Miami Boat Rent — Local services in Miami

Our half-day rental (21ft sundeck) from Miami Boat Rent in early August 2014 clearly was one of the highlights of our summer vacation. This was our first visit to Miami (family from Germany with three daughters 3-8yrs). We called Carlos and he had a boat ready for us next day. Carlos took time to explain everything in detail, in particular how to navigate Miami harbor and the Bay area with the onboard GPS. And you do have to navigate quite a bit to stay clear of the sometimes very shallow water. For us that actually was part of the fun/adventure and is easy enough to handle even if you have done little or no boating before. Carlos actually added one free hour as the stereo (which we wouldn´t have used anyhow) was under repair on the day, so that gave us five hours in total. That was more than enough to do some nice sightseeing around Miami harbor, Miami river, the Key Biscayne channels plus – probably the ultimate experience with kids on board – a group of curious dolphins came up right next to us near Key Biscayne and stayed for a couple of minutes! In the Key Biscayne area you have lots of open deeper water space where you can try and max out the 150hp engine. Actually for our kids the boat then got too fast and they got a bit scared so we slowed down and took it easy. Weather was perfect during our rental, but make sure you check out the forecast as conditions can change quickly. Overall fantastic experience thanks to Carlos, excellent ratings well deserved. We can definitely recommend this place for a rental and will certainly come back for...

I would advise against renting from this company. Extremely unprofessional organization with poor communication skills. I called to reserve a boat 1 month prior to our vacation and was asked to pay a deposit via Venmo. There was no paperwork related to my reservation but Miami Boat Rent assured me that the deposit would be refundable up to 24hrs prior to the boat rental or if weather prevented us from going out the day of the reservation. I used Venmo secure checkout and was immediately called by a personal cell phone unrelated to the business by a person speaking broken English that was upset that I had used Venmo secure checkout instead of the standard unsecured payment. 5 days prior to vacation I injured my back and 3 days prior we decided against traveling and contacted Miami Boat Rent to cancel our reservation and receive a refund. I was unable to reach the company after multiple call, text, and email attempts. After 24 hours of no contact, I submitted a request for refund through Venmo. 12 hours later, I received a call from the same private cell phone with an extremely upset employee yelling at me to reverse the Venmo request. I ultimately did not agree to reverse the Venmo request and the person was unable to prove that he was employed by Miami Boat Rent and was unwilling to put me in touch with a manager who could speak fluent English. At the time of writing this, I have an open Venmo dispute which could take weeks to receive a refund and have not been contacted further by...

Myself and three friends were in Miami for a 30 hour stop over whilst travelling back from Cusco, Peru back to the UK. We wanted to fit in as much as we could and decided to rent a boat from Carlos. We landed a little late and the immigration at the airport took longer than expected so we arrived an hour late and the weather wasn't particularly great. Carlos couldn't have been more helpful and offered us the option come back later in the day or the following day when the weather was going to be better. Carlos showed us the water charts and told us exactly where to go and where to avoid. We spent most of our time around and on our own private island (Flagler Memorial Island) which is only 15 / 20 minutes from the marina. We had a great time jumping off the boat and swimming around.

Tip: 2 hours isn't enough time as it takes around 20 minutes to leave the narrow boating channels of the marina.

There are a few places where you can open the boat up but the majority of the area is slow speeds only.

Make sure you take Carlo's mobile/cell number with you in case he's not in the office. We arrived late and had to make a few phone calls in order to get hold of Carlos... Not his fault at all. Maybe he could put his number on the door to the office to help forgetful tourists?

Really pleasurable experience renting with Carlos. He operates on trust and doesn't take a large credit card hold which is rare in a company these days. When I return with the family, i'll be renting with Carlos again...