We recently rented a pontoon from Wave Chasers, though the experience started out great, the level of service that we received the day of was less than satisfactory. I wish we would have paid more attention to their "policies" because they have set policies that basically allow them to protect their poor services and are representative of their lower price point.
To start, we booked with them for a half day rental for a weekend at the lake. Like any travel situation we checked the weather, when the forecast called for rain, we contacted them days before our visit for their inclement weather policy (you can see the email we received RE: the policy in the attached photo). In their reply email there is discussion of a refund if there was rain, along with the inclusion of their formal policy at the bottom, but we were assured they would work with us according to the specific email discussion. We felt no need to worry as they seemed to accommodate any bad weather. (What the email did not include was their policy that if a boat was delivered, any potential refund would be forfeited. I found this out today while looking at the FAQ page) We called again the night before to make sure that the information given to us in the email still stood and to check and see what they thought about the forecast, they assured us we were good to go. Hindsight being 20/20 it makes sense why they called the morning of to confirm delivery, after all if the boat was delivered, we forfeited our refund.
After we confirmed, the boat hands whom were delivering the boat, showed up to our dock 20 mins late and unprepared. The boat did not have an anchor, and while it is not a necessity (?!?!) we asked them to go get us one. The boat hands told us that all the other boats had an anchor and were not sure why ours didn't. It took an additional 30 mins for them to return with an anchor and 10 mins to get us ready to depart, we asked to make sure that we could get refunded or given an additional hour for the hour we waited, the boys said yes. Come to find out, written in the companies policy that "no refund is given for late arrival," again, I came across this today, not too sure how we were not entitled to the time that we paid for.
About an 30 mins into our day on the lake, it started pouring rain. We headed back to the dock and called Wave Chasers to have them come pick the boat up and asked about our refund, as it was raining and based off of our correspondence with them, we would be given one. We were told that since the boat was in our possession we would be charged as so. After calling again we were told that we would he charged over half of what we paid, and that "[they] went and bought us an anchor when the didn't have to" & "were doing us a favor by refunding any of our rental"
Bottom line, the owners (Jen and Josh) were rude over the phone and seemed to put the blame on us. We understand they are trying to run a small business, all we wanted was good service and for them to meet the standards that they alluded to. If you want a cheaper rental rate, go with them, just make sure you're all in and ready for less than par customer service. read more