Bullfrog Marina — Attraction in Four Corners States

This review was written during Sep-2020, I forgot to post it.

Houseboat S46 - we got this houseboat because we were bringing our families down so, we needed the bigger boat with extra space. We also brought one of our dogs who had cancer along, as a last fun farewell trip because we knew he didn’t have long. One of our family members was pregnant as well.

I will start out by saying the start of the trip was already rocky, when they were running us through the operation of how the houseboat works the control panel wouldn’t come on two times. When the manager finally showed up she did it once and it turned on and said that the problem was “fixed”. (1st RED FLAG).

2 hours later and we make it to good hope bay, I will add one of the reasons we got this type of house boat was because it had air conditioning, for our dog that has cancer and our pregnant family member, so in case it was too hot outside they could come In and cool down. Well guess what? the air conditioning doesn’t work, in fact the stove didn’t work except for one burner, the oven and microwave didn’t work. (That’s like 3 RED FLAGS). So we ended heating up water etc, on the grill outside. So we went back to bullfrog marina the next day and said to send out a maintenance crew, one arrived a few hours later.

Before we get to the maintenance part, a few other things we had problems with was, sewage was leaking into the lower floor of the bunk beds, it was wet on the floor and the smell on the first day smelled like a family had already been there for 5+days (you’ll know what I’m talking about). The other problem was that we had 6 out of the 8 batteries shot, like they were broken not dead. We were all surprised we made it that far on 2 batteries.

So back to the maintenance guy he checked out the air conditioning and says that he can’t fix it because he doesn’t have the right part, (aren’t you supposed to carry parts? So you don’t have to go back to the marina?) the next thing he did was check out the control panel but couldn’t get it to work at all, and the last thing was he did was poured a gallon of cleaning solution in our grey water tank to take away the smell which, did work for almost the remainder of the trip. After all this he left and we went another day without air conditioning and control of our appliances.

So 3rd day into our 7 day vacation and we’re all chilling in the water to keep cool during the intense heat and another maintenance boat shows up unexpectedly, so we all get out for the next couple hours. This new maintenance guy fixed the batteries and looked at the control panel again and switched the ships power over to the shore power breaker, which luckily fixed the air conditioning(so we didn’t need a new part after all) and all the appliances.

So anyway after two of our vacation days were used fixing a houseboat that should already be up to code, we finally had a functioning houseboat. I will mention that the two days we didn’t have air conditioning, were the two hottest days of the month (Sep 5 & 6 2020) with a pregnant lady and a dog with cancer on board.

To summarize this lengthy review,

HOUSEBOAT S46 WAS NOT FIT FOR ANY FAMILY TO BE ON. SENDING A HOUSEBOAT OUT WITH 2 BATTERIES AND NOT A WORKING RADIO FOR EMERGENCIES OR APPLIANCES THAT DONT WORK. THE BOAT POWER BREAKER SHOULD WORK NOT JUST THE SHORE POWER ONE. I know they’re short staffed due to covid-19, but there’s no excuse for that boat to be launched with all...

First, if you're going to rent a houseboat for the first time and it's from Lake Powell Resorts and Marina, lower your expectations. From the pictures and videos on their website you get the impression of well- maintained "luxury" houseboats. Let's start with the spiders. Our houseboat was INFESTED with spiders. Seriously. They were EVERYWHERE. My daughter woke up the first morning in her "stateroom" (which was basically a thin mattress with about 12" of space on one side to walk in the room) and a spider had built an enormous web over her bed. I w7. We had ideas of laying on the top deck to look at stars....not even possible. No matter how many we killed, there was more. Lots more. Our check in time was 10:30 and we were told if we were late, we may not get our boat until the next day. We got to the office at 10:15 and were checked in right away which only took about 15 minutes, but then we waited an hour for the boat to be pulled into the dock. We were told by the woman who checked us in that they were behind and if we had to wait more than a few minutes we would be "compensated." Whatever that meant. We were told we could buy ice, water and firewood at the marina. Nope. The store was closed. Had to drive to a dry dock marina and pay outrageous prices. Bring your own everything!! Our orientation was done by someone who must have been new because she didn't seem too sure of herself and would double back and contradict herself. This having been our first time on a houseboat, there were things that would have been nice to know when we started out that we had to learn on our own. Backing out of the dock the throttle gave us some trouble. We immediately asked for help from the nearest employee on the dock. He said the throttle was sticky "but would be fine." It wasn't fine. We had trouble getting it into reverse every single time. The throttle was so sticky you had to bang on it to get it to move a tiny bit. The tachometers read 16 to 1800 RPMs when we were stopped, so we were never quite sure how fast we were going. The toaster didn't work. Not cool if you brought English muffins to make breakfast sandwiches. The towels and sheets were clean and fine. The fridge and freezer worked fine. The AC worked but didn't help at all in the sleeping areas. Our horn didn't work. We were told that some people got a houseboat AND a small power boat or jetski. That seemed like a big expense on top of a huge expense so we asked if it was necessary. We were told we'd be ok with just the houseboat. We'd head down a canyovn to find a place to beach the boat and when we couldn't find one available we'd have to turn around which is not easy when you don't have reverse, boat all the way back out and try another canyon. With a small powerboat or jetski you could have one person go ahead of you and check for beaches saving time, gas, and frustration. Without a jetski or small powerboat you're also out of luck if you want to run to a marina for something you forgot to bring or need (like lots of bug spray.)

Aramark runs the marina and rentals and maybe it's time for a little competition or different management group. Prices are ridiculous for what you get....but where else would you go?

Yes, Lake Powell is beautiful, fascinating and should be explored at least once in your life. The fishing in Iceberg canyon...

Rented a house boat for 5 days. Boat came very dirty, had many spiders inside-- so much so we couldn't use one of the 3 rooms- indicated to staff & manager before we left. They did a walk through and pulled out a bunch of large spiders inside. Gave us spray and told us it was normal. Did not come with cooler. Only 9 dirty white chairs with spiders on them. Couldn't use pads for top deck due to not being cleaned. Damage to front of boat. One of the refrigerators was leaking propane- they did replace when we brought to their attention at walk through- did not turn propane back on and was not aware, took us a day to figure it out. New fridge never cooled- they did bring us ice during the trip which saved us. Also told orignally AC just doesn't work well bc of heat- once we got the manic out and had him out more oil in, it worked great. Stayed on all night and kept it cool. It was odd bc we are from AZ and know how the heat works- every time we had a concern with the generator / AC or fridge the initial response was well it's hot. It wasn't till we pushed or called again did we get resolution. The only reason I am giving two stars is bc the mechanics did their best with what they had. The front desk people were kind and referred to their manager who was very busy addressing many things. We asked for a new boat we were told no and it would take more than 4 hours. The boat was not scrubbed out externally and internally it was cleaned but not past a wipe down of counters / bathroom- a good power wash exterior pulling out the chairs / grill / mat's would have been great. Wiping the dead bugs off ceiling and cleaning all drapes and windowsills with quick wipe would have really helped. Looking at the other boats in the marina def felt like we got the last one that was just hauled up- N9 the 48 footer. If you're assigned this boat make sure is thoroughly cleaned esp the room below and by the back deck. We couldn't have the littles stay there bc of the fear of the spiders they saw and dirtiness. We already had to wait an extra hour for the boat. Did not compensate for our troubles. Seems the system and management failed the staff and customers. Also, I was happy to have spiders externally to keep the bugs at bay and would have been fine finding a few inside. It was just too much finding at least 49 large spiders inside along with their webs being on the throttle...