The WaterFront Center — Local services in Town of Oyster Bay

A Great Experience!!!

We had chartered Oyster Sloop Christeen for our son's Bar Mitzvah. We had planned for about 19 people for our party. We were reaching out as early as March to talk about chartering the sloop, however The WaterFront Center was only then starting to be open during the days. It was initially difficult to reach someone, but eventually we made contact.

Although some questions required the captains to answer them, we received them in a timely fashion. Everyone was friendly and courteous.

Every so often, as the time got closer for the excursion, we were receiving reminders. It was great.

The weather was initially looking iffy a week out, but then it looked up a few days out. But on the day of the trip there were storms in the area. However, on the hour that we showed up it was again questionable.

Captain Steve Byers and Captain Emeritus Pete were meticulously reviewing the radar map. It looked as if the storm was going to drift south of us, however, we were still pleasantly given a choice whether to call it off or not. The captains allowed a decision to wait 10 more minutes, during which time we finally made the decision to go, based on the radar map. Most of our group went, a few stayed back being unsure of the weather.

It was an incredible trip, with amazing narration by Captain Emeritus Pete, and piloting by Captain Steve Byers, along with a seasoned volunteer to direct sails/tacking. Famous houses, places, and history of the area was neatly provided, and all questions answered. There was good amount of experience with raising the sails, and more!!!

Needless to say, we would go out with this crew again in heartbeat!!!

Best regards to The WaterFront Center and the Christeen...

This is the place if you looking for Sailing schools, Marine Education, renting all types of water craft, there is also a very long pier if you want to fish. And even boat building. The Waterfront Center is a relatively new place between The Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park and Beach And Beekman Beach. I highly recommend it. Here you can also make reservations to sail on the the old oyster sloop Christeen around beautiful Oyster Bay Harbor and surrounding waters. Also this is the home of the annual Oyster Festival. Top Notch. I love this place their is no better. Also don’t forget to stop in at building J. Where the Ida May is in progress open to the public Tues. and Thur. During the Oyster Fest I like stopping in here. I Have also enjoyed many sails on the Christeen even when the wind would not blow thanks to fair sky’s and Captain Pete’s informative tour of the history around...

Our experience was so poor it is funny looking back on to write the review. First off they were short staffed so we were only allowed to kayak for 20 minutes (they were closing an hour early), we probably shouldn’t have gone …. but we did. When we started kayaking we were given no instruction on where we could go so they had to send their motorized boat out to tell us we went into an area we weren't allowed in and had to stay along the shore that had no scenery… so probably a good thing we only had 20 minutes. When we were done kayaking and taking the motor boat back in to the dock there was a fisherman on the dock who was upset with the WFC staff so he threw his line in at us, fortunately we did not get hit with the hook but my wife and I got snagged in the line. Would...