Is this level of strictness normal on a private catamaran charter?

[Itsgettinghotinere]

We’re currently on a private catamaran charter in Croatia. For the most part, the week has been great, the Islands are beautiful and it’s been wonderful to see so many different places.

That said, I’m not sure if our experience of our skipper and hostess is usual or not…

We planned a sailing holiday as we wanted to do an activity holiday with our teens. I’ve sailed and grew up with small pleasure boats. We made this clear when we booked via the charter company and specifically listed it on our preference list. The preference list also stipulates that learning to sail is one of the possible options. We have not been allowed near the helm let alone sail! To be fair, the wind has been minimal so we’ve been under engine all week but yesterday would have been perfect but no, we are not allowed.

We are also not allowed to:

1. wear shoes on the boat. We know this however our hostess constantly shouts “shoes, shoes, shoes” at us as soon as we walk on to the sugar scoops! Every time. Without fail.
2. Sit on any outside seating while wet from swimming. When swimming we have to stay at the front of the cat until we dry off. I’m referring to the all weather outside seating. It’s making it very difficult as we’re not allowed to get any water while we swim as were might drip on the teak.
3. We are not allowed to drip anything anywhere: my husband was washing his hands in our cabin but the cabin door was open. While drying his hands some water dripped on the floor and our host saw and immediately came into our cabin and dried up the 3 spots.
4. We are told to eat over our plates. Our teens are 14 and 13 so it’s not as though food is dropping everywhere. My son was told to eat his watermelon over the plate as our host didn’t want to spend her time cleaning after him. We are not allowed to leave any crumbs on the table and look out if any accidentally end up on a cushion (out door cushion).
5. One evening my husband had a glass of red wine and it came with a warning not to spill any.
6. They have made restaurant bookings ahead for us which is fine for the most part but one was very expensive- (€650) and we only had two drinks each. The next evening was the same so we said we’d like to move our booking to a different restaurant and was told that it would make things awkward for them, they wouldn’t honour future bookings maybe and we ended up eating there.

There are other instances like this. The obsession with everything being clean all the time. We are very clean, tidy and respectful people. We just feel like we’re intruding on their boat.

While I’ve typed this I’ve been told we can only apply sunscreen off the boat, nowhere on the boat as apparently the front is full of sunscreen! I make us all stand on the front and apply sun cream. We don’t use sprays and I’m very careful about applying it. But it’s not enough and now we can’t use sunscreen unless we’re in the harbour or on land! In fact, our packing list said sun cream would be provided as they understandably want to use creams that won’t damage the boat. We arrived to find none so I suspect they prefer guests don’t use anything.

We’re walking on eggshells and just don’t feel welcome. Is this normal behaviour? I’d like to hear from those who had chartered before. Thank you

Modern boats don’t have wooden decking, there are other options. Teak decking is beautiful but expensive to maintain; and so are wooden classic boats. They are a status symbol among boat owners because they are beautiful but expensive to keep (even more expensive than regular ones).

for someone to go into holiday chartering if they are so precious about their teak decking or steps is a bit nuts

and boat holidays are lovely. These are just very bad hosts

Yes, it’s literally called yacht varnish 😆

I think you should name the restaurant that cost 650 and query it with the Charter company.
I think they have committed fraud in how you have been treated.
I would be looking for a refund to drive the point home.

I think it is probably the hub of the issue that this boat had an inappropriate deck material for charter…

someone has possibly over-specced their boat and is trying to regain cost by chartering it!

Yes, I'm very suspicious about them booking that.

No shoes is standard on that kind of boat and fair enough, all the rest feels OTT.

What did you eat?

Thank you to the poster who suggested the Cornaro Hotel. We had some sun downers and the views were amazing. We didn’t use the cocktail pool but here it is! A definite for next time.

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Oh OP, we need more details! What did your hosts say when you left early? Have you spoken to the charter company? We need more!😀

I'm so glad you have scrambled to safety ashore OP!

It really is pretty appalling they drove you away from the holiday you had booked!

I'm guessing they said "Don't put your shoes on until you are OFF the boat!"

It is also the way the shoe thing was reinforced though - the constant nagging.

So glad you liked it!! It’s one of our favourite places for an evening cocktail.

No update really other than I’ve emailed a detailed review to the Charter company so will wait to hear back. Interesting, they produced a guest book on the last day which only had 3 reviews from the last 12 months. We declined to write in it.

That’s interesting OP. One would expect a visitor book full of gushing compliments (under better circumstances). All the holiday cottages I’ve ever stayed at have entries for weeks and weeks. I love looking at what some people write. It makes me laugh when they say something like “Thankyou so much for having us to stay” and I think hang on there- you’ve paid for the pleasure, you weren’t an invited guest!
Well done not writing in it. They’ll have to start scrawling their own entries soon! 😉
How did they take not getting a tip?
As my husband would say “Here’s a tip - treat your customers like valued guests and don’t rip them off with restaurant backhanders and trying to get them to spend a day at a waterpark instead of swimming at a secluded beach”.

Hope you had a glorious, relaxing, luxurious last day.

Same here - I love reading through the comments in guest books. We stayed in a beautiful hotel in the lake once and a guest had left a comment along the lines of “The beauty of the hotel has made me realise how much I hate my partner.” It was sad but I did wonder if something had been lost in translation 😬

I once wrote an honest comment in a visitors' book about how it needed a deep clean due to cobwebs in the loo doors and mice eating my luggage, and my mum was so embarrassed she tore the page out.

Why on earth did she do that? I'd be furious.

I was. She's the sort of person who says oh yes everything was lovely in a restaurant then complains to us afterwards about how terrible it all was, eg tough meat, slow service. Doesn't like to complain basically, thinks it's rude.

Everyone I encountered in Istria was lovely, but maybe the rest of Croatia is different.

Congratulations on escaping the prison ship, OP :)

Too late now buy you should have shouted Aye Aye captain in your best pirate voice every time.

That's very frustrating.