New York City Jet Ski — Attraction in Hoboken

Very rude and unprofessional staff! Public toilet instead of a private dressing room intended for customers of this business, but that's only 10% of problems we had. The introduction session was brief and mostly made out of fun and entertainment, rather than covering some possible dangerous situations that can apparently happen. At the end of the introduction one of the guests asked if we will be getting a whistle, the guide replied back with in appropriate joke saying that "if you will need one just borrow it from someone in ocean"..! Long story a bit short went for a ride. Ride was nice, however extremely wavy. The speed of my jet ski at top was 17-18 as I was not feeling safe to drive over that speed. We were going so slow that were the last ones to arrive to take a picture. All of sudden jetski flipped over while turning at very low speed. I tried stabilizing but was not able too. Both me and my friend appeared in deep water in middle of Hudson river with numerous private and commercial large boats not to mention all creatures of sea world! After drinking some salty water we came out of water and I started to yell for help. Lucky for us one of the riders saw us and start to call the guide for help. The guide was NOT trying to rush at all! The first thing he said as he approached us was NOT "are you guys ok?" Did you heat your heads" "I am sorry this happened" "don't panic" NONE OF THAT AT ALL!!! The first thing he said was "why did you flip this jetsky" in a very angry, rude, unacceptable way! I explained that I did not do it in purpose, and was almost standing when jetski flipped. I said you should probably start helping us to get out of water as there are large ships approaching. Guide is still not rushing to approach us and start helping! He said when you saw jetski was flipping over you both were supposed to jump out. Jump out ??? I said NO ONE HAS TOLD US DURING INTRODUCTION THAT WE SHOULD JUMP OUT IF WE FEEL JETSKI IS ABOUT TO FLIP, OTHERWISE I WOULD NOT BE ON THIS JETSKI! My friend was able to get back to jetski, however I was having hard time getting on as I have bad shoulder (which was told to the guy in front). Eventually I got on jetski as well and following instruction of my guide pressed the start button, however jetski wont start with "battery" displaying on the screen. Guide directed me to go on his jetski along with him and attached a rope to disabled jetski with my friend on it alone. Guide was acting rude and nasty during this entire time... at times making inappropriate sarcastic jokes on me in front of my friend! As we started to drive back to the Pier I asked few times to the guide, :"how is my friend is she ok" few times he did not even reply me back, I asked again, he looked back and noticed that the ROPE GOT DISCONNECTED and MY FRIEND WAS LEFT ALONE IN DISABLED JETSKI AS WE MOVE ALONE... What a disaster..... What a mess.... We drove back to disabled jetski guide attached the rope again, this time properly, finally we made to Pier... As we were getting out of the jetski guide made another inappropriate joke...saying that "oh be carefull with this guy...he has problems with balance" The most disgusting service I have ever experienced from ANY general service provider at all! I am not a survey writer...nor like to complaint... However in this case I had to share what I felt. This was my birthday 8/17, and guide who served us had a birthday as well. He might be a very nice guy, HOWEVER that day he acted as he hatess his job! I do understand when you are in middle of ocean with flipped jetski, it is not a perfect spot to show best customer service skills HOWEVER being rude, disrespectful, yelling, inappropriate jokes ARE NOT acceptable and won't be tolerated with me! AGAIN, EVEN WE WERE BACK TO THE PIER, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE FROM THE STAFF ASKED ASK SIMPLY IF WE ARE DOING OK..IF WE GOT SCARED.. IF WE GOT INJURED... NOTHING AT ALL ! ALL RIDERS MUST BE EDUCATED BRIEFLY THAT JETSKI CAN FLIP AND IF IT DOES, WHAT YOU NEED TO DO when it does. RIDERS MUST BE GIVEN A WHISTLE FOR...

On March 20th, my husband reserved a tour for both of us as a birthday gift for April 17th from 3PM to 4 PM and received a confirmation email that same day. One day before the tour, he received a second reminder email with a different time. Given that the new time was only 30 min later, we let it pass despite the fact that we were never been contacted to confirm the new schedule. In that same email, it was specified that we should be there 60-45 min before the scheduled time or we will be charged $100.

