Yacht charter in Phuket

Yacht charter in Phuket starts from ฿41,000 a day for a 16-metre trawler, and the middle of 44 day-priced motor yachts sits at ฿164,750. Below: how hourly and per-trip prices compare, what length, age and guest numbers do to the rate, where the boats are based and how the season moves prices.

How a motor yacht charter is priced: day, hour or trip

Motor yachts on the island are priced in three different units — by the day, by the hour with a minimum, and per trip — and each unit hides a different total.

What you book: the whole boat, with captain and crew

A yacht charter here means the whole boat for your group, not a seat on a shared tour. The Rent-Trip section on this page brings together 48 motor yacht models, and the market offers them in three working modes: with a captain at the helm, by the hour and by the day. For 18 of those models the crew size is stated, from 3 people on a 14-metre Azimut 46 to 10 on the 42-metre Heysea Asteria 142. The crew grows with the boat. In my view, the cleanest way to compare a yacht charter in Phuket is to treat the captain as part of the boat — so before setting two quotes side by side, ask whether the captain and crew sit inside the rate or are billed on top.

Hourly rates and the minimum-hours trap

An hourly price is never the final price: the Beluga 88 starts at ฿35,900 an hour, but only with a minimum of 8 hours, which makes ฿287,200 for the shortest possible booking. The Sealine T52, a 17.4-metre motor yacht for up to 16 guests, starts at ฿9,000 an hour with a 9-hour minimum — ฿81,000 in total. Both minimums cover a full outing on the water, so the hourly figure is really a daily rate split into pieces. Set against the day-priced models, the Sealine's ฿81,000 lands among the cheaper day charters, while the Beluga's ฿287,200 sits near the top of the range for boats under 30 metres. The practical rule is simple — multiply every hourly figure by its minimum before you compare it with anything else.

Per-trip prices and starting prices without dates

Two Princess motor yachts are priced per trip rather than per day: the Princess 89 from ฿160,000 and the Princess 80 from ฿210,000, both leaving from Chalong. How many hours a trip lasts is not stated, so neither figure converts cleanly into a day rate. The daily prices of the other 44 models are starting prices without dates — the lowest figure a boat goes out for, not a quote for your calendar. And one model can mean several boats: a Monte Carlo Yachts MCY 86 starts at ฿339,400 a day, while a second boat of the same model asks about ฿549,000, roughly 1.6 times more. Treat every figure on this page as a floor and a guide to the class of boat, then ask for a dated quote on the exact boat you want.

Day rates from 41,000 to 1.33 million baht

Forty-four of the 48 models carry a daily price, which makes it possible to see where prices actually cluster and which features push a boat up the scale.

Starting prices by yacht length across 44 models

Where most daily prices fall

The middle of the market is ฿164,750 a day: half of the 44 day-priced yachts start below that figure and half above it. Eleven models start under ฿100,000, 17 fall between ฿100,000 and ฿200,000, 10 sit between ฿200,000 and ฿300,000, and 6 start at ฿300,000 or more. The cheapest start is ฿41,000 on the Grand Banks 53, a 16-metre trawler; the most expensive is ฿1,332,800 on the Heysea Asteria 142. The quartiles are telling too — a quarter of the boats start under about ฿95,500, and a quarter above about ฿235,000. For a first budget for yacht rental in Phuket, the ฿100,000–200,000 band is where the widest choice sits, with 17 models in it; below ฿100,000 the options shrink to 11, mostly boats under 18 metres.

Length is not a price scale

Length explains part of the price, but not most of it. The Grand Banks 53 and the Galeon 500 Fly are almost the same size — 16 and 16.2 metres — yet the trawler starts at ฿41,000 and the flybridge at ฿266,100, more than six times as much. The Galeon is a flybridge 22 years younger, with 1,200 hp; the Grand Banks is a trawler with 590 hp. The same pattern appears in the per-trip prices: the 80-foot Princess starts at ฿210,000, while the larger 89-foot boat starts at ฿160,000 — ฿50,000 less for the bigger boat. Even the 21–25 metre band runs from ฿60,500 to ฿298,100. So when two boats of similar length are far apart in price, look at class, age and engine power before assuming one of them is a mistake.

