Laem Chabang Cruise Port: Day Trip or One-Way Car to Pattaya or Bangkok

If your ship is in for the day, the day package gives you a car and driver for 8 hours in Pattaya or Bangkok and gets you back to the ship before all‑aboard, from ฿4,500. If your cruise starts or ends here, a one-way car takes you straight between the port and your hotel or the airport, from ฿1,400. Both fares include the port entrance charge and road tolls, and you pay the driver in cash.

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What the fare includes

The round trip out of Terminal A1 and back to it
8 hours of car and driver, waiting time inside them
A driver who runs this port most weeks
Fuel and the road tolls
The ฿450 port charge for the car

Not included

Entrance tickets
Parking where a place charges for it
A guide — your driver drives
Food and drink

฿500 for each hour past 8, in cash to the driver at the end of the day.

Two ways to book

Day package: a car and driver for 8 hours. Stop wherever you want and be back at the ship before all‑aboard
One way: a direct ride between the port and your hotel or address in Pattaya or Bangkok, or Suvarnabhumi Airport. Either direction, from the ship or to the ship on sailing day, straight there with no sightseeing stops. A quick ATM or rest stop is fine
Both include the ฿450 port entrance charge, road tolls and fuel, so none of those is added on top. A child seat, if you ask for one, is ฿400 a seat
Day package in Pattaya: ฿4,500 in a Family SUV (4 passengers), ฿5,500 in a Minivan (8 passengers), ฿6,000 in the VIP Minivan for the same 8, per car rather than per person
Day package in Bangkok: ฿5,000, ฿6,000 and ฿6,500 in the same three cars
One way, Pattaya and the port: ฿1,400, ฿1,600 and ฿2,000. Bangkok and the port: ฿2,200, ฿2,400 and ฿2,800. Same fare in either direction
Pattaya is about 25 km away, roughly 30 to 40 minutes each way. Bangkok city is about 2 hours each way
On the day package you can change the stops during the day
฿500 for each hour past 8 on the day package, settled with the driver rather than added to the online quote
Entrance tickets, parking, a guide and your food are not in the day package fare
Cash to the driver at the end of the day or at the drop-off. Nothing is paid in advance

Day package: back at the ship before it sails

Every question a cruise passenger asks us about the day package is a version of this one, so here is the answer before anything else. You give us your all‑aboard time when you book. The driver plans the day backwards from that time rather than forwards from breakfast, and the last leg is built around getting you through the port gate with room in hand instead of around fitting in one more stop. If the day is running long he will tell you at the stop before the one that would cost you the ship, which is the only point at which telling you is any use.

That is a promise about how the day is planned, not a guarantee against a road closure on Sukhumvit, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What we can say is that our drivers run to Laem Chabang most weeks, know what the port road is like on a turnaround day, and have no wish to explain to a port officer why their passengers are on the wrong side of the fence.

Where the driver meets you inside the port

At Terminal A1, the passenger building inside Laem Chabang, in the pickup area outside the doors with your name on a board. There is no alternative to this and it is worth understanding why. Laem Chabang is a working container port and you cannot walk out of it: the terminal exits onto an industrial road well over a kilometre from the public gate, and passengers have to leave the pier area by vehicle. Some lines run their own shuttle into Pattaya, but not to Bangkok, and it goes when it goes.

Give us the ship's name and the date it berths rather than a pickup time you have guessed at. Disembarkation slips, and a driver who is waiting for your ship instead of for half past eight is the difference between a relaxed start and a queue you are watching from behind glass.

The port charge is already in the fare

Laem Chabang charges ฿450 for a car to come into the port and collect you from the pier. That charge is inside the fares above, on the day package and on the one-way car, and so are the road tolls. Nothing is collected at the barrier, nothing is added at the end, and the number you booked is the number you hand over.

It is worth being specific about this because it is the charge cruise passengers get caught by most often. A driver who quoted a price without it has to find it somewhere, and the place he finds it is at the gate, from you, with the meter of your day already running.

