Pineapple Island (Hon Thom), Phu Quoc: Cable Car, Boat Tours, Prices

Pineapple Island is Hon Thom (Hòn Thơm), the largest island of the An Thoi archipelago off the southern tip of Phu Quoc. In southern Vietnamese, thơm is the everyday word for pineapple, so the English name is a straight translation. Today most of the island you can visit is Sun World Hon Thom, with the Aquatopia water park and the Exotica rides. There are two ways to get there: the Hon Thom cable car from An Thoi, about 15–20 minutes over the sea, or a speedboat tour that actually lands on the island. A return cable car ticket costs 850,000 VND for an adult in 2026, and it already includes Aquatopia and Exotica.

Which island is Pineapple Island? Hon Thom, not ‘Hòn Dứa’ or Hòn Dừa (Coconut Island)

It is Hon Thom. VietnamNet calls Hon Thom “Pineapple Island”, Tuoi Tre “Pineapple Islet”, and OpenStreetMap tags it Pineapple Island. In the north of Vietnam the word for pineapple is dứa, and Znews notes that Hon Thom is also called “đảo Dứa” (Pineapple Island). But we found no island named Hòn Dứa in the An Thoi group, in the news or on the map.

The real source of confusion is Hòn Dừa, Coconut Island. In Vietnamese the two names differ by one tone mark, and in English both lose their accents and become “Hon Dua”. Hòn Dừa is a small island about 2 km off An Thoi port in a straight line. The cable car passes over it, and over Hon Roi, on its way to Hon Thom, but it has pylons there, not stations. If you are on the cable car and see a little island with a tower on it, that is not Pineapple Island. The cable car’s only island station is on Hon Thom.

Hon Thom is about 3.4 km long on OpenStreetMap, roughly 5–7 km south of An Thoi port in a straight line. It is not empty: a fishing community lives on the island (Tuoi Tre put the population at about 4,000 in 2018). Sun World Hon Thom Nature Park opened in February 2018, and the beaches you will hear about include Bai Trao on the west side.

How to get to Pineapple Island

Your two choices are the cable car on its own, or a boat tour that ends on Hon Thom and sends you back by cable car. Plain snorkelling tours of the An Thoi islands, which are cheaper, do not land on Hon Thom, so check the itinerary before you book.

Hon Thom cable car: price and what’s included

The cable car leaves from An Thoi station, next to Sunset Town in the south of Phu Quoc, and lands on Hon Thom. The line is 7,899.9 m long. It opened on 4 February 2018 with a Guinness certificate as the world’s longest cable car, according to Phap Luat TP.HCM. Sun World gives the ride as about 15 minutes; in visitors’ videos it takes 15–20.

Sun World’s 2026 price is 850,000 VND per adult and 700,000 VND for children between 1 m and 1.4 m tall. Children under 1 m ride free. That is a return ticket and it covers Aquatopia water park and the Exotica rides. There is no cheaper cable-car-only ticket, so you pay the same whether or not you get wet. On 4 November 2026 the Sun World booking site showed the same ticket from 825,000 VND online, and in visitors’ videos online booking comes out a little cheaper than the counter.

• Cable car + lunch buffet: 1,150,000 VND adult, 900,000 VND child. The buffet runs from about 11 am to 2:30 pm.
• One-way cable car + buffet, sold by agents for people arriving by boat: about 1,070,000 VND adult, 800,000 VND child.
• In visitors’ videos the ticket also comes with one free drink (a craft beer or a juice) and same-day entry to the Kiss Bridge in Sunset Town, though only in certain hours, and the hours people were told differ.
• Staff photograph you as you board and sell the print afterwards. You don’t have to buy it.

Cable car hours, the midday pause and queues

The cable car does not run all day. It works in sessions with a break at midday, and the published times vary a little: the morning starts at 9 or 9:30 am and the last run is somewhere around 5–5:30 pm. In visitors’ videos the pattern is about 9 to 11:30 am, then 1:30 to 5 pm. Several vloggers turned up between 11:30 and 1:30 and had to wait for the afternoon session, and one got stuck on the island over the break. Check the times at the station on the day.

In visitors’ videos the morning lines are short if you arrive at or before opening. The return is the bottleneck: queues for the last cars build from about 4:30 to 5:30 pm, and one family queued around an hour on a late-December afternoon. Leaving the island by about 4 pm avoids most of it. Weekends, holidays and the summer school break are busier. The cabins are big, about 30 people, and the ride is smooth except at the pylons, where the cabin tilts and bounces. If you are nervous about heights, that is the moment to hold on.

Getting to An Thoi station: from Duong Dong (Dinh Cau) it is about 25 km by road, roughly 45–60 minutes, and from the airport about 20 km, 35–45 minutes. Don’t count on the free Sun World shuttle bus. In videos from late 2025 and 2026 it was not running or not reliable, and visitors took Grab or a public bus.