We got to Hoboken at 2:30 PM and no one was there. We waited for 15 min and contacted them with no response. After almost one hour, we received an email saying that the tour has been cancelled because they didn’t see our reservation on the schedule and they had to pause their opening due to major lack of machinery due to pandemic. They apologized, sent a refund and said that they will compensate us for the inconvenience the next time we book a tour with them.

We told them that it was hard to believe and very unprofessional because they had one whole month to check their reservations and alert us. If the situation were reversed we would be penalized $100 or the full amount as being a no-show and their behavior showed a total lack of respect for our time. They stated that checking if they have people waiting is out of their control, so we didn’t accept his apologies.

They said that, since we booked a month ago it makes sense that our reservation was missed due to their closure and they are likely to be closed into May (despite the fact that they continue accepting bookings for this week), and this is when the conversation became surreal. He said that we were getting personal and attacking their business and he won't entertain any future correspondence if this is the only angle we can choose in life. He also said that we need to lighten up, be grateful that we are alive during these trying times and try to have some empathy in our life…and after all of that he apologized again.

At this point we stopped all the communications with the owner. They not only showed a total disrespect for us but also accused us of “attacking” their business and tried to “lecture” us in how to live our lives. So on top of having us standing around and wasting our time and money, his take-away is that it’s our fault for not showing empathy for him and his business.

We’ve read the positive reviews of this company and that only makes this behavior more unbelievable. If at any time during that month, they would have reached out to us to reschedule the appointment we would have accepted that but after this, we can’t recommend this business to anyone. Also, I would recommend to double check with them in advance and don’t assume that your tour will take place just because you receive a reminder email the day before and your credit card was billed.

REPLY TO THE OWNER: We understood your problem with the lack of machinery. What it’s hard to believe (especially after receiving a reminder email, for a different time, the day before) is that a business owner doesn’t check his booking calendar for a month and that we had to wait for an hour until we received information from your end. If you had to cease your tours for April due to this situation, wouldn’t it make sense to review your calendar and alert your customers in advance to reschedule their appointments?

I’m not a business owner but a customer and this is the first time something like this has happened to me so of course I chose to make my experience public through this review. My comments were copied from your email conversation with my husband (word by word) so based on that (and on your reply to this review), other customers can judge who has been acting rude and disrespectful and if they want to be treated the same way.

After this experience there is nothing you can offer because we will not be booking your services in the future. My...

I was at July 3rd in a jet ski tour for 1.5 hours, first I thought it will be fun and professional tour because they had a 15 minutes safety video that I need to watch before.

Then I asked one of the employees if I can get my phone with me and he said it's forbidden and if I want pictures I will need to pay, I said ok.. then I asked if I could take my bottle and also the answer was no, but I managed to put it in my pocket.

Then we started the tour (me and another guy from another place) we ride till the financial district and he took picture of him (he didn't took a picture of me), then we drove to statue of liberty and he took both of us pictures.

Then we drove till central park with little stops because of the waves and then the other guy ran out of time because he was just one hour and I booked for 1.5 hours and then we drove to the north part of manhattan and we came back to the jet ski location.

All this time the tour guide didn't ask if I want some pictures or something like that, and also he didn't gave some information about the places we have drove to, plus he always was 0.25-0.5 miles distance from us.

What I'm trying to say after all of that is I booked a jet ski tour, I could have rent jet ski in less money that I paid (280$).

I've been in the U.S. for month already and I did some water activities included jet ski and in all of them I got treated the proper way (with free pictures and water and really a guide that giving me information).

I chose to come there just because of the good reviews, well I done a mistake, plus I chose 1.5 hours because I thought 1 hour is expensive for 200$.

After that I talked with the manager and I explained the situation and he told me that there was a miscommunication between the guide and the guy I spoke too, and because of that he didn't took pictures of me. Also he told me that there are a complimentary pictures if I didn't pay on the pictures upfront and that's why I got pictures only at statue of liberty.

And after my conversation with him he was very sorry and he gave me a small refund (still for the compensation) - at least the manager is a good person.

So at the end if you like to drive alone and with a lot of waves and you must take pictures with their phone and to pay on it you can...