Day package: waiting, stops and how the day runs

Waiting is the whole point of buying hours rather than a journey. The car standing in a temple car park for forty minutes costs exactly what the car moving costs, because the 8 hours are already paid for. Stops are not counted and not charged. Four places in a day is a normal shape, five or six works if they sit close together, and the driver will give you a straight answer at the second stop about whether the fourth is still on.

Your bags stay in the car between stops, and so does the air conditioning. Tell the driver at the start what matters most to you out of the list you have made, because the order he drives them in is what decides whether you get all of it.

The one-way car works differently. It is a direct ride between the port and your drop-off, with no sightseeing stops. A quick ATM or rest stop is fine.

Payment, and what happens before the day

Nothing is paid in advance and no card details are taken. Every booking is read by hand and we come back to you in writing with the driver and the price before your ship arrives, so the figure is settled long before anyone is standing on a pier. On the day package you hand the driver Thai baht in cash at the end of the 8 hours; on a one-way ride, at the drop-off. Twelve hours' notice is the minimum and a few days is better for a ship in port on a weekend.

What the day package covers, and what it does not

The day package is one price for the whole car, agreed before you travel, and it holds whatever the day does. Included:

The round trip out of Terminal A1 and back to the terminal
8 hours of the car and the driver, with waiting time already inside that
A professional driver who runs this port regularly
Fuel and the road tolls
The ฿450 Laem Chabang port charge for the car

Four things are not in it, and it is better to be blunt about them:

Entrance tickets at anything you visit
Parking charges where a place charges to park
A tour guide. Your driver drives and knows the roads; he is not a guide
Food and drink for the day

The Family SUV takes up to 4 passengers and the Minivan up to 8. The same eight seats come again in the VIP van on the pier run, where the bench rows are replaced by a reclining chair of its own for every passenger, with an aisle between them. It is ฿6,000 for a Pattaya day and ฿6,500 for Bangkok. On a Bangkok day that is four hours in the car before you count the stops.

Run past the 8 hours and each extra hour is ฿500, at the same rate whichever car you booked, paid to the driver in cash at the end. It is never added to the price the form quotes you, because that figure is the package you booked. Child seats work as they do everywhere else on the site, asked for in the notes box, with the sizes and the charge set out on the child seat and booster page.

The one-way fare covers the pickup, the direct drive, fuel, road tolls and the port charge.

Where to go in Pattaya on a cruise day trip

Laem Chabang sits about 25 km north of Pattaya and the drive is roughly 30 to 40 minutes each way. That is a little over an hour of the day spent in the car and close to six and a half hours on the ground, which is why most passengers with one day in port spend it here rather than in Bangkok.

The ten below are what our drivers actually get asked for. Three of them share Pratumnak Hill and can be done as one stop. The opening hours and ticket prices are other people's numbers and they move, so treat them as a guide and check anything your day depends on.

A longtail boat loaded with baskets of tropical fruit tied up beside a teak stilt house on a canal, with vendors in conical hats in a second boat behind

Four Regions Floating Market

Nine in the morning until about eight at night, seven days a week, which is more forgiving than most of this list. It is a built market rather than a working one: four zones standing for Thailand's four regions, teak boardwalks over the water, and sellers working out of boats tied alongside them. Entry runs somewhere around 200 to 300 baht depending on which counter you buy at. Ninety minutes covers it comfortably.

Tiger Park

It sits on Sukhumvit about seven kilometres north of the beach, which puts it roughly on your way in from the port rather than out of it. Adult entry is around 300 baht, gates nine to six with the last tickets sold about half past five. The close encounters are priced separately by the size of the animal and a couple of them want booking a day ahead, so decide before you land instead of at the counter.

A visitor standing at a white balustrade looking out over a forested headland and a wide curving bay dotted with moored boats

Pattaya View Point

Free, and open from early morning until around nine at night. The terrace on Pratumnak Hill looks straight down the curve of the bay, and on a clear day you can pick out the ships lying at anchor. Twenty minutes is enough. It shares a hill with the Big Buddha, so taking both costs you one stop rather than two.

