Price per person or stateroom

[color:"blue"]We'll be charting next year with a group of friends and I'd be curious to hear how others work out the boat finances. The boat will have 4 staterooms and they’ll be 6 of us, so 2 couples and 2 singles.

Do most folks just divide the cost by four (per stateroom) or in our case divide by six (per person)?

Just trying to be as fair as possible to the entire group.

Thanks!

Jeff[/color]

I'd be inclined to work things out per person. Beside the boat itself, there's food, fuel, mooring fees, etc,, seems best to factor all the costs consistently , just my thoughts.

We've always done it per-person.
Seems fairest.

We have always done the boat per stateroom. Food, booze, mooring balls, etc, per person.

Per person. With their share of the deposit at booking.

I think it all depends on the individual situation. How was everyone approached about the cost of the trip initially?

We've owned for over 4 years now, so it's been awhile since I organized a trip at regular rates, but when I did, I emailed everyone and gave a rough idea as to the costs - I think I approached it as being by cabin, but we ended up by person since we had 8 people one trip and 9 the other in a 4 cabin cat.

I think either way is fine as long as it's approached that way from the start.. Like I said, I started our trips by emailing all our friends and letting them know the per cabin cost. It only changed because we maxed out each cabin. I looked at it as us booking a hotel on the water. Like a hotel, everyone pays for their room. Then everything else (food, water..etc) is all per person.

No right or wrong answer though, so long as your entire group is ok with the way its done.

For costs during the trip, I keep a running spreadsheet that is broken out by family. When someone pays, they write their name on the receipt and put it in an envelope and every few days I update the spreadsheet to see where we stand - spreadsheet breaks it out as to what each family owes so we see who's behind, ahead and know who should pay for the next boat purchase. It's worked well for us, but just as in the boat cost, you need to make sure everyone is ok with splitting that way.

The Boat costs xxxx dollars, divided by the number of people who will call that boat their home away from home for the duration of the charter.

I think Maytrix nailed it. Each situation is different.

My guess is if you start the convo as "per stateroom" it might encourage the single person to want to find a friend to bring which would reduce the cost for everyone. I would just be careful not to scare them away as a single in a stateroom beats an empty stateroom.

Update - not all boats are built equally. Some have really nice "owners cabins" and the same boat might have a much smaller double. We did a trip a couple of years ago with four couples, and to make it a little fairer the couple that got the large owners cabin paid about 5% more than the average cabin cost, and the couple that got the smaller cabin paid about 5% less. Both couples were very happy with this arrangement. YMMV.

5% tax? Since when?