Build age and the same-length price gap

Age moves the price as much as length does. The Princess 65 and the Princess S65 are both about 20 metres long, but the S65 is 14 years younger and starts at ฿226,000 against ฿102,500 for the older 65 — about 2.2 times more. A similar gap shows at 17 metres: the Princess 54 starts at ฿156,500, while the older and slightly longer V58 starts at ฿89,900. The generations range from the Cheoy Lee 66, a late-1970s classic at ฿143,000, to the Beluga 88, the newest of the 48. Five models were launched last century, and at least one of them, the Siam Princess, has been refitted since. Ask for the refit date together with the build year — an older hull with a recent refit can be a fair middle ground.

Guest numbers, cabins and price per head

Guest capacity is stated for 45 of the 48 models, from 6 to 50 people, and it is the filter that removes the most boats from a shortlist.

How many guests the yachts in this section take

Day guests versus overnight berths

Guest capacity and sleeping places are two very different numbers. The Custom 70 ft Siam Princess takes 50 people on board for an outing but has 12 berths in 4 cabins; the SPLO 74 ft carries 40 guests yet has a single cabin. On the Princess S65 the ratio is 12 guests to 6 berths, and on the older Princess 65 it is 20 to 6. Cabin counts are given for 29 models, from 1 to 5 cabins, and 14 of those 29 have three. A day trip needs only deck and saloon space; an overnight trip needs a berth for every guest. If your plan includes a night on board, filter by berths first and treat the guest figure as irrelevant — a boat that takes 20 people by day may sleep only six.

Price per guest across the range

Dividing the daily price by the number of guests changes the picture completely. The Custom 70 ft Siam Princess works out at about ฿1,210 per person for a full load of 50, the Princess 65 at about ฿5,125 per person for 20, and the Sanlorenzo SL118 at about ฿50,110 per person for 10. The Gulf Craft Majesty 55 comes to about ฿4,805 a head for 22. A private yacht in Phuket can therefore cost a large group less per person than a small group pays on a compact boat: the Princess V39 takes 6 guests at ฿89,700, close to ฿15,000 each. Still, a full load is the ideal case — if your group is half the size of the boat's capacity, the per-head figure doubles, so do this division with your real headcount.

Flybridges, trawlers, sport cruisers and superyachts

The 48 models fall into eight classes, and the class says more about the price band and the kind of time on board than the brand name does.

Yacht classes side by side

Superyachts from 26 to 42 metres

Ten models in the section are superyachts, from 26.2 to 42.27 metres, and their daily prices run from ฿171,700 for the Rizzardi Technema 89 to ฿1,332,800 for the Heysea Asteria 142. Between them sit the Bilgin 96 at ฿220,300, the Astondoa 102 GLX at ฿237,700, the Sunseeker 90 Fly at ฿278,700, the Falcon 106 ft at ฿369,200, the Moonen 34 m at ฿384,800 and the Sanlorenzo SL118 at ฿501,100. The Heysea alone costs about 2.7 times as much as the next most expensive boat. Guest numbers do not rise with size — the 34-metre Moonen takes 8, the Rizzardi takes 30. For luxury yacht charter in Phuket, then, the useful filters are cabins and crew rather than length: the Sanlorenzo has 5 cabins, and the Heysea carries a crew of 10.

Trawlers, wooden builds and engine power

Trawlers start lowest on the price scale: the Grand Banks 53 from ฿41,000, the Defever 49 from ฿62,500, the Clipper 48 from ฿92,500 and the Integrity 550 Coastal Express from ฿131,100. The three wooden builds — the Custom 70 ft Siam Princess, the Custom 90 ft Maha Bhetra and the Custom Built 90 ft — are one-off boats rather than series models, priced from ฿60,500 to ฿227,000. Engine power separates these boats from the sport yachts: the Defever 49 has 260 hp, while the Leopard 27 Open and the Sanlorenzo SL118 each have 4,000 hp. Does that matter for an outing? It does if the plan is a long run to distant islands — for a slow day anchored in one bay, a trawler does the job at a fraction of the price.

