We were there in august last year, i went down to kata it was normally a bit better.
We did a phi phi island trip one day beutiful calm water. Day before rough sea the boat had to crawl along.
Hi, we were in Phuket last week and we had a very traumatic experience. We took a boating trip to Phi Phi islands, the tour operator warned us about 3m high waves, but said it was generally safe. We encountered a storm on the way back from Phi PHi, 3m high waves made our speedboat pitch and roll like mad, our boat was being tossed around in the sea. Th women, including myself were screaming and most of the children had passed out with fear. The tour leader decided to change course and steered the boat north through calmer waters back to Phuket.
Ideally these trips should be suspended in the monsoons.It was just luck that that nothing untoward happened. The crew did not advise us to wear life jackets, and by the time the rolling started it was too late. Safety standards with these tour operators are really lax/