Hat alles problemlos geklappt. Ein Stern Abzug dafür, dass wir unser Gepäck eigenverantwortlich im Minivan irgendwo zwischen den Beinen verstauen mussten.
Bus ist pünktlich losgefahren,
2 Halte zum Pinkeln gemacht.
Als wir mit dem Bus angekommen sind wurden wir direkt von der Crew abgeholt und nach 5Minuten warten sind wir sicher und gemeinsam als Gruppe zur Fähre gegangen.
Dort nochmal 5Minuten gewartet.
Die Fahrt mit dem Speed Boat (Fähre) war schnell, teilweise etwas rucklig, aber sehr angenehm.
Insgesamt war ich voll zufrieden, vor Allem zu diesem günstigen Preis
Departed from Bangkok about 10 mins after original 9:30 time, and we had few stops picking up some locals. Arrived to Ban Phe pier around 1pm, then transferred over to a speed boat and arrived to Koh Samet by 1.30. All were very well organised!
All in all, I was happy with the experience and we got to our destination perfectly on time. However, I did get the impression that your experience and itinerary depends a bit on how many people are booked on the same journey, so here's how it went for us.
While we initially received a receipt of the itinerary we booked on 12GO, we were subsequently provided with different tickets on a bus by a different operator, leaving from a different platform, to the city of Rayong leaving at 09:30 (instead of 09:00). Since Rayong was very close to the pier, and after double-checking with the staff, we decided to go with it. We were told our bus had some problem. Once we reached Rayong bus station, we were almost immediately picked up by a car which drove us the last 30 minutes to the pier, where we were received by the actual agency responsible for the trip. The staff at the local bus company to Rayong seemed only vaguely aware of the itinerary arrangements, as they were only responsible for the bus journey between Mochit and Rayong and couldn't really tell us what would happen from there. However, everyone was friendly and kept an eye out on us to ensure we got on and off at the right stop, and despite departing late we arrived well on time at Ko Samet in the end.
Looking back on it, we seemed to be the only 2 people booked on the 09:00 bus from Mochit to Ko Samet, so I suspect they simply cancelled the direct bus and re-routed us this way. Having traveled in Asia before, I simply asked a couple of times to ensure they knew what they were doing, but otherwise just trusted the system to work out (which it did) even if I didn't completely knew what went on in the moment. So overall great experience, just go with the flow a bit if you book this itinerary and things will work out :)
The boat ride is good.
The bus journey however is not great because the driver stops every 20-30min to smoke or something. Every journey is about 1.5hours longer than advertised