Our holiday to Koh Tao was ruined by our experience with Lomprayah. We bought bus and boat connecting tickets from Bangkok to Koh Tao. When we get on to the boat, we realized that there were not enough seats for the passengers on the lower deck. We then found that there were upper deck seats, which the staffs rudely told us that we have to pay extra THB100 per person to get up there. There were about 30-40 people without seats on the boat, many sat on the floor, blocking the walkway and creating safety hazards unwillingly. I was sitting on a plastic stool given by the staffs to about 20 people, during the bumpy journey I have seen someone fell of their stool. There are a family of 8, including young children, who got kicked down from upper deck as they're unwilling to pay for the extra. They questioned the staffs on seats and had a big fight. In the end the staff made 8 locals went to the upper deck to get them 8 seats, grumpily. Of course, the locals are exempted from the extra THB100 in this case. This is our horrible experience from Chumphon to Koh Tao.
From Koh Tao to Chumphon, it was yet another horrible experience. Our journey is supposed to start with a 2.45pm boat, but they have apparently over-booked their boat service. We had to queue up for more than 1 hour, only to find out that in order for us to catch our bus on time, we have to quickly change to another boat service provider. The people in the queue were for 7pm boat and we were lucky to check with the other counter with no queue to get our transfer ticket quickly, before the 3.45pm boat depart. If we didn't check with the other counter and blindly queue according to their instruction, we would have to take the 7pm boat and miss our bus from Chumphon to Bangkok.
Of all the island trips I had, Lomprayah has managed to rate the worst transportation company I have ever taken. The Lomprayah bus and boat may look luxurious but coupled with the unreliable and unethical service, it is definitely not recommended