A beautiful place with a lot to offer, but unfortunately a good majority of those places were…read moreclosed on the days we went. We stopped by a couple times while in Red Hook to shop and enjoy drinks & food. We enjoyed it a lot. They offer a wide variety of places and things to do. You can hop on a boat and travel to many places from here as well. The views are amazing! Enjoy :)

Very clean with excellent views of Vessup bay. Beautiful to be here at sunset. Lots of shops and…read morerestaurants in the surrounding area. We enjoyed Island Time Pub on the second floor.

Just wrapped up 8 days in the USVI. I've chartered from three other companies in various locations…read moreand I must say that I was impressed with CYOA. The booking agent Sarah was fantastic. Incredibly responsive. Booking system worked well. Online briefings were great. Loved that I could look back and review the material at any time. Office staff was helpful. Kyle ensured we had everything we needed and Rupert went out of his way to give an outstanding chart briefing. I would rent from CYOA again without hesitation.

Great Charter outfit on St. Thomas Island in the US Virgin Islands. No passport needed and big jet…read moreaccessible, I nevertheless recommend you a) bring a passport and b) fly to Puerto Rico and hop to St. Thomas on a Cape Air Cessna. CYOA has nice people and an interesting variety of boats. They manage owner's yachts and do not require them (like some big names in the business) to be uniform. So, you might select a large Fontaine-Pajot catamaran, or a sleek Jeanneau with teak decks and a blue hull, or a luxurious Hunter with upgraded electronics. There is real variety here. Now, if only I had the time and money to sail them all... :) Iguanas hang out on the docks near the marina restaurant. They look really cute and are happy to pose for pictures. Just don't feed them people food!

Ok we rented a boat with captain for the day. We are staying on St John for a week. We rented…read moretoday with Captain Patrick. We have been on many excursions here in the past but this is by far the best experience we have ever had!! Captain Patrick was fabulous. From reservation to end of excursion it was fabulous. Excellent communication. Reminder of what plan was day before. Captain Patrick made sure we saw all the sights we wanted to see plus gave us history on many parts of island. I could not recommend this company highly enough ( and I can be critical:)). But this was a perfect day!!! Thank you

My family was referred to John through a friend that had used him before. We hooked up with John…read morefor a private boat ride from St Thomas to St. John where we were staying. He helped arrange for the cab from the airport. So basically we were whisked from airport to his boat from Crown Bay St. T to the National Park dock in St. J. All in including taxi, pre packed beer cooler and boat was only about $200 more than the public rime consuming option. Then on way back to St Thomas we did a full day excursion with the same captian Daniel and hit 5 snorkeling beaches one better than the next. Killed two birds with one stone for the taxi back and the snorkeling. Daniel was great and knowledgeable but chill at the same time. Highly recommend.

My family and I had a GREAT time with Ocean runner!! Captain Sarah was so fun, sweet, and provided…read morea great experience. We cruised around BVI, snorkeled at two awesome spots, grabbed some yummy lunch at Pirate's Bite, then ended the day at the infamous Soggy Dollar. Best day ever!!!

Our family had an amazing day with Captain Chris cruising around BVI, St John's & Jost Van Dyke on…read more1/26/23. Went snorkeling in the caves, lunched on Norman island & hit the Soggy Dollar beach at Jost. Fabulous time, Captain Chris was the ultimate professional - looked after our every need & made this a truly memorable event. Thanks!!!! The Graham Family

Wonderful day on a clean, comfortable boat with an excellent captain (Enzo) who was knowledgeable,…read morepersonable, fun to talk with, and took us to beautiful snorkel spots. This was our fourth time chartering with Island Roots over the last 9 years, and we have had perfect days each time. Highly recommended!

What a great time!! Super cool guys. Much respect. Our family had a fantastic time. Thanks for…read moreshowing us all around and making lifetime memories especially for my kids. You guys have a bright future. Thanks for bringing back real authentic customer service where people want to tip!

