TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands chartering a crewed catamaran

We are looking at chartering a crewed cat in May for a family trip. We are considering Love Boat through Sailing Directions with the crew of Maya and Jacek. We have also looked at a boat called Catmer through VRBO with a crew of Bram and Tess or possibly Quest with Nikki and Chris through . We also looked at Raven. Does anyone have any feedback or experience with any of these-boat or crew or company? I would love to hear from you.

I am not familiar with them but I would recommend "Catatonic " out of Red Hook

Many of us here know and love Catatonic and her crew..

Yes, I saw several recommendations for Catatonic but it is not available or is too small, I can't remember which.

Southernfam7,

Thanks for thinking about Catatonic and I'm sorry we aren't available for your dates. My wife Sandy not only owns Catatonic with me, but is also a yacht broker for yachts all of the Caribbean and we have experience with many of the yachts you have mentioned. We personally know many of the crews and yachts you have already mentioned including Love Boat and Raven. Sailing Directions books us often as well as a broker too, so it is a small world and you can't go wrong with anything you mentioned. We are happy to help, but it sounds like you are already in good hands.



Dirk

You are in need of a crewed yacht charter broker like St Somewhere Yacht Charters. They find out about your interests and needs, budget, etc. and match you with available crew and boats. Okay, full disclosure, I have known Leslie for 20+ years.<img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" /> There are lots of charter brokers out there.

My sister runs an charter company out of Red Hook, I'm not sure if you have seen their info yet. Their company is TYL Adventures and their website is http://www.tyladventures.com.

I'm partial to their company, but you can check out their reviews on trip advisor for additional input. Even if they aren't the charter company for you, you can contact them for some suggestions if needed.

We went thru the process of booking a crewed charter twice. Once via captains and the other with a broker.

Absolutely use a broker.

The difference I noted was a broker worked to find a boat and crew that was a fit for our group/vacation style while the captains seemed to want us to fit their boat/style.

(Full disclosure - we didn't take either trip as when it came right down to it, my group is land-based at heart and wouldn't have liked a boat trip.)

I concur with CleoBeach. We have chartered mainly through brokers and had exceptional experiences. Our one time going off the reservation and booking direct with owner/crew was a nightmare and I felt like I had been robbed at gunpoint after paying $13K for a subpar vacation experience at best.

Have you tried owner time charters? (I think that's the name of the company) They charter through Dream Yacht Charters and feature Lagoons 620. Friends of ours just came back from a charter in St. Martin and said they will never charter bareboat again