Phuket, Thailand

Our third port on our Mariner of the Seas cruise was to Phuket in Thailand. I have to say, before we arrived we had heard beautiful stories about Phuket as well as scary ones. I think after visiting I would advise to stay in the resorts, Patong Beach was very interesting.

Our ship was tendered for this stop. I had heard nightmare stories about the tendering process off ships. As we were booked on a ship tour for this stop, we didn’t have that experience. We waited a little while but it was not a bad process.

Our day was slightly hampered by a mishap that happened the night before. My younger daughter slipped over by the pool. We didn’t think much of it at the time, but the next day she was still whinging and hobbling around everywhere, and eventually we discovered she had fractured her toe. Parents of the year! Must say though the ship’s doctors were excellent and she even had an x-ray on board and was given meds (Panadol/Nurofen) at no charge!

So first stop in Thailand was the Chalong Temple. Being New Years Day, it was busy. Was very ornate inside. Miss O  braved her foot pain and climbed to the top with me.

Next stop was the Island Safari. It’s a place where they do elephant rides and there was a monkey show. I have to say I wasn’t impressed with the monkey show. I did not like how they treated their monkeys and kept them on leashes and inside cages. The elephant show however was a different story. We enjoyed watching this. My eldest daughter got to play soccer with an elephant. She fared badly LOL! Stick to netball H!

 

After the show we got to feed the elephants some bananas and then have a ride on them. Was an interesting experience.

I’m still dubious about how the elephants are treated behind the scenes, but I didn’t see anything bad while we were there.

After the safari we were taken back to a cashew nut factory. We got to try a few. Was very nice!

The tour ended in Patong where I got to have a look around while hubby took the girls for a paddle in the beach. The electric wires here are crazy!!

Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed. Maybe because I didn’t go to a resort and saw the public beach. I think I needed more time here to take it all in properly.