Dream Yachts nightmare: In Sept 2024, I headed a flotilla of 12 bareboats chartered from Dream…read moreYachts in Trogir, Croatia, and every boat had significant issues, either mechanical or horrible odors from improperly maintained holding tanks and bilges and leaking gas tanks, or both. With over 70 boats leaving and returning every Saturday, and only 7 techs to maintain them (yep, 7, this came from one of them while he was trying to fix something on my boat) and turn them around in about 7 hours, they send the boats back out with everything deferred except what might keep it in port. Clearly DYC does not care if your trip sucks because their boats suck. The sliding door rollers on my cat were gone, requiring both hands, significant effort, and grinding metal (further damaging the boat) simply to slide it open. The main halyard was so old and stiff, the mainsail required somebody up the mast to free it once we got it up because it would not come back down. Every boat in our flotilla had a list of problems that I presented to DYC in an effort to let them know what we encountered and to see if they wanted to try to make it right. They offered low value vouchers for future charter discounts to skippers who would never think about using them again, which were obviously useless to the crews onboard, and in some cases, refused to acknowledge the issues reported, suggesting our most experienced skipper, instructor and professional sailor didn't know what he was talking about. Regional sales mgr Chuck Porter promised an "investigation", which amounted to a phone call to the base. Nobody traveled to the site to check on their atrocious boats, and after many attempts to get a cogent and appropriate response to our concerns from somebody in the company that could talk intelligently about it, he terminated communications with me and directed staff to block my emails and not take calls from me, accusing me of yelling at his people as his reasoning for that, reminiscent of grade school tactics you're supposed to grow out of.. And now the latest: My company continued to book charters with DYC intermittently for individual clients (never again for a flotilla) who wanted to use them, and we recently booked a charter with them for one of our staff members who paid his deposit on a charter 10 months away, and then 2 weeks ago and 12 days after the deadline for refund, passed away from a sudden heart attack. We reached out to DYC to cancel the charter, explained the situation and under the circumstances, politely asked them for the money to be returned to the grieving family (none of whom are sailors). Instead of giving the situation any serious consideration and adjusting policy for a very good reason, they contend that the deceased should have taken out trip insurance. Which may be true, but who thinks they might die before the charter?? Instead of considering the grief and hardship the family is experiencing, they hide behind the contract to ensure they milk every last penny from them. I mean, it's not like the largest charter company on the planet doesn't have the financial ability to make an exception where one should be made. But nope, the CEO and founder, Loic Bonnet, who used to work for Moorings, the highest rated company in the industry for service and quality, and should know better, obviously supports the company's disgusting stance on this. Why didn't I post about the nightmare in Croatia last year before now? Because they threatened to quit working with us (was fine with me, but the boss didn't want to compromise our service) and void any vouchers they issued to our skippers if I said anything negative about it!! In fact, the sheet you have to sign to get the fairly worthless voucher includes the verbiage "The charter client also agrees not to post or make public any defamatory reviews of their experience with Dream Yacht Group". In other words, don't tell anybody how crappy we are or we won't give you the voucher. Unbelievable, and the latest scummy action by the company shows us that Loic Bonnet and Charles Porter are nothing more than greedy hucksters running the worst charter company in the industry, exploiting the sailing public. Bottom line? Dream Yacht Charters (now Dream Yachts Worldwide) is just another 3rd rate company concerned only with revenue at the expense of any semblance of quality or care for their customers. Charter with them at your own risk, and do not expect the boats to match the marketing..

The crew of Captain and Chef/steward get a 5 star review. For the following reasons, they get a 1 -…read moreproblem with bathrooms made all cabins smell like feces and urine. Some cabins even had back up of feces and urine, ughhh. Took 5 days to fix. 7 of 7 batteries were dead. That means generator had to run 24/7. For the forward cabins, that means sleeping with a train underneath all night long. Some cabins never had hot water, the others had intermittent. We're talking only 4 cabins. The main sail broke after first use. Jib sail broke after second use. So basically we had sails for 2 of about 20 cruises. There is more but you get the point.

Best boat charter experience! Captain Aaron and Leilani gave…read moreus the most incredible day on the water. We had amazing drinks, explored all the best snorkel spots, and felt completely taken care of from start to finish. Truly such an unforgettable experience!

We went to great snorkel spots and the husband/wife captain team were very nice but if you're…read morelooking for luxury this isn't it. The food was pedestrian at best and we all got off the boat at the end of the day starving. The boat was ok but when you went below deck to use the bathroom the carpet was completely water logged ankle deep in water. Below deck smelled really musty. In the end, the places we went were great but you could definitely have a better experience for the expense with another tour company.