Which boat tours actually land on Pineapple Island?

The tours that put you ashore on Hon Thom are the “3 islands + Hon Thom cable car” combos, often still sold as “4 islands”. The speedboat stops at Gam Ghi, May Rut Trong and Mong Tay for snorkelling and the beach, then drops the group on Hon Thom for lunch and the water park, and everyone rides the cable car back to An Thoi. In 2026 these cost about 1,350,000–1,750,000 VND per adult, with most listings between 1,450,000 and 1,660,000 VND. The price includes hotel pickup, the speedboat, a guide, water, lunch, a mask, snorkel and life jacket, and the cable car and Aquatopia ticket. The seawalk helmet dive is extra.

In visitors’ videos the Hon Thom part goes the same way almost every time. The boat ties up at a jetty, a buggy or tuk-tuk takes the group to the restaurant, lunch is the buffet, the afternoon is Aquatopia, and the group boards the cable car at about 4–5 pm. That usually leaves 2–4 hours on the island and very little of it on the beach. A few tours run the other way, cable car out in the morning and speedboat for the rest of the day. Expect a big, full boat (30 to 100 people in the videos), a stop at a pearl farm or shop, free drone photos at the beach island, and a bumpy ride that left some guests seasick.

Standard 3-island snorkelling tours cost less, about 530,000–950,000 VND, but they do not land on Hon Thom. A private speedboat for the day runs about 2,600,000–3,200,000 VND for up to eight people, or 4–5 million VND for 20–30, before lunch and transfers. On a private boat you choose the stops, but on Hon Thom you still need a Sun World ticket for the park areas. We found no published landing fee for the island itself. The boat crossing from An Thoi port to Hon Thom takes about 30 minutes. Public boat fares to the island aren’t published consistently, so ask at An Thoi port.

Our own 4-island speedboat tour is the snorkelling version, not the water-park one. It picks up at your hotel at 9 am and boards at An Thoi. The itinerary lists Pineapple Island as the first stop, for fishing, then Mong Tay for swimming, Gam Ghi for snorkelling and May Rut for the beach and local food, and the tour gets you back to the hotel at about 5 pm. Lunch, an English-speaking guide, snorkel gear with fins and fishing gear are included. It does not include the cable car or Aquatopia, so book it if you want a day on the water rather than a day in the park.

Phu Quoc Speedboat Tour to 4 Islands in the…

1 day

Start from:  $62 /person

What is there to do on Pineapple Island?

Mostly the water park. Aquatopia has about 20 slides, a lazy river with free tubes, a wave pool and a children’s area, and opens from about 10 am to 4:45 pm. Exotica, the rides area, runs from about 9:30 am to 4:45 pm and includes the Eagle Eye observation ride and a wooden roller coaster. Both are in the cable car ticket. A few things in visitors’ videos are worth knowing before you go:

• Lockers cost extra: a small one about 50,000 VND plus a 50,000 VND deposit, a large one about 100,000 VND.
• Phones and cameras are not allowed on the slides or the roller coaster, and slide staff turn people away for zips, metal or jewellery. Wear a plain swimsuit.
• The wooden roller coaster was closed on the day for five of the vloggers. Don’t build the trip around it.
• The water park is quiet in the morning and fills up after lunch, about when the boat-tour groups land.

The beach is the part most people skip. A free electric buggy runs from the park to the sand in about 3–5 minutes, and in visitors’ videos the beach is quiet or close to empty, because almost everyone stays in the water park. If you want a swim in the sea without a crowd, that is the reason to come by cable car on your own rather than with a tour, which leaves little time for it.

Two things to know before you go. First, much of the island is a building site: nine of the channels we looked at showed large construction work, and some found rides or walkways shut because of it. Second, it is hot, with little shade between the zones. Vloggers recommend a hat and sunscreen and keeping out of the sun between noon and 2 pm. Visitors disagree on whether food prices are fair. The prices they quote: a coconut about 60,000 VND, a juice or smoothie 60,000–80,000 VND, bottled water 20,000–25,000 VND. The Mango buffet restaurant is large and gets busy at midday.

Is it safe to take a speedboat to the An Thoi islands?

