Le Boat

I am deeply thankful to the entire team of Crown Travels for everything they have done, I had travelled with other travel agents also but this team is far better than others. Even the smallest things were taken care perfectly making my journey a memorable one. Thanks Again

Rather confusing and protracted booking in system; could not leave until 17.20 despite arriving at 14.00

Welcome great, engineer great but with a family of 9 to cook for, kitchen utensils severely lacking. Small pots and bowls, no wooden spoons for non stick pans, bought them, no grater, peelers etc. Fuel was expensive!!

Great service both in UK when booking and at the base in Jarnac. Pleasant and helpful.
Good size spacious boat for 4 adults although presented as 8+2. Would be tight fit with luggage and 10 people. Helped that boat had both bow and stern thrusters. Manoeuvring the boat would be difficult without both. Well equipped kitchen/galley. Bilge pumps were working overtime as some water leaking into bilges possibly from shower waste. Team dealt with quickly once at Cognac then at Jarnac. Nothing stopped the holiday or our enjoyment of the boat. Good layout and usability. Hot sunny weather too for nearly all the 14 days. Moorings available for us in most places except Saintes but this was late season - Sept. with fewer boats on the river. Up river towards Angouleme was too shallow this season for our boat so furthest stop was Chateauneuf sur Charante. Also bridge and weir works slightly affected our journey planning.

Very good I especially liked Veronica she should get a special mention

Jason and his team at Portumna gave us great, personal service. We would definitely recommend Le Boat

Boat not ready
Could not leave till midday, next day
(Locks close at 12.00)
Need 3 or more crew to go upriver safely
We were 2, we were not told that before but when we got there we were advised to drop 2 people off to take ropes in lock

Staff at the base very helpful they stayed late on Saturday evening because we were running late, then came down Sunday morning to run through the formalities.

We had 2 problems :-

1. The (rear) toilet refused to flush anything other than liquid. The first occasion that the toilet was used for human waste other than urine it failed to flush. Following many attempts to coax the flush into action we contacted the problem line, and a technician duly attended. The flush worked 1st time he tested it! From this visit we learned that water should be turned off in this situation to allow the flush to be used repeatedly without more water being introduced. The technician also instructed that the generator needed to be run for an extended period to ensure enough power was available to enable the flush to operate.
The flush then worked fine whilst flushing liquid only, but failed again the first time "solids" were involved. This time we ran the generator, and turned the water off, and continued to try to operate the flush for an extended period, to no avail. The technician was called again, and again worked for him at the first attempt!

We didn't use the toilet again for anything other than urine for the rest of the holiday. I can only conclude that the "solids" needed to substantially break down in the water before the flush was powerful enough to operate. I can confirm that we hadn't placed anything other than human waste in the toilet, and excessive toilet paper (or anything else) was not the issue here. The toilet at the front of the boat worked just fine.


2. The wi-fi worked for about 15 minutes on the first night, and refused to work again all holiday. Upon returning the router at the end of the trip, I was shown that it was broadcasting itself as SFR, not the Le Boat wi-fi signature that was documented in the instructions (and which I had signed on to when first used). It was explained to me that the unit had been "hard reset" which had overwritten the config, and returned it to "factory", thus changing the broadcasted name from LeBoat wi-fi to SFR. Upon learning this, I realised that the technician had performed this hard reset by pressing the button underneath the tape which was covering the 2nd button. (We had mentioned the problem to the technician who had attended to fix the toilet). He had explained that he was a boat technician and not IT trained, but had still done his best to help us. This problem could have easily been avoided had this information been documented in the instructions.

The Le Boat person we handed the boat back to at Homps explained that had we collected and returned the boat from the same base, then a refund could have been issued for the wi-fi, but as our collection (Port Cassafieres) and drop off bases were different, then he did not have the authority to do this. I therefore request this refund at your earliest convenience. I also request that an acknowledgement is made for the issues we had with the toilet. Sadly, unless this issue is properly fixed, then subsequent users of this boat will experience the same problem.


Finally, I would like to add that both technicians who attended were a credit to "Le Boat", and were in no way accountable for the encountered problems.


Colin Brown

It’s the forth time we have used Le Boat The service team where all very helpfull and professional,
The Le boat rep at Tanney waited for us until 6.30 to do the paperwork and hand over, I think her name was ingrid ?

This was our second trip and, same as the first time, it has fully met our expectations. Very good service and support from A to Z of the trip. Helpful and competent staff, clear and detailed instructions and practical part, spotless condition of the boat, quick and efficient support during trip. To make your trip successful, you need to plan it in advance and to read as much information as possible before you start. All info is available on Le Boat site.

First of all -good job of sales team,who assisted us to change the routing in the last minute and helped to have excellent boating.Very nice work of the team in Jarnac during instructing on check in and boat return on check out,all very fast and friendly.

They changed our starting base one day before even though they had two days to get the boat to our preferred base, we were told to get there at 2 pm to start the handover but the boat was not cleaned so they finally had it ready at 4.30 pm.
The toilet seat was cracked the outside electric plug was faulty.
In general the Boat was in a grubby state.

I think Le Boat should look at their opening times, starting at 9 am in the morning is not good when handing the boat back.

Would really think twice before we used them again.

By charging reasonable prices for repairs and providing adequate linen for cruise of 2 weeks

service by sales and staff at Messac was perfect, i give 4 stars because the bathrooms so small that we had to shower the left part of our body in the morning and complete the rest at evening,

Help from UK staff during the booking process and the welcome, briefing and on boat tuition from Patrice and Paul in France was excellent.

Empty gas botte for bbq, first night ruined had to contact base for replacement delivered next morning. No covers on rails on sun deck could not lean back comfortably. Cushions missing to seating on upper deck, 1 odd blue cushion. Not usual standard for LB. Pay1ing the price for Horizon 1 expect the best this was second rate.Radio did not work advised by demonstrator that it had been locked out by a previous user. Will send photo by email later.

I would recommend le boat to anyone considering a canal trip in France

We had a wonderful 10 days - the weather was amazing and we had a lot of fun.
However, the bikes we ordered we did not get due to some accident but their was no interest in trying to get others for us at a different location.

The boat was very tired - controls on the deck - speedometer not working, neutral button did not work, steering required fluid before we left and not very responsive. The handle fell of into the forward cabin and occupants had to climb out of the hatch. Drawer by cooker in kitchen hardly opened as new cooker prevented it from opening.

In general the team was OK, although we had several issues:
1. "Closed for Lunch": In the peak tourist season you simply cannot take such a break on midday... this was very arrogant
2. We had a total of 4 breakdowns in the toilet in the boat - too many!
3. At one evening the Le Boat support just did not answer and we could not get any help
4. When we stopped at a Le-boat office on the way they were very "french" with us and took long time to assist.