What a day!!!!!!! Highly HIGHLY recommend this charter. It's a must-do if you're visiting…read more They picked us up by dingy right outside of our hotel. Even that was fun. The dingy lead us to the SAIL BOAT, the fury. A gorgeous, HUGE, spacious boat. The crew is comprised of ANGELS. The captain was kind, attentive, personable, and professional. Nikki was amazing too. She comforted me because I told her I was in a bad boating accident 8 years ago. The ride was smooth, but it was nice to have someone to check on you. She refilled our drinks, fed up, it was an incredible trip. Nikki even went as far as to give us an UNDERWATER snorkeling tour. She explained which fish we were seeing, how to determine the type of coral we're looking at, and guided us to a shipwreck. All in all, I'd say this tour was the best thing we've done on the island thus far!

Absolutely fantastic experience!! A great boat and crew (Mike and Nicki). Spoke about history,…read morelandmarks, and just general dialogue. Adjusted location to allow for snorkeling of both corral and sea turtles; ensuring a great experience without a lot of different snorkelers. Great Rum punch on return!!! A must booking if going to St Thomas!!

DO NOT RECOMMEND We sailed with Festiva in the BVI's the…read moreweek of November 22, 2025. This review comes four weeks after completion of our trip due to the conversation we've been attempting to have with management. This was our third trip with this company. We were returning guests that brought friends along to join us in what was one of the best holidays we had ever taken; unfortunately, this was not the case this time around, not even close. I honestly don't know where to begin as there are so many things to mention. From the start Captain Tyrone was aloof, dismissive and uninformative. The first 24 hours onboard we had an alarm, like a smoke detector or carbon monoxide alarm, going off every 30 minutes. We woke up First Mate Compton to address the situation, since Tyrone was not on the boat and no where to be found, and were told there was nothing he could do about it. After a sleepless night, once our captain returned in the morning, we asked three times for the situation to be rectified. We were brushed off, told it was a bilge pump, told to try turning off the AC the told, "it's a boat, it makes noise. We owned a boat, this was not normal, it was an alarm, neither one of our crew cared. Only after writing an email to Tammy in the office was the situation addressed. Tyrone simply disconnected the alarm, which we found out later was a high water alert, and had to be in good working order to legally be underway on this vessel. After getting annoyed about the fact we had to contact management with our concern Tyrone proceeded to be argumentative and rude through the rest of the week. We moored around Tortola for 3 nights, at least 2 more than we should have, so, we're guessing, Tyrone could sleep at home, since he was off the boat every one of those nights, all night. Not only did we have no way of reaching him, he disappeared with the dinghy, our only way of getting off the boat if there had been an emergency since there was no life raft. We did not go to any good snorkel spots, stopping at maybe 4 over our entire week. We were told half way through our trip that we could not go to most of our anticipated bays and beaches because the anchor was broken. Why were we on a catamaran with a broken anchor? Or was this just an excuse out of sheer laziness? This was not the only thing malfunctioning on the boat; we had broken cupboards, no shower off the back, torn seats, and general uncleanliness. Our meals were very basic, mostly sandwiches for lunch and a bag of chips for snacks. Compton did make a couple of lovely dinners, but the service was not what we expected, not what was advertised and not what we paid for. Our captain told us we could not get more Baileys as requested, "once it's gone, it's gone" was the answer we got. This was not our previous experience, we are dumbfounded that this could even be the same company. The other two couples on the boat were great. We only just met when we boarded and had a great week with them, thank goodness. They were in the same situation as us, returning customers who brought friends. They, too, were regretful and embarrassed they brought along others since this vacation was nothing like the one they had experienced in the past. There were many other little, and not so little, things that occurred, this post could go on and on, but I'll leave it here, for now. After returning home we all wrote separate letters to Tammy expressing our disappointment. A week later we got a blanket email back from her stating that she received a very different story from the crew, that we had been difficult to please, and essentially called us liars, all 8 of us. Interesting that she received similar letters from guests that started as strangers, had sailed with them before, had genuine concerns with service and safety and she still chose to dismiss and insult each of us. We have now written a lower, as a group, to the "higher ups" and marine agencies that regulate safety on the water. We presently await their response. We will be review posting again accordingly.

Captain Tyrone was more interested in his phone and spending nights off boat on Tortola then…read moresailing the loop. I am a return guest and this trip was the exact opposite of my previous trip with them. From a dirty and in need of repair Lagoon, unfriendly crew and inept management (Tammy) Festiva has gone down hill. Two people cut/punctured their feet on board due to sweeping debris into the stairwells for the bedrooms. Zero assistance from crew other than pointing to a poorly equipped first aid kit. Only 4 snorkeling stops in total vs 2-4 per day on last trip. Decent breakfast and dinners with lunches lacking. Find other options, Festiva appears to be in a downward spiral.