Everyone was so friendly and had a great attitude. Boat clean. Big bathroom. Had a great day pricing high so worth it!

We rented a large houseboat for 12 people at Lime Saddle Marina at Oroville Lake. We had people coming from out of state, at the Lime Saddle Marina for 3 days in August 2024. I would never rent there again. They are unprofessional, poor communicators, and inexperienced in docking their houseboats on the lakeside. They did not accurately explain all the costs up front. Here is our sad story. First, I called their office and asked if they had a big houseboat for the 3 days we wanted in August. She said yes. I'd never been to the Lime Saddle marina because we always go to Bidwell and I wanted to see the boat, so I went up there, a 3-hour drive. When I got there, I met with Jackie. She didn't know how much the boat, deposit, or insurance cost and requirements. She kept saying you do it all online and I don't go online. They wouldn't allow me to see the boat because the houseboats aren't docked at the marina. I decided to rent the boat anyway. The bills we received in email prior to renting listed the "total cost" as $4,475, which works out to $1,490/day. When we got there for our weekend, the boat was at the marina. It was clean, organized, attractive, spacious, and air conditioned. Tony showed us how to run the boat, walked us through various details on the boat, and escorted us out of the marina. He suggested several places to dock the boat, recommending one location in particular. We went there and I docked and tied the boat down as he told me, on a very steep bank. To dock the boat on the lakeside, you have to drive big steel stakes deeply into the ground with a sledgehammer and tie two big ropes to the boat on either side. This really takes three people and I only had 1.5. It took me about 2 hours. One stake came out and I had to drive the stake in deeper. They told us the lake went down 18 inches every night from water release. That means you have to get up two or three times each night to take slack out of the line so the boat will not get stuck on the bank. I got up 3 times and made sure there was slack in the ropes. And we still got stuck. I called them to pull us out. Two guys and a tow boat arrived. They said it was a bad location and were going to move us to another location, a different bank. When they were ready to move us, I told them to wait while I pulled up my anchor for my ski boat. They said they would go around it, but they ran over it and I lost my anchor. They tried to tie up the boat at a second location, but couldn't get the steel stakes to go in deep enough and the boat pulled the stakes out. One of the stakes went in the water and they lost it. That took 2.5 hours. They started to take us to a third location, but I had enough. We came there to spend our time on the lake doing recreation with our ski boat, not moving the houseboat from one location to another. I didn't want to waste any more time with them trying to dock the boat on lake banks. I insisted they take us back to the marina and let us dock there. Specific problems: 1. One of the two toilets didn't work for twelve people and they were unable to fix it the whole time. They said they would have to remove it to fix it. They kept insisting we had put something down the toilet, but it didn't work well from the beginning. 2. We couldn't figure out how to turn out the overhead fans in the common space. We looked and looked for a switch or a remote control, which was supposed to be on the wall. Someone before us had put the remote on a shelf out of the way. 3. The original rental agreement they sent said "total cost $4,475," which works out to $1,490/day. It turned out that didn't include insurance required regardless of your personal insurance (various options, we paid $374) and transaction fees/taxes ($575). The cost was turned out to be $1,620/day plus gas. By the way, they charge $8.20/gallon for gas for the houseboat. It's obvious that the gas is a separate cost, but they should have made that explicit and given us some idea how much gas it would take to move the boat to at least one location and back. They reimbursed me $100 for the loss of my anchor. JR was very helpful after it was all over. read more

ranger station was very informative very courteous. The launch ramp wasn't a big cluster you know! didn't really deal with the marina per say because i come prepared . but somewhat clean its looks ok to me ! i have been on the delta where it can get a little ghetto. read more

Great service! Responsive staff, and top of the line, clean, and well fitted houseboats.

Managment is horrible, boats are in a state of disrepair, generators fail, engines fail, and the prices are insane, 6k for 3 days on a poorly constructed "houseboat" the employees are the only positive of the marina, ever since new ownership switched the quality of service has declined. read more

1st off, Lime Saddle Marina is a different company than The Bidwell canyon Marina. It mattered to us because the 22' platform boat prices from Bidwell was so much higher (like $150 MORE PER DAY) that it was worth it for us to boat an extra hour to rent from Lime Saddle. This review is for the Lime Saddle marina boat rental experience during slow season (After Labor day). I posted a separate review for the Floating Campsite experience. I have only rented boat a couple times from other recreational lakes, but that was enough for me to approach renting here with suspicion. For example, I took a picture of the propeller during the orientation because I know that can be a reason to default the deposit. Reservation process was a bit suspect. Took a total of 5 calls to finalize everything...that's the minus star. If you call the marina directly they provide good local information but kinda clueless on payment and policy stuff. I had to call corporate to take care of billing and local to get lake conditions info. When we got there the marina is much smaller than the Bidwell canyon marina, but service was excellent. The lady helped us get the paperwork done w/ no issues. Be sure to bring IDs for the drivers. The boat we got was decent...relatively clean and ran alright. Minus another star for the lights not working (which was not tested during orientation)...this was a HUGE issue since we had to pick up a group joining us at night. We basically had a super strong flashlight, but if the batteries had died we'd be driving through the marina parking/no wake zone w/ just our cell phones. FYI, the houseboat don't all have lights on at night. The boat we got was very easy to use and held a ton of our gear and passengers. AT one point we had a kayak, SUP, 4 large tubes and 8 passengers (2 kids)..no problem. It should be noted that there are floating restrooms at key parts of the Lake, but I would imagine during high season the line must be terrible. No issues at all returning the boat. They topped off the fuel and that was the only extra charge ($4.25/gal) and we got the full deposit back. read more

Try to rent a boat here. Go on. I dare you. We called to reserve a boat around 10 am. No answer. So, we slowly got all our stuff together and figured we would just head over from chico. We got there at 1 pm. Whoops! Of course they don't rent out boats after 12pm. So, we were SOL. What kind of hours are these? It makes no sense. And, importantly, it's not on the website and we couldn't even get a hold of anyone on the phone. Take your boat needs elsewhere. These guys are just lousy seamen. read more

I just spoke with Joe, a very friendly gal who answered the phone at Lime Saddle Marina, about my husband and I coming over to take a look at a houseboat we reserved for the upcoming July 4th 2017 week. She was very friendly and encouraged us to come over and said they would be happy to show us the houseboat we reserved. So I'll go over and post my experience. read more

The people that worked at the marina were very rude and disrespectful. They did not help us at all and were rude on the phone and in person were even worse. We paid a $8 dollar parking fee that we could not get refunded. We showed up 15 minutes after 12:00 ready to pay for a full day with a patio boat even though we knew we would only get a few hours worth of fun and they said we were too late because they don't rent out anything after 12:00. Clearly they didn't want our business. The hours for rentals make no sense at all. It should be hourly or at least different hours. Who wants to have to bring the boat back by 4:00pm when the suns still up!!! We will now be taking our business and fun elsewhere. read more