A broad stone staircase with a carved naga balustrade climbing through jungle towards a golden temple spire in the mist

Big Buddha, Wat Phra Yai

An eighteen-metre gilded Buddha sits at the top of a naga-flanked staircase on Pratumnak Hill, and there is no gate fee to climb it. The temple keeps working-day hours, roughly eight to five, with smaller shrines and a row of bells along the terrace below. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off at the shrine doors. Most people are back in the car inside half an hour.

The bright multi-level atrium of a shopping mall, with globe lamps, trailing plants over the balconies and two shoppers at the top of an escalator

Terminal 21 and Central Pattaya

The mall opens late morning and runs to about ten at night, and it is the one thing on this list that rescues a wet afternoon. Each floor is dressed as a different city, and the food court on the top floor is enormous and costs very little. It also has clean toilets and air conditioning, which matter more than they should after four hours in the sun. The Central Pattaya shops and the beach road are a few minutes further along.

A lit glass counter of loose sapphires and gemstone rings, with a white-gloved hand setting down a tray of cut stones

Gems Gallery

Entry is free and nobody is obliged to buy anything, which is worth saying out loud, because a jewellery showroom on a day-trip list usually means the opposite. You walk past the cutting and setting benches before you reach the shop, and the ride through the mock sapphire mine takes about ten minutes and amuses children more than it has any right to. If nobody in the party wants to shop, skip it. There is nothing else there.

A fisherman casting from a driftwood-strewn beach at sunset, with a tiered carved wooden temple standing out of focus behind him

Sanctuary of Truth

Adult entry is about 500 baht and the site closes around six, with the last tickets sold an hour or so before that. It is an unfinished teak building standing on the water at Naklua, carved end to end, under construction since 1981 with no completion date anybody takes seriously. Hard hats are handed out at the door because the carving is still going on above your head. It is the most photographed thing in Pattaya and the one stop here that people write home about.

Two giraffes grazing in tall grass beside a lone acacia, seen from inside an open-sided safari vehicle

Khao Kheow Open Zoo

This is the one place on the list that is closer to your ship than Pattaya is, up in the hills behind Si Racha, north of the port rather than south of it. Foreign-adult entry is a few hundred baht and the grounds are open eight to five, not six as some old listings still say. Open means open: the giraffes come to the roadside and the deer walk the paths. It is big, so buy the tram ticket and give it three hours if you want to see the far end. See our full guide to visiting Khao Kheow Open Zoo.

A curved white-sand beach with a row of coloured umbrellas and two longtail boats on turquoise water, seen from a rocky headland above

Coral Island, Koh Larn

Be honest with yourself about the clock on this one. The public ferry from Bali Hai Pier costs around 30 baht and takes 40 to 45 minutes each way, and with the drive from the port at both ends that is most of your day spent moving. A chartered speedboat cuts the crossing to about fifteen minutes and makes the day work, at whatever the boatmen quote on the pier that morning. The water is the best within reach of Pattaya, so if the sea is why you got off the ship, take the speedboat.

A cafe interior with rattan chairs, marble tables and a backlit turquoise wave panel, a coconut drink on the table in the foreground

Mermaid Café

It opens mid-morning and stays open late, and it is on Pratumnak Hill, so it slots in after the Big Buddha and the viewpoint without adding a leg to the drive. The room is done out as an underwater one, and the seating runs out towards the water with a long view down the coast. This is a café rather than a sight, worth an hour, a cold drink and the photographs. The tables at the edge fill up in the late afternoon.

Laem Chabang to Bangkok and back in a day

Bangkok is about two hours from the port in normal traffic, and the run back has stretched to three on a bad afternoon. That is four of your eight hours gone before anybody gets out of the car, and the traffic does not reliably hand the other four back.

For most one-day calls, Pattaya is the better use of eight hours. If you want Bangkok anyway, and plenty of people do because it is the reason they came to Thailand, treat it as a two-stop day and choose two stops that sit next to each other. The first three below are within a few minutes' walk and one short ferry ride of each other, which is why they are first.

Gilded spires and tiered temple roofs rising behind a long white wall, framed by stone guardian lions in a paved courtyard

Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew

The dress code is what turns people away at the gate, so start there: shoulders and knees covered, nothing see-through, men and women alike. Cover-ups are rented at the entrance for a couple of hundred baht if you arrive wrong. Entry is around 500 baht and takes in Wat Phra Kaew and the Emerald Buddha. The ticket windows shut in the middle of the afternoon, well before the complex itself does, so this is a morning stop or it is nothing.

