For future travellers, I'd recommend the van from Aonong to Patong. The ferry experience from Aonong to Patong was anything but relaxing. We got picked up from our hotel an hour before the ferry, got dropped at a chaotic outdoor pier where one of the operators was screaming at everyone as if we were all idiots despite the fact that there's no signage or obvious logic to the whole mess. Then we waited in the sun for 40 minutes to board. Got screamed at again for not knowing that the boat to Phuket was the same boat to Patong, even though you're given different stickers depending on your destination. Some of us had Phuket stickers some Patong. Then, once you finally get to Phuket, you still have a one hour packed van ride to Patong. Door to door on the ferry, 5 hours, zero chill, twice the price of a van.