Kathy T.

We bareboat chartered a catamaran for two weeks in June in the Exumas - my husband, me, our three kids aged 11-25, two teen nieces, and one boyfriend. The cat pictured was so perfect, 4 separate cabins with private heads each and three spacious common areas. When we arrived, we were told the boat we were supposed to charter had been damaged by the last charterers. There were no more cats available (although we saw plenty all around us) so we were downgraded to a monohull with two private heads and one head off the salon for the other cabins to share. We were very much looking forward to the cat, not only for the ideal sleeping arrangements, but also for the luxurious shared spaces - a monohull does not compare and eight people quickly gets crowded. The bahamas anchorages are very shallow, having a monohull meant we had to anchor far out or avoid anchorages we could have gone to in a cat.

We were also assured hard kayaks were available but when we got there, there were only inflatable kayaks that took forever to inflate - and they forgot to give us paddles! The base also provides shuttling to the nearby grocery store for provisioning, but it was very expensive despite the short trip (and should have been comped considering the problems). It would have been nice if provisioning was provided like Moorings does. Fitting everyone for snorkel gear and fins was irritating insanity. Rather than letting us pick our gear like Moorings does, a woman kept bringing us fins to try on and then she would run back to the storage area and get new ones for us to try on. It took forever and somehow we ended up missing an entire set of fins and a snorkel to go with its mask - so we had to take turns snorkeling rather than all go together. Also, the chart chip we were given was completely unreliable, the depths were not even close to correct - my husband had just been on our sailboat in the Bahamas the week before (our boat had an issue, hence the charter), and our several year old chart chip was spot on. The GPS screen on the monohull was in an awkward spot so you couldn't easily watch it when you were at the helm.

The boat was not available for us to leave at 5pm, we had to stay until the next day to repair the water pump and a broken fan (replaced with a fan without a protective cover, right by our head in a berth).

During the checkout, we were told the boat had a shallower draft than the boat's documentation said.

We had other issues with the boat, oil was spilling out of the engine and the forward sump pump stopped working, dream yacht quickly flew someone to where we were to fix it but we had to stay at the island that had the airport and then we had to dinghy him back-and-forth, so we spent a few days dealing with this problem, rather than having fun with our six passengers. A battery was bad and the alarm went off for the entire trip, the repairman didn't fix that. The bilge pump ran continuously. There were no tools on the boat.

The galley was pretty but so poorly outfitted we didn't even have pans to use in the oven (so the oven was completely unusable) and there were no potholders. The french press coffeemaker was cracked and not usable, no whisk, no mixing bowls, no measuring spoons, only one 1/2 cup measuring cup. We were told the bottom refrigerator drawer was a freezer but it was actually a refrigerator, so our meats defrosted until we figured out that error.

Bahamas in June is very hot, normally we don't have air-conditioning, but this boat did have it. It didn't work in three of the cabins so those people were dying while others were freezing trying to get the air to with the all of cabins. Obviously we didn't use the air conditioning 24/7 since it required running the engine but the fans were a poor replacement, some of them barely worked or didn't work at all, five guests were miserable trying to sleep.

At the end, we had to fuel up the boat, but we couldn't get anyone on the radio and had to wait outside of the channel for 45 minutes before anyone answered. Then we had to wait ages until it was our turn, because people sat at the fuel dock and didn't get out of the way when they were finished fueling.

We had a great trip anyway, but it was not at all what we expected and paid for. We did get the difference between the two boats refunded, and the kayak rentals refunded, but we would've preferred to have the things we were willing to pay for. In the past, we have chartered with Moorings in the Bahamas and Caribbean, and Hinckley in Maine, and never had issues like this.