TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Trick to reserving a Ball.

We go on every morning and start trying to reserve a ball at 6:59 am and they go from orange to grey all at once at 7:00 am. Is there something we are missing? We keep trying and hitting different numbers and get the same message saying we have to have a boat in our profile (we do), must try between 7:00-12:00 (we are) and still can’t seem to figure out how they get snatched up all at once.

Are they pre-selling them to people? Any suggestions on how to improve our chances?

Thanks!

Is your boat “active”? Meaning set to “current?

That’s an important part.

If you are on a cellular internet it’s to slow. You need a high speed connection. I have zero luck booking a ball on cell connection at Cooper but am almost 100% on booking for friends when I do it from home with a fiber optic connection. Even a Island WiFi connection may not be good enough. They are also giving priority to customers who book their charter through boatyball. That was the real point of the business in the first place and where the money is.
G

I have tried booking a mooring ball the past two mornings. I logged on at 6:58 AM and clicked on an open mooring ball at exactly 7 AM. Each time I did it the mooring ball popped up as reserved.The first morning I did it we had not left the dock yet because we had done a sleep board. I mentioned it to one of the ladies at the desk at BVI Yacht Charters and she told me that this time of year the mooring Boaty balls pretty much go instantaneously at 7 AM. I noticed that before the clock turned 7:01 AM all of the mooring balls were reserved at Cooper Leverick and Anegada. It may be that a good chunk of the balls are already reserved through some of the charter companies. My Profile is active and the boat has Wi-Fi which seems to be working well. I’m skipping Cooper and breaking out the anchor and not wasting my time with trying to reserve with Boaty Ball.

All the boat systems on BVI charter boats are cellular based.
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I guess that explains it. However, last year during this time I had no problem getting a Boaty Ball on a BVI yacht Charter boat.

Due to the fact that people who booked their charter through Boat Ball have reserved their balls in advance so they are already gone....probably

I disagree with booking through a charter company. We have boat with Voyage right now and there is no advantage because of the charter.

We have a friend booking at 7am stateside. So maybe the internet connection is the issue.

Does anybody know for sure that any boaty balls are held back (pre reserved) for any reason? I think it was suggested Annoddd if you book your charter through Boaty Ball as opposed to directly some were held for that purpose.

Like the rest of you I can reserve in the states for people more efficiently then in the islands. We have scratched off Cooper and now Great Harbour on the BVI circuit as the overall hassle to include BB isnt worth the reward especially with North Sound coming back online in 2020

I once tried waking my wench at precisely 0700 to hoist the anchor, but by 0701 she was back asleep, so we were stuck there for another 24 hrs.

Is any of this really a surprise to anyone. That is why I was so vocal against BB early on.

BB is stupid.

To clarify earlier posts, if you book through BB they act like a broker and get a fee from the charter company. They then give you the ability to reserve balls ahead of time. So many of the BB balls are already reserved before 7am. No high speed WiFi is going to beat that.

The idea that people sailing the BVIs have folks at home sitting at computers at 7am to reserve balls is just ridiculous. We thought Irma would reset the BVIs to an earlier time but instead there is no escaping technology. For me the answer is not sailing in the high season until the capacity is restored. I am not going to do the mooring ball dance.

I wonder if a petition to Cooper's owners would get them to reconsider using boatyball.

" Alec Atteberry" of Boaty Ball is monitoring this thread right now. Notice, once again, the OP for this thread is a spanking new TTOL member with no posting history. Anyone else feeling "played' ??

I received an email from Boaty Ball a few months ago that stated if you booked your charter through Boaty Ball you were eligible to get advanced reservations. I don’t remember what charter companies were participating in the program.

Likely Voyage, but it's just a guess

Not playing you. I am a new user. My wife was Googling how to reserve a Boaty Ball and this Forum showed up in her search so we signed up.

We sent Ty- Atteberry an email as well and he sent a nice response explaining things. We have sailed the BVIs many times and are captaining our own 44’ Monohull through BVI Yacht Charters. We were actually the last boat out before Irma and this is our first time back so we are happy to be here and don’t mind anchoring. We anchored Norman and Great Harbour (Peter Island) no problem. Boaty Ball is new and we were looking forward to securing a ball but no luck so far so just questioning the system.

Ty said they have 300 average users per day and 159 users at 7:00 am this am and only have 69 balls across the program. Odds are not in our favor but as long as the winds are, we are all good! Last time we come at high season for sure. Prefer less crowds anyway.

Safe sailing.

Kinda shady if the balls show up as available first but they're actually pre-booked.

I don't think that was called for. The OP seems to be indicating that he's having problems and those problems seem to be consistent with other experiences. So not sure how you feel "played".
Take a deep breath. It's the holidays and good will and peace on earth and all that good stuff.

That’s the part about being played I did not understand. The OP has exactly the issues everyone is having.
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Time of year may have something to do with it. Right now it's very busy. Just check boat availability on TMM's website. All but two of their fleet are chartered. When we are going in a couple of weeks, a lower percentage of the fleet will be out. I think TMM's data is probably representative of BVI charter fleets in general.