This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We believe you'll be OK with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Or you can go to 'cookie settings' and choose which cookies to allow. Privacy policy
Approaching Bang Tao Bay from the south, watch out for the large rock shown 150 metres off the headland on the chart. If it’s visible, vessels can pass close on either side, as there’s 10 metres of water all around. At high water, however, give the headland a wide berth and proceed well north before turning into the bay.
Click to view West Coast Phuket gallery.Instagram
Bang Tao is home to Asia’s first fully integrated resort and villa complex, Laguna Phuket. This 4-mile beach is home to five resorts built around fresh-water lakes. Before 1989, most of the area behind the beach was a cratered wasteland. Tin mining operations had seriously degraded the land.
Today, the hotels are all connected by inland lakes and are backed by a golf course and a huge residential development. They are are just a stone’s throw from the island’s trendy beach clubs and the latest entertainment zone, the beach immediately south of the SAii Laguna Phuket.
9 miles from Patong Bay
At the Amancruises Base, anchor on sand in 8-10 metres northeast of the rocky outcrop on the beach. Be careful of the many floating polypropylene lines when coming ashore by tender. They lurk both among the fishing boats and close to the beach.
Only 25 minutes from the airport, charters often use this anchorage as a charter departure point.
11 miles from Patong Bay
At the Laguna anchorage you should anchor in 6-8 metres on a sandy bottom. You can choose anywhere in front of the hotels and beach clubs along this 4-mile bay. Our recommended anchorage is in front of the many new beach clubs crammed side by side between Sunwing and Saii Resorts.
This 300-metre stretch of Bang Tao beach is now home to half a dozen new higher-end beach clubs and restaurants. Behind them is a big carpark, 20 (and growing) small beer bars, dope shops and massage parlours. North of here you’ll find the Laguna intergrated resorts, apartments, golf course and shopping centre.
Further inland all the way to the Cherng Talay police station lights are more shopping complexes, one hundred plus restaurants and over one thousand apartments and villa developments with many more on the way. Expect traffic gridlock here in the high season.
You can access all the hotels in the Laguna Phuket complex by free resort transport. Just 40 minutes from the airport, this is a useful pickup point for visitors.
