Phuket does New Year’s Eve on a scale that surprises people. The island is at its fullest, the weather is at its best, and the whole west coast turns out for it in one form or another. Which version you want matters a great deal, because the difference between a beach packed with thousands and a private table above the sea is the difference between two entirely different nights. Here are the options.
The big beach celebration
Patong is where the island’s largest New Year’s Eve happens, and it is exactly what you would expect: enormous crowds, music from every direction, fireworks along the beachfront and a party that runs until the sun is well up. If your idea of seeing in the year involves being in the middle of several thousand people having the time of their lives, this is the one.
Go early, agree a meeting point, and do not plan on finding a taxi quickly at two in the morning.
The gala dinner
The most popular option among visitors, and the one most resorts build their evening around. A long dinner with a set menu, free-flowing drinks, live music, and a countdown at midnight, usually somewhere with a view of the water so the fireworks along the coast become part of the evening.
It suits couples, groups and families equally, and it has the practical advantage of removing every decision from the night. You arrive, you sit down, and the evening happens around you.
The private version
The quiet luxury option, and increasingly the one people choose after they have done the other two. A villa, your own group, a chef if you want one, and the fireworks along the coastline visible from your own terrace. No crowd, no queue, no transport to arrange at the end of the night.
For families with young children, or for anyone who would rather see in the year with ten people than a thousand, this is comfortably the best of the three.
The fireworks
There is no single official display. Instead, hotels, beach clubs and beachfront restaurants all put on their own, which means that at midnight the west coast lights up in a long, scattered chain from one bay to the next. The best view of it is from somewhere elevated, or from the water. A clifftop terrace lets you watch several bays at once rather than one from the middle of it.
Booking, and how far ahead
Further ahead than almost any other night of the year. New Year’s Eve dinners at the better restaurants are sold months in advance, minimum stays apply across the period at most properties, and prices reflect the demand. Flights into Phuket over the turn of the year are among the most expensive of the twelve months.
If New Year in Phuket is the plan, settle it in September. By November the good options have gone.
New Year’s Eve at Kata Rocks
We see the year out on the cliffs above Kata Beach, with a gala evening by the infinity pool, dinner overlooking the Andaman Sea, live music and a countdown with the coastline’s fireworks laid out below. It is one of the better vantage points on the island for the midnight hour, largely by accident of geography.
Confirm before publishing: the current year’s New Year’s Eve event name, theme, timings and inclusions, and update this paragraph each year.
Guests staying in our oceanfront villas have the evening on their doorstep. To join us, reserve early, and see what else we are marking through the season with our events and celebrations.