How to buy ferry tickets on Andaman Islands, India

When you travel around Andaman and Nicobar islands, taking ships and ferries is inevitable. By far the most popular is the Port Blair to Havelock ferry. However, ferries will take you to each and every corner of this archipelago. In this article we would like to describe the details of Andaman ferry booking, peculiarities of Andaman ship tickets purchase and note differences between govt ferry and private ones,

Govt ferry from Port Blair to Havelock and Neil vs. private ferry

Unfortunately, the Indian bureaucracy combined with tragic management, can turn planning your journey and buying tickets for govt ferries into a little hell. Fortunately, there are two private companies, that do not suffer from bureaucracy and want to do business. Makruzz and Green  Ocean. Tickets can be purchased online or at their offices in Port Blair, Havelock and Neil. There two disadvantages of private carriers. First is the cost. The ticket price is 4 times higher than the cost of the state carrier. Second, the private company provides transportation for only two most developed islands: Havelock and Neil. If you want to travel cheaply or visit one of the dozens of islands, you need to stay on government ships' deck.

How to buy a ticket for a state ferry. Andaman govt ferry booking.

In the past, to buy tickets, foreigners needed your Andaman permit, the RAP (restricted area permit). This is not the case anymore, RAP regime was cancelled. The recent practice is, that you need your passport number, issue and expiry date to purchase a ticket. Therefore carry a spare copies of your passport as well as visa page. May you be from a country that does not need a visa to visit India, the clerk will most likely use the passport number.
This is a good news. In the past you could not really ask someone in Port Blair to buy tickets from you while you were abroad even not while you were in mainland India. Now you can.

The main pitfall in purchasing the tickets is the management of the state shipping company. It would be logical for the shipping schedule to be known in advance for the entire season or, at least for a month ahead. But we are in India, and India is different. Indians can plan the ships schedule for maximum two weeks ahead and tickets are issued only 4 days in advance. Therefore, on Monday you can buy tickets for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and on Thursday you can buy tickets for Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. This means that any advance planning s limited to a few days before the ship's departure.

With current Andaman ferry booking system it is often Impossible to plan a return leg of the journey

You will likely find yourself in a situation, where you buy a ticket in one direction to an island, but will not know when you will return back and whether there will be tickets for your return. Welcome to India. But despite all this complications, we always got to the place we needed and back, but always, it required, planning, fight and stress. We spent 5 weeks on the archipelago, so luckily, we had time, and our plans were flexible.

Of course, there is always the opportunity to buy a ticket right before boarding a ship, if they are not yet sold out.

Where to buy tickets for government ferry in Andaman Islands

There 3 places where you can buy ferry tickets for Andaman and Nicobar Islands: Directorate of shipping services, Phoenix Bay jetty, Port Blair, CSC windows and black market. Tourism agencies can assist you a fee.

Directorate of shipping services, Port Blair

In Port Blair, there are two ways to buy tickets. One option is to buy tickets at the port. The exact name o f Directorate of shipping services, Ticket Counter is located in Phoenix Bay Jetty. The waiting room is air-conditioned and there are 6 windows selling tickets. Take the form from the woman sitting at the counter, fill your name, sex, age, country, where you want to go, and when. Then wait in the queue and file your completed application at the ticket window. If there are available seats on your desired ship, you will get your ticket within a minute or two. In one of the windows you can even pay with a credit card. I suppose that you can pay only by Indian credit cards, payment by foreign cards on the Andaman Islands, does not work. There are separate windows for the women and men. The queue for women is usually shorter, so let your female group members buy the tickets. From 6 windows 3 sell tickets for a ship heading north, and 3 windows sell tickets to the south.

CSC

There is another opportunity to buy tickets. This is a novelty, introduced right when were on the Andaman Islands. India offers its citizens a very well thought out thing: CSC - Common Service Centers, (Hindi: सर्व सेवा केंद्र). CSC is a window with a person and a computer that accepts requests, provides all public services and information for citizens. You can arrange 50 to 70 different things in one window. You can get various forms, possibly apply for a passport, driver's license, electoral card, get information and confirmations that are related to medicine records, excerpts from public schools, various social benefits, etc. In fact, the provision State services in digital form in one place. Excellent. Well, and most recently, you can buy tickets here on the ship. Theoretically amazing, in reality complete failure.

One of these CSC windows is located just next to Dutta Residency, where we stayed. First time we tried it was shut down because there was no electricity, second time the electricity was there, but the Internet did not work and the system was not functioning for the third time. Rats were running there all the time 🙂 Welcome to  Indian reality. Nevertheless, I recommend trying. There are 16 such windows in Port Blair, just ask for nearest CSC.

Black market

Tickets for Havelock are a scarce commodity. It is logical that in a place where goods in high demand are sold at very low prices, these goods become difficult to obtain and black market will appear. Local travel agencies or most hotel managers can arrange those tickets for you. How? There is a small "lady's ticket mafia".

A few ladies will be standing at the gate to the port, already at 5 or 6 am, so that they are the first at the ticket counter, when it opens at 9 am. Their colleagues constantly collect orders from travel companies around the city and pass them on to those ladies, that are standing in line in front of the window. This service costs from 150 to 200 rupees, but we also heard about 500 rupee fees, I think it was because tickets went thru large number of intermediary hands. If you do not want to get up at 4 am, but want to be sure that you get a ticket for Havelock, this is also an option. We used this option and it works. Probably want to ask why the ladies? The answer is simple, the queue for women is shorter 🙂

How to buy tickets outside the capital

On the big islands there are computers and booking system, on small islands they will simply write your ticket by hand. The difference is that where there is electricity, connection to the Internet and a computer, you can buy tickets 3-4 days in advance. Tickets issued manually can be purchased only one day in advance or just before you leave.

The most problematic is, of course, Havelock Island. demand for return tickets logically equals demand for tickets to Havelock. Therefore, either on Monday or on Thursday, wake up very early and wait in line, or use the speculators service with tickets, or spend more money on private transportation. We used private transport.

It was funny with tickets from Little Andaman. For this we have a short separate story. (Being Prepared)

Where can I see Andaman ship schedule

Following links used to be good in 2018 and most of the 2019 to check the schedules. At the moment however (November 2021), the links stopped working.

Neil, Havelock, Rangat, Long Island - andaman.gov.in/web/guest/neilhavrangat
Mayabunder, Diglipur - andaman.gov.in/web/guest/mayadigilipur
Little Andaman - andaman.gov.in/web/guest/nicobarhutbay

This link works(November 2021): https://www.andaman.gov.in/interisland-shipping-schedule
however is often not up to date.

Please subscribe via comment section for updates. Until further notice the answer to "where can I see ship schedule" is "in the local newspaper" .. sorry. This is analog Andaman world, not digital.