Makes behind the models

• Princess: 12 of the 48 models, from the 13-metre Princess V39 to the 27-metre Princess 89, the most common make in the section.
• Azimut: three flybridge models, the Azimut 46, 55 and 68, priced from ฿64,600 to ฿167,200.
• Sunseeker and Leopard: two models each, including the Sunseeker 90 Fly and the 4,000 hp Leopard 27 Open.
• Single models: 26 other makes appear once each, from Riva and Ferretti to Bertram, Tiara and Cheoy Lee, plus three one-off builds.
• Choosing by make: a familiar make narrows nothing on price — Princess models alone run from ฿89,700 to ฿298,100.

Marinas and piers the yachts sail from

Eight bases appear for the 48 models, but they are far from equal: one marina holds most of the boats, and the rest share a handful each.

Bases by number of models

Ao Po Grand Marina and the largest boats

Ao Po Grand Marina is the base for 31 of the 48 models, and it holds all five of the largest: the Heysea Asteria 142, the Sanlorenzo SL118, the Moonen 34 m, the Falcon 106 ft and the Astondoa 102 GLX. Mid-size flybridges are based there too, among them the Princess 54, 65 and 78, the Azimut 46 and the Cranchi 58 Fly. Some models have boats at more than one base, so the counts in the table add up to more than 48. With so much choice in one place, Ao Po suits anyone comparing several boats for one date. But the marina is on the island's east coast — so the transfer time from your hotel belongs in the plan as much as the day rate.

Chalong, Ko Kaeo and the other piers

Chalong, in the south of the island, is the base for six models, including the two per-trip Princess yachts, the Rizzardi Technema 89, the Bertram 50 and the Custom Built 90 ft, which also appears at Rawai. Ko Kaeo has eight models, from the Princess S65 to the Sealine T52 and the Monte Carlo Yachts MCY 86, and Royal Phuket Marina has seven. Boat Lagoon holds three smaller boats — the Clipper 48, the Defever 49 and the Princess V39 — while Yacht Haven has the Maha Bhetra and the Princess 64. Is the pier a detail? Not when two similar boats leave from opposite sides of the island. Ask for the exact pier with every quote, and treat an offer that names only "Phuket" as incomplete.

Season, dates and a request that gets a comparable quote

Season is the price factor with the clearest number attached, and the details of a request decide whether two quotes can be compared at all.

November to April against the low season

The high season on the island runs from November to April, when the average charter boat costs about ฿66,500 a day, against about ฿29,200 in the low season. The high-season average is about 2.3 times the low-season one, and the gap between them, roughly ฿37,300, is larger than the whole low-season average. These averages cover the island's charter boats as a whole, not yachts alone, so a particular yacht may move by more or less. The daily prices on this page are starting prices without dates, which is why a quote for a date in December can come in above them. For dates close to the start of November or the end of April, ask for prices on both sides of the season boundary before you fix the trip.

What to put in a charter request

• Date and hours: give the exact date and how many hours you want on board, so an hourly rate can be turned into one total.
• Guests and nights: state the full headcount and whether anyone sleeps on board, because berths and day capacity differ.
• Pier: name the departure point you prefer — Ao Po, Chalong or Ko Kaeo — or ask which one the boat uses.
• Crew: ask whether the captain and crew are inside the rate, and how many crew come with the boat.
• Exact boat: name the model from the cards on this page and ask whether the quote is for that specific boat or a similar one.

Reading two quotes for the same model

Two quotes for the same model are not automatically comparable. The Monte Carlo Yachts MCY 86 is a clear case: one boat starts at ฿339,400, another of the same model at about ฿549,000. Behind such a gap there can be a different base, a different build year, a different crew size or a different date. Line up four facts for each quote — the unit and hours, the departure pier, the crew and the date — and only then compare the totals. If one quote is hourly and the other daily, convert the hourly one with its minimum hours first; if one is per trip, ask how many hours the trip covers before comparing it with either. A quote that cannot answer one of those four is not yet a price, whatever the figure on it says.

Key points before you choose a yacht

Five figures to keep in mind

• Day rate: the 44 day-priced motor yachts start between ฿41,000 and ฿1,332,800, with the middle at ฿164,750.
• Hourly minimum: an hourly rate times its minimum hours gives the real total — ฿81,000 on the Sealine T52, ฿287,200 on the Beluga 88.
• Age and class: the younger Princess S65 costs about 2.2 times the older Princess 65 of the same length.
• Berths: a yacht that takes 50 guests by day may sleep 12, so overnight plans start with berths.
• Season: November to April averages about 2.3 times the low-season day rate.