TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Trip Report Part One

Thought I would share our experiences for a 10 day charter recently. Sorry it's long but I wanted to provide details

Trip Report June 27 to July 9 PART ONE

We traveled with 2 parent couples, 1 single adult and 2 twenty-something daughters with boyfriends. I have chartered in the BVI and other parts of the world since 1979 but have not been to the BVI since 2012 when we enjoyed a 5 week charter during summer. We had a couple fly in from Germany, a couple from Kaneohe Hawaii and 5 from San Diego.

I wanted to charter a Lagoon 450 (because I liked them when they first came out and they are reasonable cost now because they are older), but we had the difficulty of needing 5 sleeping areas. No one wanted a front coffin berth, especially not me (the single). So, after contacting many charter companies we found a 2018 Lagoon 450 that was licensed for 12 and advertised a salon double berth, at an excellent discounted rate with Navigare.

Everyone (except missing Germany crew) stayed at Nanny Cay Hotel which was an excellent choice for our dock departure. Lunch at Peg Legs for first dip into the warm ocean and dinner at Omar’s Fusion which was nice.

I asked the salesperson (Lisa) to double check with base to make sure it dropped to a berth and I received written confirmation prior to signing the contract. I sent WhatsApp messages and email to the base one week prior to arrival to make sure they understood we needed the salon berth setup. Of course, when I went into the office early they were surprised and did not know we needed the salon berth. During checkout the dock staff couldn’t find the short posts needed to drop the salon table. It took them 1 ½ hrs to go find some posts off another boat. The posts were not the right height and there was not a cushion for the dropped berth. They just grabbed an ill fitting cockpit cushion. The whole thing was an uncomfortable mess. The cockpit cushion was so long it blocked access trying to get around the berth. Thank goodness the kids were young and survived the situation.

Our large Riteway order was missing about 20% of the items. Luckily I received the completed order info the night before delivery. I had to go through all details and add to the list for our One Mart produce run. Riteway was about 2 hours late delivery but I don’t know if it was because they called Navigare and they held them off on delivery. We did a produce/missing items run at One Mart with their taxi service which took 1 ½ hours. Of course the ladies that went off from the Nanny Cay Hotel did not know the name of charter company, name of boat or where to return in the Marina!!!! Lesson learned.

Steakation order showed up early and I had to stash it into a cooler and couldn’t check it. When I finally opened it up I found 10 not ordered ribeye steaks and all our fresh fish and protein brownies were missing. I called and turns out someone grabbed wrong bag for delivery. They rushed over in 30 minutes with the correct items. We ordered a lot of marinated skewers from Steakation and I was not really impressed with the skewers, they were wimpy. Caribbean Cellars was on time and order was accurate.

As soon as we opened up the boat to board it smelled awful!! I cannot even think how the cleaning people were inside with AC running with that sewer smell. It was obvious something was wrong with holding tanks / heads or something. We traced the awful smell to starboard bilge and the smell was really bad when the AC was running. Dock crew poured 2 bottles of Fabuloso in the bilge but the only way to remove the smell was turn off AC and open all the hatches. We didn’t use the AC much during our charter because it really pumped out the stench. We tried pouring fresh water through the heads but it didn’t cure the problem.

Our young couple from Germany hit a snag with their very first flight. Their flight out of Munich was 3 hrs late departing. But, everyone thought they were going to be OK because their London to JFK flight was 2 ½ hours delayed. They ran through Heathrow but were denied going through the secondary security because their flight was already boarding, even though they had 40 min to spare. They were delayed a whole day. Now all scenarios did not get them to Nanny Cay until 4pm our day of departure. I was determined not to get stuck on the dock our first night. Navigare gave me the number of a local private water taxi guy for $600 that picked them up at Red Hook and brought them straight to our boat at Nanny Cay. Took only 1 hour including entry at Sopers Hole and they arrived on board at 12:30 from a 10:40am arrival at STT.

Finally off the dock about 2pm. We could’ve left a lot earlier if the salon berth issue did not cause a delay.

I forgot to mention the most important part. I had small baggie of my husband's ashes, but did not declare them/fill out the onerous BVI Government paperwork. Had death certificate just in case and ashes were in checked duffle bag. Noone ever opened the bag, made it through with no issues.

Glad it went well with your husbands ashes....and, again, condolences

Most of those issues sound par for the course for the BVIs, but the smell factor and non-use of the AC are huge disappointments that affect your entire stay, no excuse.

Thank you for the report and looking forward to part 2!

Sorry to hear about the problems you had with the smell and AC. Especially so because of the nature of your trip.

On our last trip to the BVI’s we also were on a Lagoon the same as you. We noticed the same strong smell and also thought is was coming from the heads. I spoke with BVI Yacht Charters the next day because nothing we did would get rid of it. They diagnosed it as off-gassing of the batteries. They sent a chase boat to Cooper Island with a new battery bank and changed them all out. Problem solved.

I am eternally grateful for their excellent service.

Very interesting. Off-gassing of batteries. I would have never thought of that

I prefer boat designs that have the batteries not in the living areas. Many boats have them under the rear bunks. Always worried me just a bit.

Well, and the gas is flammable n'est-ce pas?

Well, those issues with the boat and AC must have been really frustrating.