35+ years ago my dad rented a boat from this marina and we had one of the most memorable days of my life. I couldn't wait to bring my family to Bermuda and go boating. Unfortunately, my experience was extremely disappointing – probably different owners.
In boat rental businesses sometimes you have equipment issues - it happens and I can understand that. Our boat did not work, but BDA's response was so bad that I was insulted. Combined with the rest of the customer service experience, which was poor, I could not recommend using BDA for a rental. You should use a better run business like H20 watersports in Cambridge.
The entire experience was bad. My daughter turned 15 and wanted to fish that day. My other daughter wanted to snorkel. We reserved fishing rods and tackle and snorkel equipment in addition to a 15’ boat. There were issues with the fishing equipment, snorkel equipment and boat, and the service was lackluster. Zero for four.
When we arrived, they were late in attending to us. They explained that the fishing rods were broken but they could give us a hand line. Then they showed us the snorkel equipment, which was a closet that was totally picked over and had nothing left to make kits from. We were instructed to search it for equipment.
I proposed they cancel the snorkel reservation and throw in the hand line for free. He then indicated that a fishing pole is a very small part of the overall tackle kit so they couldn't discount it. My response was that would be like saying the tires are a very small overall part of a car rental. They then managed to find four brand new snorkel kits after I suggested cancelling the snorkel rentals.
The boat did not work. We had a four-hour rental and it worked for a total of about 30 minutes. We spent the rest of the time stranded or dealing with BDA trying to fix it. They sent someone out to us to provide us a charging pack. The boat still failed to work (probably a fuel filter issue). It was an extremely irritating four hours and we tried to make the best of it by swimming while stranded. I have been driving boats for 40 years. It was not an operator error.
After we were towed back, the employee indicated that because the boat didn't work, they wouldn't charge me for gas. I was so shocked I said "for gas?!?". He then indicated they would try to do something on the boat. Ultimately they refunded about half, which they probably think is the value I got out of it. If someone had offered me a 50% discount to have the bad day I had, I would not do it.
The reason I feel cheated is that it seemed like they were only interested in making money and not putting their customers first. The staff was generally polite, but they are all young kids with very little supervision or ability to make decisions. Additionally, before going out I heard them talking about problems on the whaler and I assumed they would fix them, but they didn’t - they knowingly sent me out in a boat that was having problems. When there were problems, instead of going out of their way to make sure I felt made whole, they nickled and dimed over how much value I actually got – like I was trying to get something fee out of them. When you look at the reviews on this board, whenever someone complains they respond and make excuses and tell the customers they are wrong. It just seems like bad business top to bottom.
In my business, if I have a customer that has an experience this bad (it happens) I comp them and ask them to give me another chance. That is not what BDA did. They tried to find a way to minimize their lost profits without any concern for my experience. Very disappointing. I would steer clear of them.
Its normal that sometimes bad things happen. Nobody's perfect. But if bad things happen here, you'll have to fight them to make it right and its not worth the effort. Spend your...
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