Boat tours here run under rules that were tightened in July 2026, after a serious accident. On 11 July 2026, at about 1 pm, a tourist speedboat capsized about 400 m out on the route from Hon May Rut Ngoai back to An Thoi international port, in strong wind during the south-west monsoon. It was carrying 32 Indian tourists, three crew and a guide. Fifteen people died and 21 were rescued, according to Tuoi Tre, Tien Phong and VOV. The captain was detained and a criminal case opened, and the Prime Minister issued an official dispatch (47/CĐ-TTg). The accident was in the same archipelago but not at Hon Thom. The next day, Tien Phong reported, many travel companies suspended their speedboat island tours of their own accord, and many speedboats and tour boats sat idle at An Thoi port. On the morning of 15 July one An Thoi operator told Tuoi Tre its island tour was still paused, while several operators were preparing to take guests again; one said it would use a registered and inspected open-top twin-hull boat, with passengers wearing life jackets.

On 14 July 2026 the Phu Quoc special zone issued a directive: tourist speedboats must be registered and inspected, carry life jackets and rescue equipment, not carry more people than allowed, and not leave port in bad weather or unsafe conditions. The port authority checks boats at the piers and the waterway police stepped up inspections. By 16 July, Tuoi Tre reported, the zone had more than 100 tourist speedboats, about 70 of which met the required standard, and boats that did not were banned.

Tours are also stopped event by event in bad weather rather than for a fixed season. Island tours were halted ahead of storm Wipha on 21 July 2025, and on 26 November 2025 the An Giang Department of Tourism told operators not to take visitors out to the islands in high waves or strong wind. Before you board, check these things:

• Ask the operator whether the boat is registered and inspected. Since July 2026 boats that don’t meet the standard are banned.
• Look for enough life jackets for everyone on board. The rule requires boats to carry them; we found no rule that passengers must wear one the whole way, but putting one on for the open-water legs costs nothing.
• Count heads against the boat’s capacity. Overloading is banned.
• If the wind is up and the sea is rough, accept a cancellation, or take the cable car instead. It reaches Hon Thom without a boat.

When is the best time to visit Pineapple Island?

November to April, the dry season, when the sea around the An Thoi islands is calmest. According to Vietnam’s tourism authority (VNAT), the north-east monsoon runs from November to March and the south-west monsoon from May to September, with the roughest seas around June to August. Boats still run in the wet months, but more days are cancelled and the crossings are bumpier. VNAT puts the best snorkelling at December to April, with visibility of about 10–15 m in January and February against 2–4 m in the south-west monsoon, and recommends going out in the morning.

For the island itself, time of day matters as much as month. Arrive for the first cable car, do the water park before the tour groups land after lunch, and leave before the 4:30 pm queue.

Is Pineapple Island worth it?

For the cable car and the water park, yes, and eight of the channels we watched called the ticket good value, most of them before the 2026 rise to 850,000 VND, which covers the ride, Aquatopia, the Exotica rides and a drink. As a quiet tropical island, less so. What you get is a theme park on an island, with building work around it and a beach that is quiet mainly because few people go there. If you want coral and small beaches, a snorkelling tour of the other An Thoi islands fits better. If you have children or want one easy day out, the cable car on its own is the simplest way to see the archipelago from above.

What to combine with Pineapple Island

The cable car station is in Sunset Town, An Thoi, and in visitors’ videos the same-day ticket also gets you onto the Kiss Bridge there during certain hours, so ask at the counter which ones before you plan the evening around it. On the water, Mong Tay Island is about 2.4 km from Hon Thom’s nearest shore in a straight line and is a stop on most 3- and 4-island tours. The waters around these islands are part of the Phu Quoc Marine Protected Area, so leave the coral where it is. For the rest of the island, see our Phu Quoc attractions and our list of things to do in Phu Quoc.

FAQ

Sources: VietnamNet on the An Thoi archipelago and the name Pineapple Island (2018); Tuoi Tre News on Hon Thom (2018); Znews on Hon Thom (2022); Phap Luat TP.HCM on the cable car opening (February 2018); SGGP on the Phu Quoc special zone (July 2025); Sun World 2026 cable car prices and the Sun World booking site (checked 4 November 2026); Pullman Phu Quoc on Hon Thom (2026); tour prices from Rooty Trip, Sunday Go, Phu Quoc Go and Dai Viet Tourist; private boat prices from Dai Viet Tourist and Phu Quoc Xanh; Tuoi Tre News on the July 2026 accident, Tien Phong and VOV; Tuoi Tre on operators preparing to take guests again (15 July 2026); Tuoi Tre on the 14 July 2026 directive and boat inspections (16 July 2026); Viet Nam News on storm Wipha (July 2025); VOH on the An Giang tourism department’s November 2025 dispatch; VNAT on Phu Quoc’s seasons; Ministry of Agriculture and Environment on the Phu Quoc Marine Protected Area (2026); distances measured on OpenStreetMap; visitor observations from 43 YouTube channels that visited Hon Thom (2023–2026), counted only where three or more channels agree. Banner photo: Vivu Vietnam / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped. Featured photo: Quang Nguyen Vinh / Pexels.