There and Accommodation

Recently planned a trip to Phuket. First time into Thailand. Yes, the irony, we've been across the oceans but not to our northern neighbours. Well there's always a first time.

Bought the tickets in advance. Firefly was the choice. Or only choice. Initially when Firefly started off, they had a number of destinations from Penang, but alas, now down to only 5 destinations at time of writing, namely Phuket, Langkawi, Banda Acheh, Medan and Subang. You can quickly summarize that the Penang - Subang route is the highest demand route, just by looking at the frequency of flights, 7 flights daily! (at time of this entry). I did a Marketing Study on Firefly last year, and now finally I'm flying on Firefly!

No shocker, as many people I've talked to specifically staying in KL areas, PJ, Subang, find flying in and out from Subang a better option then going all the way to KLIA.

Back to our Phuket trip. Ironic. Overall the flight was good. It took off early, so we arrived early, but alas our pickup was late. Yes we arranged for pickup instead of taking a taxi as my next day Phi2 Island tour was arranged with the same company, so I wanted to meet them.

For your transportation options from Airport to Hotel the check out the TripAdvisor discussion forum. There are many helpful tips and hints. Also check out Phuket : Taxis and Rental Car.

For hotels, there is always a balance between preference and budget. Some friends stayed on some of the islands of Phuket, the benefit is you're probably closer to the smaller islands, get there first in the mornings, the negatives is definitely it'll cost more.

We chose to stay at the Aspery Hotel. We chose Aspery hotel based on comments by travellers at TripAdvisor. It is highly recommended with a popularity index of 13 out of 149 hotels in Phuket. I used the 'check rates' options from Trip Advisor and found that www.booking.com offered the best price relatively. I even went the extra step to email the hotel and ask them their rates and they suggested to use booking.com for best negotiated rates. We paid around RM100 per night for off-peak rates. Anyway try a couple of online sites and compare.

Aspery hotel was around 7 minutes walk from the Patong Beach, once u step out of the hotel you can see the sea. Opposite it is Andaman club.
The frontier was clean and welcoming. Staff were friendly especially once you get to know them. They've got around 6-8 PCs with flat screen offering complementary internet. The rooms were cosy, roomy, and nicely designed. The bed was hard and pillows too soft for my personal preference. They had the standard amenities, lent beach towels at the counter, had a fridge, no iron though. The kitchen staff were very helpful and offered to heat up our food.

During our stay the construction was on-going at the neighbouring building, so you will need to note that, and try to request for rooms away from the construction site.

Get the detail address of any hotel you plan to stay at and try to get close-by landmarks in case the driver doesn't know where is the hotel. It takes around 45mins during normal hours from Airport to Patong beach I'd say.

You can also opt to say at the other beaches, Karon, Katong etc.