A temple cloister lined with seated bronze Buddhas above a plinth of coloured tile mosaic, a monk walking away down the sunlit corridor

Wat Pho

A few minutes on foot from the Grand Palace exit, which is the entire reason it is the natural second stop rather than a separate outing. Entry is about 300 baht. The reclining Buddha runs 46 metres of gold leaf in a hall barely larger than it is, and the massage school in the grounds is the original one, still teaching and still taking people who walk in with an hour they had not planned.

The tall riverside prang and its flanking towers seen out of focus across the water from a wooden boat deck at dawn

Wat Arun

Straight across the river from Wat Pho on the Tha Tien cross-river ferry, a handful of baht and under five minutes. Entry on the far bank is roughly 200 baht and the prang is open eight to six. The steps up it are steep and shallow, so anyone unsteady is better off looking from the terrace. These three together are the only realistic way to see Bangkok in four hours, and doing them in this order means you queue for a boat once.

Two passengers leaning on the rail of a river boat, looking across the Chao Phraya towards a hazy skyline at sunset

ICONSIAM and the riverside

The one on this list with a roof over it, which makes it the answer when the ship berths late or the sky opens. It runs ten in the morning to ten at night on the Thonburi bank, with no dress code to fall foul of, and the indoor floating market on the ground floor sells the same food as a real one without the heat. Boats cross from Sathorn Pier every fifteen or twenty minutes for about 12 baht. They used to be free and are not any more, so ignore any guide that still says so.

A narrow covered market alley hung with textiles, stacked with baskets and pottery on both sides, a shopper standing mid-aisle

Chatuchak Weekend Market

The full market is Saturday and Sunday only, roughly nine to six. If your ship is in on a weekday, do not plan this one: most of the stalls will be shuttered and you will have driven two hours to look at their shutters. What does open every day is Or Tor Kor across the road, a covered fresh-produce market worth the stop on its own, with JJ Mall beside it. On a weekend, three hours will not be enough and you still will not have seen it all.

An evening street-food market under strings of bulbs, with a plate of grilled skewers on a wooden table in the foreground

Jodd Fairs Rama 9

It does not open until five in the afternoon, so this one exists only for a ship with a late all‑aboard, and that is the first thing to check. Everything else about it is easy: street food under strings of bulbs with a wall of towers standing behind them, and the volcanic pork ribs the whole market is known for. It is about twenty minutes from the old city if you have spent the afternoon at the temples, and it sends you back to the port fed.

Laem Chabang to Bangkok or Pattaya, one way

The one-way car is a direct ride between Terminal A1 and your hotel, address or airport, straight there with no sightseeing stops. A quick ATM or rest stop is fine. It runs in either direction at the same fare, Suvarnabhumi Airport is priced as Bangkok, and the port charge and road tolls are inside the fare. Leaving the ship at the end of your cruise? Choose One way in the form at the top of this page.

Going to the ship on sailing day?

The fare from your hotel or the airport to Terminal A1 is the same as from the ship. Book it on the Bangkok to Laem Chabang transfer page, which also has the drive times and the fares from both cities, or message us on WhatsApp with your ship and the date.

From Suvarnabhumi Airport the drive to the port takes 1 to 1.5 hours in normal traffic, closer to 2 on Friday afternoons and Thai holidays. From central Bangkok it is around 2 hours, and it has stretched towards 3 in heavy traffic, so build a buffer into a sailing‑day transfer.

Laem Chabang cruise day trip: frequently asked questions

Day package or one way: which do we need?

The day package is for a ship that is in port for the day. The car and driver stay with you for 8 hours, you stop wherever you want, and you are back at the ship before the ship sails. The one-way car is for a cruise that starts or ends at Laem Chabang. It is a direct ride between the port and your hotel or address in Pattaya or Bangkok, or Suvarnabhumi Airport, straight there with no sightseeing stops. A quick ATM or rest stop is fine. Both fares include the port entrance charge and road tolls.

