Bad Review of Dream Yacht Charters

[doctorbill]

A striking review from an experienced captain. In case you can't access the Facebook page link I copied and pasted the review below.

https://www.bareboatadvisor.com/drea...J_ANRm5uiu8YY0

Dream Yacht Charters or Danger Yacht Charters? You decide
June 25, 2022

Boat: 52’ Durfour
Captain: 45 years sailing experience. Six Pac and 100 Ton Cert., Annapolis School of Seamanship. One transatlantic crossing, Cape Horn rounding. Until Irma, 10-year owner 43’ Beneteau.
Issues:
1. Fuel filter laying on engine block and leaking. DYC: “happens all the time, nothing to worry about.” Begrudgingly repaired after Capt. refused to leave dock without repair.
2. Generator not staying on: DYC: Per Chris, apparently chief mechanic, “Bypass 50 amph fuse.” Result: entire electrical line (approx 6’) catches fire, salon filled with smoke and fumes, repair-person flees to aft deck, passengers evacuated and placed in dinghy. Heat of burnt electrical line joins with fumes from leaky disel fuel bladder resulting in thickening of smoke. DYC: deny demand for replacement boat, deny demand to be put up in hotel at base. “(Richard)We will make adjustment in bill when you return to base.” Richard does not check in later to see if everything okay after 3rd repair. Does not meet boat on return to base. Does not adjust invoice.
3. Leaky fuel bladder. Pull plates under mattress in rear starboard cabin to work on generator and discover pool of diesel fuel around poor repair of fuel intake/bladder union. DYC: “Nothing to worry about.” Fuel just wiped up.
4. Front glass plate missing from microwave oven. DYC. “Nothing to worry about.” Refuse to replace microwave.
5. Port winch broken. Had to manually pull mainsheet and other lines through winch, locking line frequently to rest. DYC not contacted because wanted to go at least a day or two without having to stop for repairs.
6. Anchor Windless: Broke on last day. Manually hauled in 100 feet of anchor chain and anchor.
7. Motor: During last 2 days rpms dropped without warning to nearly stall engine (fuel tanks full).
8. Swim platform: Manufactured for ladder that extends into water with handles to be inserted around ladder to climb back on board. Handles not provided. Multiple days of having to use two people to help adult swimmers on board. DYC bring to boat after request.
9. Radio: Handheld mic broken. Turned on but would not broadcast. Had to use my handheld VHF radio.
(Pics. Avail.)
TRIP DETAILS REVIEW
Role on Charter
Captain
Yacht Age (Years)
-4
Duration of Charter (Days)
10
Start Date of Charter
June 08, 2022
Number of Prior Charters (All Yachts)
25
CHARTER COMPANY REVIEW DETAILS
Number of Prior Charters with this Company
5

[GreenWave]

Well not the first bad review of Dream. Guess nobody reads reviews before they pluck money down.

[Tetepare]

Originally Posted by GreenWave

Well not the first bad review of Dream. Guess nobody reads reviews before they pluck money down.

Yup. The Geico of the charter business.

That boat sounds dangerous. The rest is repetitious of many past report. Sad thing is, some sob owns it.

[bstreep]

Wow. Shocking. Not. Sounds a lot like our charter 2-1/2 years ago of a Dufour 520 (which is actually under 50 feet - how do they get away with that?). DYC doesn't care, and their typical MO is to buy off the charterer with a nominal amount of money, along with a signed agreement not to post poor reviews online. That's why you don't see as many bad reviews as one would expect.

Ours was DYC out of French Polynesia (Tahiti). Use Tahiti Yacht Charters instead. Wonderful folks. Like the OP, we have done 17 charters, and the DYC experience was, by far, the worst. They ruined our vacation. So much so, that we immediately booked another trip to FP to erase the experience.

[Rumrace]

And to think some sucker is paying a mortgage on that boat and thinks he has an asset.

[ChrisJHC]

Tell me again why I shouldn’t buy an ex-charter yacht?

