Planning · by ship · as of July 2026
Andaman by ship: routes, fares and the honest verdict
The verdict, up front
You can reach the Andamans by ship, and you probably should not. Passenger ships sail to Port Blair from Chennai, Kolkata and Visakhapatnam, take roughly 56 to 60 hours, go only a few times a month, and cost ₹3,500–9,000 — against a two-hour flight from Chennai starting around ₹4,500. Take the ship if the voyage itself is the experience you want. If you are doing it to save money, the numbers do not really reward you, and the days at sea will cost you most of a week.
Here is the full picture anyway — because almost nobody publishes it properly, and you should be able to make the decision on facts rather than on someone's blog post.
First — the ship is not the ferry
These get confused constantly. Ships cross the open sea between the Indian mainland and Port Blair, and take two to three days. Ferries are the inter-island boats inside the Andamans — Port Blair to Havelock to Neil — which take one to two hours and run daily. If you are planning island hopping, you want the ferries, and our how to reach guide covers those. This page is only about the mainland crossing.
The three routes
| From | Time at sea | How often | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chennai | ~60 hours | A few sailings a month | The most common mainland sailing, and the one most people mean when they ask. |
| Kolkata | ~60 hours | Rolling schedule, not daily | Runs to a schedule that shifts — dates are published close in rather than months ahead. |
| Visakhapatnam | ~56–60 hours | The least frequent of the three | The thinnest service of the three ports. Workable, but the hardest to plan around. |
Fares across all three run roughly ₹3,500–9,000 depending on class and route, as of July 2026. Schedules shift, so treat frequency as a pattern rather than a timetable.
How booking actually works — and what we won't pretend to know
Tickets are limited, sailings are announced on a schedule that moves, and the process is not the online checkout people expect. That is the honest shape of it, and it is the part that defeats most travellers who set out to take the ship.
What we are not going to do is print a step-by-step booking procedure we cannot currently stand behind. We are a tour operator that flies its guests in; we do not book mainland ship passages, and the counters, portals and agent arrangements around them change. Publishing a confident-sounding process we have not verified would be worse than useless — you would follow it and find it wrong. If you are seriously considering the crossing, message us and we will find out the current position for your dates before you commit to anything.
Ship against flight, honestly
| By ship | By flight | What it means | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time in transit | ~56–60 hours | ~2 hours from Chennai | The comparison that actually decides it. The ship costs you roughly five days of a trip, return. |
| How often it goes | A few times a month | Daily | A missed or shifted sailing can move your whole trip by a week. A missed flight moves it by hours. |
| Booking | Limited tickets, not a normal online booking | Book online in minutes | The single biggest practical obstacle, and the one people underestimate. |
| If the weather turns | Sailings shift; you wait | Delayed, then flown | Both get disrupted. Only one of them strands you for days. |
We compare these on time rather than pitting the fares directly against each other: our published flight fares are return, and the ship band is quoted without a stated basis, so a rupee-for-rupee comparison would be misleading. The time difference needs no such caveat. Flight fares by city are on our how to reach page.
What the crossing is like — and why we can't tell you
We have hosted more than 15,000 travellers and hold over 900 Google reviews. Across all of them, not one guest has described taking the mainland ship. Every mention of a "ship" in our reviews turns out to be an inter-island ferry between Port Blair, Havelock and Neil.
We could fill this section with atmospheric writing about sunrise on the Bay of Bengal. We would be making it up. So instead, here is the useful version of that absence: in nine years of sending people to these islands, the ship has not once been the right answer for a guest of ours. That is not proof it is a bad journey — it is the clearest signal we can honestly give you about how rarely it fits an ordinary trip.
We have no photograph of the mainland ship, because nobody on our team has taken it. This is one of our inter-island ferries, and the caption says so rather than letting you assume otherwise.
Who should actually do this
People for whom the voyage IS the trip
If two days at sea on the Bay of Bengal sounds like the holiday rather than the obstacle, this is a genuinely uncommon experience and you should do it. That is a real reason, and the only one we find convincing.
Travellers who genuinely cannot fly
Medical, personal or otherwise. The ship exists and it works. Give yourself a lot of schedule slack at both ends.
Anyone trying to save money
This is the common reason and the weakest one. Once you count the days, the flight usually wins — and our own published fares from Chennai start close to the upper ship berths.
Anyone on a normal holiday timeline
On a week off, the round trip at sea eats roughly five days. You would arrive, turn around and leave. Fly, and spend those days on a beach.
Ship questions, answered straight
How long does the ship from Chennai to Port Blair take?
Around 60 hours — about two and a half days at sea, each way. Sailings from Kolkata run to a similar duration, and Visakhapatnam is roughly 56 to 60 hours. For comparison, the flight from Chennai is about two hours. That gap, not the fare, is what decides it for almost everyone: a return crossing costs you close to five days of your trip.
How much does the Andaman ship cost?
Fares run roughly ₹3,500 to ₹9,000, varying by class and route. That is genuinely cheap for a two-and-a-half-day journey — but our own published Chennai flight fares start around ₹4,500, so the saving is smaller than most people expect once you are comparing real numbers rather than assumptions. We would rather you knew that before planning a trip around the ship.
How do you book a ship ticket to the Andamans?
Honestly: not the way you book a flight. Tickets are limited, sailings are announced on a schedule that shifts, and the process is not a simple online checkout — this is the part that defeats most people who set out to do it. We do not want to describe a booking procedure we cannot currently stand behind, so we are not going to invent one here. If you are serious about the crossing, tell us and we will find out the current process for your dates rather than guess at it.
Is the Andaman ship worth it?
For most travellers, no — and we would rather say so than sell you a hard trip. The voyage takes around 60 hours each way, sails only a few times a month, and saves less money than people imagine. It is worth it for exactly one kind of traveller: the one for whom the sea crossing is the experience they came for. If that is you, it is a genuinely unusual journey and you should take it. If you are doing it to save a few thousand rupees, fly.
Can foreign nationals travel to the Andamans by ship?
This is one we will not guess at. Entry rules for foreign nationals changed in 2018 and the arrival formalities are built around flying into Port Blair — how that works for a sea arrival is something we would confirm for your specific case rather than state here. Our permits and entry requirements page covers the general rules for foreign visitors; for a ship arrival specifically, ask us and we will check the current position before you book anything.
Is the ship the same as the ferry between the islands?
No, and this is the most common mix-up we hear. The ships on this page cross the open sea between the Indian mainland and Port Blair, taking two to three days. The ferries people talk about in the Andamans are the inter-island boats — Port Blair to Havelock to Neil — which take one to two hours and run daily. If you are planning island hopping, you want the ferries, not this page.
The practical way to plan
- How to reach Andaman — flights by city, the airport, and the inter-island ferries.
- Packages from Chennai — the port most people ask about, costed by air instead.
- Permits and entry rules — what Indian and foreign travellers need on arrival.
- What an Andaman trip costs — where the money actually goes, ship or no ship.
How this page stays true
Written by the Tropical Andamans team in Port Blair, as of July 2026. The routes, durations, fare band and frequency mirror our how-to-reach guide and are re-checked each season. Three things we have deliberately left out because we cannot source them: the step-by-step booking process, the class names and per-class fares, and any first-hand account of the crossing — we do not book mainland ship passages and no guest of ours has reported taking one. Where a page like this usually invents detail, we have said what we do not know instead. Ask us and we will find out the current position for your dates.
Still thinking about the ship?
Tell us your dates and where you would sail from. We will find out the current position — and if flying makes more sense for your trip, we will say that too.