London Boat Rentals — Attraction in Long Beach

If you’re looking for a place to spend your hard earned money and get absolutely nothing in return then I would strongly recommend you try out London Boat Rentals. Our party of 3 made a 1 hour rental reservation for March 24th of this year. We pre-paid the full amount of the rental online, $134.22, and when we arrived there wasn’t a single person there. Doors to the business were locked, no signage posted, and when we tried to call the numbers listed we could hear the phone ringing inside with no one answering. We received no email, phone call, text message, or any heads up what so ever that they would be closed. I’m not on social media but thankfully one person in our party had social media accounts and was able to pull up the business’s Instagram page where a story was posted stating they had closed due to strong winds. Disappointing and an unprofessional way to share that information, but understandable as it was a windy day. We left assuming the business would reach out to us later to either reschedule our rental or provide a refund. It has been 4 months since then, and after attempting multiple times to call them and email them not a single person from this business has attempted to reach out to me. After realizing that I would never hear from them I disputed the rental charge with my credit card company. This business has been actively fighting against my dispute claiming that because they have a disclaimer saying “all sales are final” they don’t owe me a refund. Funny enough in their sales agreement they also mention that if a reservation is cancelled due to inclement weather they will reach out to the customer to reschedule the rental. So apparently they only stand by the part of their agreement that allows them to take your money and not provide you anything in return. I don’t write many reviews online and I really don’t believe in writing negative reviews against small businesses like this but I’m currently in my third dispute with my credit card company against this charge and I feel like I am running out of options to get my money back. I’d strongly encourage anyone reading this to choose a different business for a boat rental because there’s a good chance you’ll be paying...

Don’t trust this company. We arrived 30 minutes early, per their suggestion and patiently waited for our 630 start time. They ended up telling us that they were running behind and they needed to clean our boat. All good, no problem. Finally, at 7pm, 30 mins past our original reservation time, they advised us to head down to the boat. We loaded all our drinks and food and wereeee almostttttt smooth sailing. We asked for some assistance connecting to Bluetooth and turning the interior lights on. Both were not working. The kid who was helping us tried to find a wireless speaker to give us. He finally found one and it was dead. Again, “allll good”…we were already late so we agreed to just play music from our phone. We set off around 715. We were about 10 mins in and our bought stalled out. It completely died in the middle of a canal. We started floating towards rocks so we started searching the boat for an oar to push off of and redirect. No oar to be found, which I believe is a safety hazard. We called the help number and they said they’d be right over to fix it. We waited about 35 mins just floating around the middle of a busy canal. Finally 2 teenagers (shocking) showed up and strapped us onto their boat. I asked if this was their solution or if they were gonna try to fix it. They said oh no we can’t fix this. You’re the 5th boat to die tonight. They admitted that they thought the guys on the dock were just sending boats out uncharged to get people on the water since all of them had late starts. Customer service lesson kids…communicate the delay in a positive manner. I think people would be happier to wait for a full charge than to be stranded 10 mins in. Anyways…we went back to ask for a refund and two teenagers were up there getting ready to close shop. They did not apologize for the inconvenience. They said what’s wrong. We said well we were 40 mins late to leave, our electricity didn’t work, our music didn’t work and our boat died 10 mins in. They said oh okay. And then gave us a refund. Yikes!! All for offering kids summer jobs and I imagine this is a fun one, but the business owner either needs to be present or...

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon we took a rental boat out for one hour. Our party included 2 five year old children. The boat really never worked properly but it took us awhile to realize just how damaged it was. We initially thought it might just have a lag time but in short order we realized that the transmission was faulty. The boat rarely moved forward and even then, it was difficult to steer. We could put it in reverse however the steering was still not reliable and we were often floating about threatening others out on SUPs and kayaks. We ran into some boats in their slips. The boat owners were super kind and let us tie up to their crafts while we attempted to get the company to rescue us. Their emergency number DID NOT WORK!! When I contacted the child who was manning the front desk, they were insisting on a boat number (which was very difficult to locate)in addition to our exact location which I was able to provide. Their rescue boat(!!!) could not retrieve us because initially they were unable to locate the key for it. After driving to someone’s house to get the rescue boat key, they reported that the battery was dead. Two children came in another Duffy rental boat to tie us up and return us to the dock, 1.5 hours later. We were then told by the child at the desk that no refunds were ever given and they requested that we contact the manager who was out of town. I politely declined the proffered gift certificate and explained that the child needed to contact the manager and request a refund on my credit card. Unlike many other reviewers, the refund was given that same day. I am embarrassed that I booked this trip without reading the reviews which, although favorable 2-4 years ago, indicate a serious deterioration in the boats, their maintenance and their operation. There are so many ways that this experience could have been disastrous and I am extremely grateful to the 3 boat owners (Mickey, especially) who went to great lengths to help us out. If you are still reading this, please don’t use...