Thailand Live-a-board advice

[Mixedpuppy]

Looking to get experienced advice from those who know about Live-a-boards in Thailand. I want to take 2 weeks vacation, one week on a Live-a-board. The other week checking out Thailand. I'm a learning amateur UW photographer and will be lugging my SLR camera with strobes and stuff. I will mix my dives between some wide angle and macro photography. I'm more interested in reefs. Here are my main questions:

1.). Who would be the best rated Live-a-boards for the price? Just me coming along.

2.). Additional advice of where to go or what to do the other week?

Thanks for the time.

MP

[AleG]

Someone will show up soon answering your first question, so I'm going to address the second.

Khao Sok, it will blow your mind away. It's also quite close to either Phuket/Krabi/Similans and Koh Tao/Samui; actually right at the middle point of those locations.

[stevenl]

Khao Sok, Phang Nga Bay, both very beautiful. You can get a good impression of Phang Nga Bay in a day, for Khao Sok you need minimum 2 nights, preferably 3.

Regarding the boats: there are many, many options, and quite a few that offer good value for money. It would be helpful if you could give a price indication. Having said that, the standard trip duration here is 4 days/4 nights (some are marketing this as 5 days, but still only 4 diving days), with only limited options for longer trips. There are some, but not a wide choice. Would 2 4 day trips also be an option for you?

[E-diver]

We'll be heading to Thailand this November and am also looking for a liveaboard recommendation for a 3-4 day Similan trip.

We're fairly open on price and primarily interested in a smaller group and as nice a boat as possible.

[decompression]

We spent a week in Phuket doing shore based and then a week in koh lak with a 3 day aboard to the similans. We went with Sea bees and they were excellent at both locations. Great boat, great DM's, first class service!

[Quero]

Two of you from Texas coming to visit us here in Thailand! How excellent!

First of all, for Mixedpuppy, since you want to spend a week doing liveaboard diving, you might like to consider a trip that visits islands south of Phuket as well as the Similans area north of Phuket. These trips are generally about 6 days long. A lot will depend on your dates and your budget.

The Khao Sok suggestion is a good one, and you could also go to northern Thailand in the Chaing Mai/Chiang Rai area and spend your week up there. It's very beautiful there as well.

Next, for e-diver--Three-day Similans trips do exist, but they aren't as numerous as the 4-day ones, especially on more high-end boats (I'm guessing this is what you mean when you say you want "as nice a boat as possible." The longer trips tend to visit Richelieu Rock while the 3-day ones often don't get that far north, so I would suggest planning at least a 4-day trip so that you can get to Thailand's #1 dive site. Again, there are many options of boats to choose from, so it's important to get a starting point of a date range and a clarification on a budget range, or better, both, to narrow the field.