Last Updated on October 18, 2023 by Jill
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I have been talking about more info (a review) on the boat and the company we used in the Bahamas in most of my posts (ex. Day 8) of our Bahama trip. So….Here it is.
Navtours-My Review
The Charter Company
We booked our bareboat charter a year out and there were not many choices. As a matter of fact, we only found one, and that was Navtours. Navtours is a French Canadian company that is based out of Quebec. They offer bareboat charters in the Bahamas and Lake Champlin area. Today I looked around on the web to see what some of their reviews were. Many reviews are just basic, we liked it or loved it, not a lot of detail. I did find quite a few that had similar experiences to ours. Our experience was ok, but not a “loved it! we will be back” kind of experience. It was more like “if we go back we are finding someone else”.
You pick up your boat at their Palm Cay Mariana location in Nassau. But, any issues or adjustments you need to have made to your invoice all has to be done through their Quebec office. Let me back up a bit.
Arrival at Marina
When we arrived we were actually told that our boat was going to be ready earlier, which was pretty exciting. We went to the outdoor bar for a quick complimentary drink to start off our vacation while we waited. After we waited the allotted time, Dave and I headed back over to do the briefing and walkthrough of the boat. When we got to the boat a gentleman named Jasmine was there ready to do the walk through with us.
We started outside and we noticed the fishing rod we asked for but didn’t see the paddle boards. We asked and he said they didn’t have any more, they were out. He told us we could get a refund from the office. The frustrating thing about this was, we ordered 1 paddle board when we booked the trip over a year ago. Then, a couple months prior to the trip we added a second board and no mention of being out of paddle boards. We were very disappointed.
Customer Satisfaction
This was the first time I started to notice that they didn’t really care about customer satisfaction. It felt like they knew they were the only charter company here so they didn’t have to work as hard. We always rent from BVI Yacht charters when we sail in the BVI, and I couldn’t say enough good things about their customer service. They almost fall over you(in a good way) to make sure you are happy. This company did not deliver that same kind of service or anywhere near it. We did eventually get our money back on the paddle boards after we had returned home and Dave submitted a request. This was the perfect location for a paddle board, had we known we could have tried to rent from somewhere else.
The people in the office were very pleasant, but they seemed very overwhelmed. It looked like had a lot of boats going in and out and I only saw two ladies trying to handle it all. They never seemed to have the answer to your questions but had to ask the Quebec office. The bigger disappointment was probably the boat and how the issues were handled.
The Boat
We rented a 2000 Leopard 38 3 Cabin/2 head Catamaran named Alexian. In my opinion charter boats get beat up pretty bad. Even after being a few years old you can see the wear and tear. This boat was 17 years old and a previous Moorings charter boat. You can probably imagine the condition that it was in. We were constantly told that it had just crossed the ocean and arrived at their base earlier in the week. We informed Jasmine of damage to the third cabin’s hatch and this was his response. “that is because this boat has crossed the ocean”. We were lucky we only had two couples because this hatch leaked throughout the entire trip.
Interior of the Boat
We had to point out that the toilet was full and not clean. Which he did promptly clear the clog/clean the toilet for us. The smell was horrendous, that was how I noticed the issue in the first place. How the cleaning crew missed that I will never know. Both bilge pumps on the boat didn’t work and they had to have someone come out to service them. I don’t believe they both worked properly on the trip. The boat was wet if that makes sense, everything was wet, our beds, our clothes, everything. You could tell the boat was wet to its core, nothing would dry. We have been on several other charter boats and didn’t have this issue.
Funny thing, when we were doing our final walk-through at the end, the molding that goes around the inside doors fell off and you could see how wet all of the interior wood was.
Sails
Most of the items functioned as they were supposed to, however, we never used the mainsail. When we did our walk through it was tied down with a strange rope and Jasmine had no idea why. His answer was the usual “that is because this boat has crossed the ocean” (If I had a dollar for every time he said that we could have made money on this trip). Because of this, Dave and I got a weird feeling about the Main so we didn’t use it. It could have been fine and that was our decision, not theirs to not use it. When we did use the genoa the sail was completely blown out and not in good shape. It sailed but it needed to be replaced. This boat NEEDS to be retired from the fleet. UPDATE: THIS BOAT HAS BEEN RETIRED FROM THEIR FLEET.
The Dinghy
Immediately we noticed that the dinghy was half inflated. Jasmine told us to inflate it and drive it around the marina to get the feel for it. Dave and I have used many dinghies so we didn’t feel that was necessary but when we tried to fill it up (actually, our friend did who joined us on the trip with his girlfriend) we realized that the pump was broken. Jasmine finally agreed and got another pump, which was also broken. They fixed the original pump issue with tape but not the leak in the dinghy. Every time we wanted to use the dinghy it had to be inflated, which got worse as the trip continued.
I did notice when reading a lot of reviews on this company, most people whether they enjoyed their trip or not complained that their dinghy was not in good shape. The davits could not hold the dinghy and the motor so the motor had to be lifted by hand and put on this plaque installed on the back of the boat. This plaque of wood was barely hanging on itself and then having to add a motor to it. This made us nervous so we always tied to the motor to the boat as well. The motor on the dinghy worked fine, but the dinghy was clearly on its last leg.
Conclusion
Sad to say, I could go on and on about this boat and company, but you get the idea. Please don’t think I am just being cynical and complaining. We had a great trip besides these issues it is a beautiful place to sail. We will be using a different company next time if we are not already in our own boat. I wasn’t going to write this post originally, but then I decided that people should know because god forbid anything happens to anyone while they are chartering their boats. Doing a search today I learned there are other companies that are starting up in the Exumas now, and this poor service should affect their business, maybe if they get enough of these reviews they will do something about their service and their boats. I hope this review was helpful and educational.
Happy Sailing,
Jill
