Sean and Carmel have been travelling for several months and are unaware of the government advice.
"It wouldn't have mattered even if we'd known," Sean said.
By midnight, the club is pumping and the dance floor is full.
But Phuket isn't all neon and noise. At 570km2, it is Thailand's largest island. Away from Patong's clubs and bars, there are tranquil hotels with private beaches where the ivory sand is soft and the gently lapping sea is warm and blue. Coddled in a luxury world of spas and private swimming pools in hotels with security barriers at the driveway, it's impossible to feel anxious, even if you're of a nervous disposition.
"I didn't want to come to Phuket but my girlfriend persuaded me," said 34-year-old Maile Rehnberg from Jackson, Wyoming.
They were spending three days in Phuket, staying at the small 40-room, upmarket resort of Amanpuri, considered by many to be the best on the island.
It costs from US$700 per night, room only.
"I'm not going to go on any day-trips," his girlfriend says. "I'm just enjoying the safe haven here."
If, like all other holidaymakers I come across, you're happy to go on day-trips, there are some very special ones. A starlight trip with John Gray's SeaCanoe is a spiritual experience. After an hour's boat ride to the weird, overhanging limestone karst islands of Phang-Nga bay, you paddle around the islands in inflatable canoes and squeeze through tunnels into a forgotten world of jade lagoons in the middle of the uninhabited islands. If you wish, you can do longer trips and camp on empty beaches with a Thai guide and a cook.
Amanpuri is almost as peaceful and beautiful an experience as the canoe trip, but despite being remote from Patong, people have still cancelled.
At other hotels around Phuket, the story is the same. At the five-star Dusit Laguna, on the long, sweeping bay of Bang Tao, where no buildings are visible from the beach and the sunloungers are just one row deep, only 10 people occupy the 92 pool-side loungers.
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