Kelowna Downtown Marina — Attraction in Kelowna

Just because something is central, does not mean it is worth it...NEVER renting from Downtown Marina Kelowna. They took advantage of us and charged our card without any AUTHORIZATION.

During the August long weekend, myself and five friends rented a boat for 8 hours. A prepaid deposit was processed for 978 dollars including taxes. Upon arriving, two associates at the front of the marina were providing us with information about the rental, boats, and accessories. At this time, we inquired about included accessories. As we were debating between a tube or a wake board, we were then informed that we could take both out as it was included with our rental. Great, right?! Well I guess not as upon returning we were charged $80 for the wake board rental, that we didn't even use as we do not even know how to wake board.

Next, we immediately realized within the first hour that the speakers were not working properly. We attempted to troubleshoot, switch phones, decrease the volume, etc. however, nothing worked. Therefore, we phoned Downtown Marina Kelowna at 11:52am and were informed that there was nothing that they could do as all boats were rented out. Completely understandable as it was a Saturday on a long weekend, so we went along with our trip and made the best of it with a personal portable speaker. The time on the lake with good company was great despite the broken speakers and smokey conditions. Due to the smoke, we got misdirected and went in the wrong direction resulting in us returning the marina an hour late. This was completely our responsibility and we took accountability to pay for the additional hour that the boat was used.

Upon returning to the marina we were sooo disappointed with how we were treated. We were called LIARS after bringing up safety considerations with a missing first aid kit and no buoys (which the associates at the fuel station confirmed we did not have). However, the managers would not even look at the boat. Additionally, we were blamed for the speakers not working and accused of only calling the marina "hours later" (we have the call log). Upon reviewing the charges, we found discrepancies between the amount they deducted for prepaid deposit (they deducted 928, we paid 978 as mentioned previously) as well as the additional wake board charge that we were misinformed about. No resolution was made upon returning and the managers told us to leave the premises and informed us to contact them the following day.

We attempted to contact management every single day for a week. Twice the manger (Lachlan) said he would call us back on two separate occasions and NEVER called us back. This place is so unprofessional, UNSAFE, and refuses to take accountability for any of the problems we encountered. No customer service skills whatsoever.

Please do yourself a favour, NEVER rent from Downtown Marina Kelowna. Your money, time, and effort will be better appreciated somewhere else.

Downtown Marina Kelowna and management, you treated your customers like absolute garbage, would give you 0 stars...

This is the second year I will rant about this boat rental place... So last year Kyle gave us a gift card to compliment the bad experience we had.. Same friends from Calgary visited again this year and we decided to use the gift card Kyle gave them. Morning of August 16 we booked 3 boats and they said the only time slot is 7pm so perfect! We arrived at 6:20 and were on the line at first check in kiosk and waited for some friends who will be the drivers. They went to the store and started all the paperworks by the time they finished the paperworks it was 6:55 pm already and the guy who’s helping them told them that there will be orientation on how to operate the boat which will take 15-20 mins by the time they finish all of it there will be half hour to 45mins left on our rental to run the boat and they said if we start running and have half hour left we have to pay the next hour we used the boat which is absurb because we haven’t run the boat due to the orientation which they said is included to the one hour rent! So what’s the point of being there early then to find out that we have only 30mins to use the boat? For full pay? Then they made the weather as an excuse which is by the way it was only rain showers at 7:30 sun started to shows up. They said they will give us 15% discount because of the time. What? We don’t need it we want the full hour of using the boat because we are paying $800 dollars for the 3 boats. Because of so much excuses and things happening from your staff my friends decided not to do it as it’s becoming stressful. Again we waited for nothing. You should teach your staff of the timing and schedule and be aware upon booking. They knew that we rented 3 boats they knew that there will be lots of people who will be in it they should have told us to be there at 6pm instead to do all the pre-boat orientations etc. You will close at 9pm and we still have at least up to 8:30 to use it and as if your staff doesn’t want us to rent your boat for 1hr. I wonder why you keep you doing this, giving your guests false hope by the end hour of your rentals. This is not a very cheap experience but my friends just want to have fun and relax and they always choose Kelowna because it’s very beautiful but just so sad that you can’t give them a good experience. We work hard they are all frontliners and I was proud to show them my town but this rental place always ruin their vacation. We were very disappointed and this is the second year it happened and again we did not had the chance to have fun and ride the boat for the second time because of your awful customer service and...

We had the worst experience here. My husband and I were on our honeymoon and decided to rent a Seadoo from downtown marina. After waiting for an hour to get the Seadoo, we were given one that was faulty. The Seadoo flipped while turned off and completely stationary, hurt my teeth as i fell in . My husband who is not a good swimmer was completely panicking and to add to that; our Seadoo began sinking. We had to hold on to it with all our strength so it does not go under. We asked for help from a boat passing by and they called the Marina; however the marina did not respond for over 20 minutes and we were left stranded trying our best to not let the jet-ski sink. Finally a private boat spotted us and came to the rescue. They took us to the marina where we got off, then we were told we need to wait for the managers who were not on site . In the mean time the Seadoo was still submerged in water and even though we suggested they pull it on to the lower platform (in order to get the engine out of the water and stop further damages) as they were unable to get it up on to the higher platform; we were told no they had to wait for the managers. when the managers finally came and got the Seadoo out of the water; they told us that we will need to pay all damages. we asked them to explain how this was our fault when the Seadoo was completely stationary when in flipped and that we did not hit anything while on it, we were told that is just how it is. We have signed a legal document that makes us liable for anything that happens while using the jetski.

My husband has been jet-skiing since he was a teenager and has never had such an experience. The manager, Kyle was not very helpful and declined our request for a detailed report on the jet-skis last repairs. First he said, he does not have any such records. When one of the other staff members told us that yes we do have these records, i asked Kyle again, and he replied with i am not required to give this information to you. In addition, he did not even share with us who would fix the jet-ski until one of the staff members told us. Now my husband is a mechanic and he could have taken a look at the jet-ski and known what is wrong - but we were not allowed to even take a look at the jet ski. This is very fishy behavior!

Please beware of this place. We have been jet-skiing for years and never had any problems. Very disappointed with the manager of this location and would not recommend anyone to risk using...