Yacht charter in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Elan — Elan Impression 434 (2005)

We were disappointed with chartering this boat, and it almost ruined our holiday. This was for a few different reasons. Check in: We originally booked for a 9am pick up. Ahead of time, Robert changed this to 4pm which was reasonable. We arrived at 4pm, and they were still cleaning and doing maintenance on the boat so asked us to come back at 6pm. At 6pm he then said he needed a break before handover, so went to the side of the marina for a break (he did look tired, so we were OK with this). But then he got in his car and drove away without communicating to us where he was going or why. We had to message him to see if and when he was coming back. He arrived back hours later for handover at 10pm. The handover was disorganised. While handing over one of the toilets broke which meant Robert took some time to try and fix it. This wasn’t fixable and so we only had one toilet for 9 people, which also bypassed the tank so it meant we could only use it while the vessel was moving (or nobody was swimming). We made do but it wasn’t ideal. He eventually left at 2am, but he then told us that he had to come back first thing in the morning to apply some sealant to the top hatch in the bow. He told us we weren’t able to leave the marina until this was done. We were confused why he hadn’t fixed this prior to our arrival. In the morning he arrived and the boat handover wasn’t complete until 10am, which affected our plans and was incredibly disappointing. — There were also these things in general: - The main navigation lights were broken (a temporary setup was provided) - The main radio was broken (we were provided with portable radios) - GPS navigation dropped in and out - Lifejackets were slightly teared in areas which gave us reason to think they may not inflate in an emergency but we couldn't check this - We didn’t feel confident with the ropes - the Genoa line snapped while sailing, and the main sail had a dubious line with a large fray that looked at the end of its life. - Cleanliness was ok but there were pockets full of odd bits left from prior users - We paid extra for clean linen and towels. Robert used some of these clean towels to mop up the dirty toilet water when this broke and so we were left short on towels for the rest of the trip. - Cockroaches found - Robert used my friend’s hat to kill a cockroach without asking or saying anything afterwards. — Check out: Communication wasn’t clear with what was expected of us. We stayed out on anchor for our last night and then messaged Robert to say which Marina we were arriving to with good time for the 10am check-out. Robert then phoned us and told us that we’d not started check-out correctly, that we were meant to have booked a marina for the night prior and that we had only told him at 7am the day of check out where we were. This process wasn’t communicated to us at all prior to this phone call. He’d only told us 3 potential marina’s we could check out of.

Once we had contacted the marina closest to us to book a spot, which wasn’t a problem - Robert then demanded we pay the Marina fee for that night (when we weren’t even due to stay onboard), and then also demanded we pay his taxi fee to get to this marina as it wasn’t the one he wanted. We thought this was odd as we’d seen he had driven the Saturday before - but didn’t want to dispute as he had also taken a £300 cash deposit from us for fuel (which was also a surprise) and we wanted to ensure that was returned for any fuel not used. — Overall communication was terrible, and while the boat was nice we didn’t feel confident with the safety or standard of maintenance which was upsetting. We are aware that the price was cheaper than other charters available and so maybe that’s what you pay for. We still had an amazing trip, despite the charter.