Will we get back to the ship in time?

That is the question every cruise passenger asks and it is the one we plan the day around. You give us your boarding deadline when you book, and every stop that day is scheduled by counting back from that number, not by however the morning happens to go. The last leg is timed to get you through the port gate with room to spare, and if the day starts running long he will say so at the stop before the one that would cost you the ship. Give him the ship name and the date and he is at Terminal A1 for your disembarkation, not for a clock time you guessed at months ago.

How much is a Laem Chabang cruise day trip?

A day in Pattaya is ฿4,500 in a Family SUV, ฿5,500 in a Minivan and ฿6,000 in the VIP Minivan. A day in Bangkok is ฿5,000, ฿6,000 and ฿6,500 in the same three cars. That is for the whole car, not per person, and it covers the round trip out of the port and back, 8 hours of the driver's day, the fuel, the road tolls and the ฿450 the port charges for a car to come in and collect you. Neither the day package nor the one-way car on this page comes in a sedan.

Where exactly does the driver meet us in the port?

In the pickup area outside Terminal A1, the passenger building inside Laem Chabang, with your name on a board. You cannot walk out of the port to meet a car somewhere else. The terminal exits onto an industrial port road well over a kilometre from the public gate, so every passenger leaves the pier area by vehicle.

Is the Laem Chabang port charge included?

Yes, on the day package and on the one-way car. The ฿450 the port charges for a car to enter and pick you up is already inside the fare you see here, and so are the road tolls. Nothing is collected at the barrier or added at the end. It is the charge cruise passengers most often get caught by, because a driver who quoted without it has to ask for it at the gate.

Can we go to Bangkok instead of Pattaya?

Yes. A Bangkok day is ฿5,000 in the Family SUV, against ฿4,500 for Pattaya, because the drive from the port is longer. Read the arithmetic before you choose. Bangkok is about two hours from the port in normal traffic and the run back has been known to take three, so four of your eight hours are gone before anyone gets out of the car. Pattaya is 25 km away, roughly 30 to 40 minutes, which leaves you the better part of six and a half hours on the ground. For most one-day calls Pattaya is the better use of the eight hours. Bangkok works if you treat it as a two-stop day and pick two stops that sit next to each other.

Can we book a one-way car to or from the ship?

Yes. The one-way car is a direct ride between the port and your hotel or address in Pattaya or Bangkok, or Suvarnabhumi Airport, straight there with no sightseeing stops, though a quick ATM or rest stop is fine. It runs in either direction at the same fare. Leaving the ship at the end of your cruise, choose One way at the top of the form. Going to the ship on sailing day, the fare is the same: book it on our Bangkok to Laem Chabang page or message us on WhatsApp. To or from Pattaya it is ฿1,400 in a Family SUV, ฿1,600 in a Minivan and ฿2,000 in the VIP Minivan. To or from Bangkok it is ฿2,200, ฿2,400 and ฿2,800, and the airport is priced as Bangkok. At the port the driver meets you outside Terminal A1 with your name on a board. The port charge and road tolls are inside the fare, and you pay him in cash at the drop-off.

What happens if we run over eight hours?

Each hour past 8 is ฿500, whichever car you booked, settled in cash with the driver at the end. It is never folded into the price the form quotes you, because that number is the 8-hour package you booked and we would rather it stayed honest. Tell the driver as soon as you can see the day running long.

How many stops can we make, and does the driver wait?

On the day package he waits, because that is exactly what you get when you book by the hour instead of by the trip. A car standing in a temple car park for forty minutes costs the same as a car moving. Stops are not counted or charged either. Four places in a day is normal, five or six is possible if they are close together, and the driver will tell you at the second stop whether the fourth is still realistic. The one-way car drives straight to your drop-off with no sightseeing stops, and a quick ATM or rest stop is fine.

How do we pay?

Thai baht in cash, handed to the driver at the end of the day on the package, or at the drop-off on a one-way car. Nothing is charged in advance and no card details are taken. We read every booking by hand and confirm the driver and the price back to you in writing before your ship arrives, and we need at least 12 hours' notice to put a car on it.