Shark's Cove Marina — Attraction in Bethany Beach

It takes a lot for me to leave a negative one but Shark's Cove honestly deserves it and I do this as a warning to others in the Google community.

We had a poor experience when renting a pontoon boat for our stay in the area this week. We had reserved it 5 days prior with a tube via the phone as that is the only way to reserve a pontoon "with a tube" per their website instructions.

Upon our prompt check in , we were told then (no call ahead at all) they did not have a tube for us. When I asked why, I was rudely told by the woman behind the desk "we never guarantee tubes as things happen like they pop so we can't promise it". I told her no one told me that at the time of booking when I was charged for it (mind you) and my children and their friends were looking forward to it.

She gave me a snide laugh and turned away from me... no apology no nothing. She said "you can drive the boat back in 90 minutes and get one, that's the best we can do." I asked to be comp'd something and she said "no it's a flat fee you will still be charged!!!" Honestly, an apology and perhaps a small compensation back for the tube rental was all I was looking for.... But to get a laugh in my face and to turn away from me, completely unacceptable. I was never rude to her and yet she was to me....

Beyond ridiculous and such absolute poor customer service we were all SHOCKED! I guess they get enough business they don't care about their customers' satisfaction.

In the past, we had used them for wave runners and all was fine. I can say based on this experience we will NOT be returning customers. There is a place literally across the street from them that does the same kind of rentals.

Beware fellow vacationers..... not a good place to rent a boat from. They take your reservation and your $$ but don't hold onto their side of the bargain. While they may get a ton of business and not care about their clients' satisfaction, there are SO many other places to rent from so they better change their attitude or at least get better front desk staff!

The rest of the staff was not rude like the front desk lady but she did enough damage that it ruined the rest of our time and feelings about this business establishment.

Very...

The actual ride in the parasailing was a great experience. The two gentlemen we had with us on the boat were fantastic as well.

Here is what went wrong:

I called the night before and told a gentleman that another location had a price of 800ft for $60. He said I can do 800 for $69 if you book the 10:30am trip for tomorrow.

After the trip I noticed we got charged the full price not the $69. When I called for a partial refund he said he could do it but I would need to bring the card to be swiped. Which I was amused because they didn't need to phsyically have my card to run the entire amount again with tip but you need it for a partial refund.

Got out on the boat at 10:30 went up. And then a crab pot gets stuck in the boat.

We floated out there for over an hour. The younger kids got so hot they asked to jump in the bay. The guys on the boat said fine. Just put on life jackets. This is when I saw there were not enough life jackets for all of us the boat...big mistake in case of emergency.

I then told my husband because it was a heart index of over 100 that day to ask if they had any bottles of water. They gave out 3 bottles of water!

While we drifted in the sun and heat waiting for someone to come which was a guy on a jetski with tools. I couldn't help but think to myself. This company would rather let people risk heat exhaustion and potential heat stoke then send a boat to allow people to go back to shore and get a refund. Because let me tell you whether your experience is bad or really bad...once you go up you will never get a refund.

I felt very bad for these two guys on a boat. That the people that manage this company did not stock water, tools or enough life jackets on this boat. Which I'm sorry but it's a big no no. I came home after being stuck on this boat for 3hrs and yes I had heat exhaustion. I did not fully recover from the effects of it until...

The only thing that worked on our boat was the motor. Stereo didn't work, gauges didn't work, power outlet didn't work. We showed them a tube that we were taking out to ask if we could pull it so the kids could go tubing and then they looked at it and said yeah that would be fine. The pump we had we could not use because the power outlet didn't work. With no radio and no tubing the kids got restless soon into our boat ride. We rented the boat for eight hours but returned in five. When I said something about the stereo and power outlet not working they basically just told me oh well and something about the pre-trip of the boat which they never even touched on those items at any point before our ride. They showed us how to operate the boat as far as the motor and going and everything like that but didn't mention anything else about that. We were looking forward to being out all day as there's not much for the kids to do with the pandemic going on. If we would have known those things didn't work we could have at least prepared by bringing a Bluetooth speaker along and renting one of their tubes. I was hoping they would have offered a partial refund or something considering how much we spent on the rental and we obviously returned early but to no avail. Also the site says ice is available but it was not, so one of our party had to run to get ice. I won't be renting from them again. There are plenty of other options out there where I'm sure you can get a boat where everything works...