[confusednoise]

That sounds like a bad charter and my condolences to the skipper who had a ruined vacation and a bad time. BUT…in the interest of offering another side, we just did a charter with Dream Yacht in La Paz and had a wonderful experience. The La Paz base is well run and the staff was friendly and professional. Our boat was on the older side (2013) but in basically good order and we had a great trip.

Not sure if it helps at all, but just to say that I’m not sure the entire company is to be considered a bad deal.

Fair winds

[more]

Originally Posted by ChrisJHC

Tell me again why I Tell me again why I shouldn’t buy an ex-charter yacht? an ex-charter yacht?

you think so. also Lagoon 450F have broken bulkhead on some boat, i I shouldn’t buy new lagoon 45+ ft cat,

wrong shouldn’t buy new 45+ CAT because i don't have cash money for buy this CAT. also you buy Swarbrick S-80 because you can afford this boat. Slip, maintains is in your class.

[meirriba]

Originally Posted by doctorbill

A striking review from an experienced captain. In case you can't access the Facebook page link I copied and pasted the review below.

https://www.bareboatadvisor.com/drea...J_ANRm5uiu8YY0

Dream Yacht Charters or Danger Yacht Charters? You decide
June 25, 2022

Boat: 52’ Durfour
Captain: 45 years sailing experience. Six Pac and 100 Ton Cert., Annapolis School of Seamanship. One transatlantic crossing, Cape Horn rounding. Until Irma, 10-year owner 43’ Beneteau.
Issues:
1. Fuel filter laying on engine block and leaking. DYC: “happens all the time, nothing to worry about.” Begrudgingly repaired after Capt. refused to leave dock without repair.
2. Generator not staying on: DYC: Per Chris, apparently chief mechanic, “Bypass 50 amph fuse.” Result: entire electrical line (approx 6’) catches fire, salon filled with smoke and fumes, repair-person flees to aft deck, passengers evacuated and placed in dinghy. Heat of burnt electrical line joins with fumes from leaky disel fuel bladder resulting in thickening of smoke. DYC: deny demand for replacement boat, deny demand to be put up in hotel at base. “(Richard)We will make adjustment in bill when you return to base.” Richard does not check in later to see if everything okay after 3rd repair. Does not meet boat on return to base. Does not adjust invoice.
3. Leaky fuel bladder. Pull plates under mattress in rear starboard cabin to work on generator and discover pool of diesel fuel around poor repair of fuel intake/bladder union. DYC: “Nothing to worry about.” Fuel just wiped up.
4. Front glass plate missing from microwave oven. DYC. “Nothing to worry about.” Refuse to replace microwave.
5. Port winch broken. Had to manually pull mainsheet and other lines through winch, locking line frequently to rest. DYC not contacted because wanted to go at least a day or two without having to stop for repairs.
6. Anchor Windless: Broke on last day. Manually hauled in 100 feet of anchor chain and anchor.
7. Motor: During last 2 days rpms dropped without warning to nearly stall engine (fuel tanks full).
8. Swim platform: Manufactured for ladder that extends into water with handles to be inserted around ladder to climb back on board. Handles not provided. Multiple days of having to use two people to help adult swimmers on board. DYC bring to boat after request.
9. Radio: Handheld mic broken. Turned on but would not broadcast. Had to use my handheld VHF radio.
(Pics. Avail.)
TRIP DETAILS REVIEW
Role on Charter
Captain
Yacht Age (Years)
-4
Duration of Charter (Days)
10
Start Date of Charter
June 08, 2022
Number of Prior Charters (All Yachts)
25
CHARTER COMPANY REVIEW DETAILS
Number of Prior Charters with this Company
5

Which base was it?

[rms95835]

When there is a FB page dedicated to how bad DYC is, you might want to think twice before using them:

[sinnerman]

I think a lot of these charter companies have difficulties retaining competent people.

So they hire misfits to "maintain" the boats (or the management/ actual boat owners do not want to spend the $$ to keep them in shape.)

