The Charter Connection Blog

Amazingly we are still getting inquiries for crewed yacht charters over The Holidays. Yesterday (December 20th) we had a serious request for 10 guests on a cat over New Year, but many of these larger cats are booked for New Year 2008/9, or will be by the end of January.

Having said that, there are occasionally reputable boats that are open, either through cancellation or bad luck. A few others are just known to be bad and no reputable broker will book them (but someone will send them money thinking they’ve found a bargain) and then there are the gamblers who put such a high price on these dates waiting for a last minute charterer who will pay. Unfortunately this can be a family whose boat breaks down and they have no other alternative.

The moral of this story is that this is one of the times it does not pay to wait. Instead of last minute discounts, you end up paying more. The selection is always very limited and, unless you can afford to fly private, getting seats to The Caribbean for holiday dates is incredibly expensive, if even possible.

We hope you have a wonderful Christmas - and we look forward to helping you get an early start on booking your Christmas and New Year charter for 2008/9!

Tipping is always a hot topic when it comes to Crewed Yacht Charters. Here’s your chance, not only to read an excellent article on yacht charter tipping etiquette, but also to tell us how you think tipping should be handled, by taking part in our vote. You can see how other people voted and read some of their comments on the results page.

Tom chartered ‘ Bandera ‘, a crewed charter yacht in St. Martin, Leeward Islands, last January.

He says ‘This was my fifth charter cruise in the past 15 years. David was the best captain I have had. Intelligent, customer-centric, probably overqualified..’

Read all of Tom’s letter or take a look at Bandera ’s website