Outrigger Phi Phi Island Resort opened on 1 May 2026 in the reimagined Zeavola — 63 suites and villas on the boat-access-only northern tip of Phi Phi Don, inside Thailand’s Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park, with some of the Andaman’s best diving minutes from the beach. Rates from US$200 in low season.
Divers have always known something about Phi Phi that the party-boat crowds never learn: the archipelago’s northern tip is a different island entirely. Laem Tong — reachable only by boat, backed by jungle, home to an Urak Lawoi fishing community — is where Zeavola built its barefoot-luxury reputation over two decades. On 1 May 2026 that property re-emerged as Outrigger Phi Phi Island Resort after a full reimagining, and for this site’s readers the location remains the whole argument: you are sleeping inside a marine national park, with the Andaman’s classic dive sites on your doorstep.
Outrigger Phi Phi Island Resort: Key Facts
- Opened: 1 May 2026, in the fully reimagined former Zeavola resort
- Location: Laem Tong, the boat-access-only northern tip of Phi Phi Don — inside the protected Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park; transfers by boat from Phuket or Krabi
- Keys: 63 suites and villas overlooking the Andaman Sea
- Design: Bangkok studio OPENDESIGNER — built to appear to grow out of the landscape, with natural materials, handcrafted furnishings and woven textiles inspired by the indigenous Urak Lawoi community
- Philosophy: built around Nit Thra, the Southern Thai “Soul of Rest”
- Dining: locally rooted menus following Samrub Thai — the traditional shared-table way of eating
- In the water: diving, island-hopping and eco-sensitive excursions into one of Southeast Asia’s most biodiverse marine environments
- Rates: from US$200 per night for a Superior Garden Room, bed and breakfast, low season
The Diving Is the Point
Let’s put the dive map on the table, because it’s why this opening matters here. Twenty minutes south of the resort sit Bida Nok and Bida Nai, the twin limestone pinnacles that are Phi Phi’s signature dives — soft-coral walls, resident leopard sharks resting on the sand, sea snakes, and turtle traffic that verges on congested. Nearby, Shark Point and Anemone Reef carry the colour, and the King Cruiser — the car ferry that sank in 1997 — gives the area a genuine wreck at recreational depths. And from roughly December to April, the dry season opens the long-range window to Hin Daeng and Hin Muang, the deep purple-soft-coral pinnacles that are the Andaman’s best big-animal sites, with manta rays regular and whale sharks possible — the same reason those months anchor my guide to the best places to dive with whale sharks.
Staying at Laem Tong means doing all of this from a quiet beach inside the national park instead of commuting from Phuket’s resort strip — the difference between diving a place and visiting it.
What Changed From Zeavola
Zeavola’s teak-village charm made it a long-running favourite; the Outrigger reimagining keeps the barefoot register and rebuilds the substance around it. OPENDESIGNER’s brief was landscape-first — buildings that emerge from the jungle rather than clearing it — with the craft traditions of the neighbouring Urak Lawoi community woven literally into the textiles and furnishings. The cultural through-line is Southern Thai rather than generic-tropical: Nit Thra shaping the pace, Samrub Thai shaping the table. Outrigger, the Hawai’i-born group, has been quietly assembling exactly these beach-and-reef addresses across Thailand, Fiji, Mauritius and the Maldives — this is its most protected setting yet.
An Honest Word on Positioning
At US$200 in low season, this is the most accessible property this section has covered, and I won’t dress that up: it’s barefoot luxury, not ultra-luxe — no butlers, no branded spa empire. What it offers instead is something the expensive islands can’t buy: a legal address inside a marine national park, on a beach with no road to it. For a dive-led trip, that trade is the right one — and Southeast Asia has a small, precious club of such places. El Nido’s Lagen Island in the Philippines, reborn this year inside its own protected area, is this resort’s closest cousin in the region.
Tip: book December to April if diving is the reason you’re coming — that’s when the Hin Daeng/Hin Muang trips actually run and seas are calm for the boat transfer in. Low season’s US$200 rates are real, but so are the low season’s seas.
How Much Does Outrigger Phi Phi Island Resort Cost?
I priced a midweek dry-season stay — Wednesday 2 to Friday 4 December 2026, two adults, one room — across the booking sites that carry the resort, then worked the totals back to a nightly figure with taxes and fees included. In the December dry season, a Superior Garden room (36 sq m, breakfast for two, free cancellation) runs around US$301 a night on Trip.com — US$714 all-in for the two nights. Expedia showed the same entry category at US$396 a night before tax, or US$952 all-in for two nights, which works out at about US$476 a night once the fees are in. Booking.com prices this property in euros rather than dollars and listed the Superior Garden King at €737 for the two nights, roughly €369 a night. Move into a villa and a Deluxe Garden Villa (45 sq m) runs around US$444 a night on Trip.com — US$1,053 for the two nights with breakfast and free cancellation — while the Family Beachfront Villa is about US$1,024 a night on half board and Booking.com’s top-of-house Beachfront Pool Villa came in at €3,174 for the two nights. Read the headline honestly, then: US$200 is a low-season garden-room number, and peak dry season costs roughly half again as much.
On a property like this the sites usually swing 10–20% apart, and five minutes of clicking can save you a few hundred dollars across a week — here Trip.com came in well under Expedia on exactly the same room, which is the kind of gap worth checking rather than assuming. Traveloka often prices Asian beach resorts sharply too, but its site put up a human-verification wall on the day I checked, so I have left it out rather than quote a rate I could not read. The links below are pre-filled with the property.
- Check rates on Booking.com — free cancellation on most room types, no prepayment needed.
- Compare on Trip.com — often worth a look for travellers based in Asia.
- See it on Expedia — useful if bundling flights.
How to Book
Reservations are open via outrigger.com, with low-season Superior Garden Rooms from US$200 including breakfast — dry-season rates run meaningfully higher. Boat transfers from Phuket or Krabi are arranged through the resort. The resort is also running an Exclusive Opening Offer direct on outrigger.com, which folds daily breakfast and a resort credit into the rate. For the wider trip: Phi Phi dive trips · Phuket–Phi Phi transfers.
Disclosure: this article contains affiliate links. If you book through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Read my full disclosure policy.
This preview is based on official announcements — I haven’t stayed yet. Read more about how I review or visit my Work With Me page.