One one weekend charter, when I asked them to show me the location of the thru-hulls, they looked puzzled and asked "why?". The water tanks had not been topped off and we ran out of propane after first pot of coffee. The hatches were leaking water everywhere. etc.

It will only get worse with the price of everything doubling..

cheers

[AJ_n_Audrey]

Originally Posted by sinnerman

I think a lot of these charter companies have difficulties retaining competent people.

So they hire misfits to "maintain" the boats (or the management/ actual boat owners do not want to spend the $$ to keep them in shape.)

One one weekend charter, when I asked them to show me the location of the thru-hulls, they looked puzzled and asked "why?". The water tanks had not been topped off and we ran out of propane after first pot of coffee. The hatches were leaking water everywhere. etc.

It will only get worse with the price of everything doubling..

cheers

It very much depends on which base. We've used Moorings / Sunsail and never had issues like those described above, but some bases are better than others.

[Symphony]

Condition of charter boat dependent on shore crew + mgr at that base. Also whether usual renters are sailors or partiers.

That said, the worst condition charter boat I ever saw was in Thousand Island region up New York state. Electrical was dead after a fire and engines ran a few minutes at a time. Mgr said this was normal for a boat. We declined the boat.

[Valmika]

Something Strange going on here. Where did you get this review? I am not disputing this but the date at the top of the review is from September 2019 and the date charter started say June of 2022. I am wondering if this is an old recycled review. The fact that the question of where this took place has not been answered yet also give me pause.

[DEAN2140]

We had to terminate our charter several days early because of malfunctions. What follows is what I posted on this farce earlier (the base is St. Thomas):

It should be called Nightmare Yacht Charters. We had to curtail our 14 day charter in the USVI because of boat and dingy motor problems.

Our first problem was "bait and switch". We had chartered a virtually new Dufour 46 "Premier Class" but received a email notice that we had been switched to a Sun Odyssey 51.9. It turned out that the larger boat was a "comfort" class, a euphemism for a tired, trashed boat. The head
sump didn't work, so we were reduced to two showers instead of three. The dodger and bimini were in taters and the see- through sections were opaque. When we asked for a price adjustment, they said that receiving a larger boat compensated for its poor condition!

The first time we raised the main, two sail slugs came off the mast. One was a broken bat car, the other a broken plastic slide. (Had they raised the main after the previous charter ended, this would have been discovered.) Also the dingy motor wouldn't start. We lost a day by the time they reached us to jury rig the slides (more on this below) and replace the dingy and motor.

The motor had an internal as well as external gas tank, which they failed to tell us. The external tank didn't work, despite squeezing the bulb until my hands ached. We ran out of gas in Charlotte Amalie bay and paddled to the closest dingy dock, which was used by the Coast Guard. The Coastie had no better luck with the motor but did take the cover off and poured gas from the external tank into the internal one. The motor started.

DYC came out the next day and "Jacoby" started the motor. Everything is OK, he said. Let's motor a bit I said. Three minutes later, the motor died. He said he would bring me a different model motor at 10:00 a.m. the next day. He arrived after noon. One half day lost.

With five days of our charter remaining, we left for Culebra and tried to raise the main. Four of the sail slides came off the mast! We managed to lower the sail in strong winds, lash it to the boom and return to our anchorage on Water Island. We called DYC and they said they had an "emergency" and couldn't reach us right away. So we motored back to the base at Compass Point Marina.

The base manager Lisa said the retaining screw in the mast that prevents the sail slides from leaving the mast track was missing. The last person to touch that screw was "Dominic" from DYC when he jury rigged the first slide failure. By this time we had lost all confidence in the boat and DYC and were afraid of going to Culebra (24nm). We terminated the charter, changed our flights (at great cost and time) and flew home.

I can't say this too strongly: CHARTER A BOAT FROM DYC AT YOUR OWN RISK. You will see from other posts and Yelp that our experience wasn't unique. Why did we use them? That is another story not relevant on this thread.