Coral Island Half Day Tour with Lunch

Underwhelming to say the least

Where do I start? We were picked up from our hotel on time, so that was good. But then we arrived to a very crowded dock and boarded a small speed boat that took us to a barge-like platform with about one hundred other people in line to parasail. The platform actually reminded me a of a refugee intake center. Crowded, chaotic, some tour guides yelling, tables of people in the back smoking (not too far from where they store the gasoline). The parasail flight itself lasted just under two minutes; there are about ten boats circling a small area each pulling a parasail. This would not be legal in any other country, in fact, I'm surprised this is allowed in Thailand. They launch one parasailer off just as another is landing, sometimes lines are crossed but we didn't see any accidents. You have to wait until everyone from your transfer boat is finished parasailing before you can leave. For us, it was about an hour and a half. You're then loaded back on to your transfer boat and those who signed up for underwater walking are dropped off at a second spot. The tour says it includes snorkeling, however, we were never offered snorkeling nor did I see any snorkel gear on the boat. 99.9% of the clientele didn't appear to be avid swimmers, so maybe there is little interest from most of the tourists. (Understandably, it's probably pretty hard to snorkel in jeans.) However, we are avid swimmers and were looking forward to checking out the underwater life. We were disappointed. The last stop of the tour is the beach. It reminded me a bit of Cox's Bazar beach, overly crowded and full of men in sarong towels (who aren't careful about what they are exposing … if you get what I'm saying). Although there is some natural beauty to the water, the tourists there leave their trash on the beach and watch it float out to sea as the tide comes in. Beer bottles, plates, plastic wrappers, it's as if they think the sea is a garbage disposal. This stop of the tour is where you can jet ski or banana boat. We decided to do neither as -- just like the parasailing -- there are no safety precautions taken and weak swimmers are floating around jet skis coming straight into the beach at full throttle. It's also important to note that the jet skis are driven by a guide, I don't think anyone was able to drive alone (perhaps this is precautionary). This portion of the beach is very crowded and overall unpleasant. We also skipped the lunch as it was just too crowded. We spent our beach time at the far end of the beach and ordered some piña coladas from a little shop. We departed the beach at 2 pm and headed back to the port. Instead of the van that picked us up in the morning, we were packed into a little open-back truck and driven to an Indian restaurant. The tour offers three options for lunch (seafood, Thai, and Indian), but apparently the Indian option isn't available at the beach so the people who wanted Indian go into the restaurant to eat while the others sit in the truck and wait. This is where we made our escape. We grabbed an Uber home and called it a day. Ultimately, I would not recommend this tour to anyone as you don't get to see any natural beauty of the region, there is no snorkeling, and most of the time you are carted along like cattle. You're basically paying a premium price for a water taxi to a barge and to a beach. The staff were friendly enough, but this was simply a waste of time and money.