Le Boat

Did cruise from Migennes to Tannay in mid September 2019. Le Boat delivered in all respects - a well appointed boat, good instruction and friendly and helpful service. They also offered support on the way, should we have needed it, but it wasn't necessary. The boat didn't miss a beat and we were delighted with it. Well done!

Ordered 4 bikes, one flat tyre day one, rang for replacement and no interest in replacing. Whole week with family having one person staying on boat and not able to join in rides to wineries etc. stuffed our holiday.
Boat steering leaking, clean up top deck and in Saloon and of course steering not the best. Inverter not working so could only power up cameras and computer on shore power.
Information books not up to date, poorly compiled, not good enough.

Compared to our previous Canal du Midi rental of a Caprice in 2015 this particular vessel caprice 21 appears to have been a bit of a lemon , sent from UK to Belgium at the start of the season with supposedly, as the local boat base spin went, not enough time to iron out the bugs.
In the current heatwave season we would have expected the use of a working fridge but sadly the one supplied malfunctioned and despite some effort to fix it pre departure ....it chilled our drinks for only the first of 5 days sailing .
The new fridge as per photo only went in the last .night we came back to base and we did negotiate a small refund sum to partially compensate for the inconvenience ...nevertheless our willingness to hire again is less than enthusiastic...........Not having an umbrella base provided or a sleeve welded to back of upper steering position , as with another Caprice we noted made for some hotheaded slow sailing .
Ps the JPEGs wouldn’t load via this feedback form

This was our third time on Le Boat we arrived to pick up the boat and had to wait 4 hours for it which means we missed the first day the condition of the cleaning was terrible you have to make your own beds sheets just put on bed for yo to do mould in the bathrooms spiders every where dusty and dirty everywhere. The conditions of the bikes very dangerous I fell off hit my head on the road and ended up in emergency the chain just came off the bike you really need to look into your bikes more carefully

Everything worked efficiently and effectively at the Australian end for the booking and the French end for picking up the boat, cruising the Canal du Garonne and the Baise, and dropping the boat at our destination.

As a repeat customer I had high expectations, from my last trip 10 years ago, which i had no problems with. Unfortunately, standards have slipped. I am a very experienced sailor, offshore and rivers, and although my standards are exacting, these comments are all objective and factual, not emotional. Our boat, a Corvette A at Trebes looked like it had been in a bumper boat contest - cracks all around the gunwhales and ribbing, rubbing strakes damaged, one fender missing, one broken, one mooring rope frayed to the extent it failed the first time any weight came on it, and one mooring rope ( which i can only assume had broken and been re-spliced) was too short to do its job properly when going down a lock. Those are external. One of the 2 toilet seats was loose, 2 door handles were so loose that when the doors shut it locked you inside the cabin. One of the 2 toilets was smelly. The aft cabin bed slider rail was also broken. We left accepting the issues ( there was no technician available) once recorded due to time constraints, but in passing back 2 days later - still no available technician to fix. On arriving at Homps 2 days later, still no technician, and guy in charge said "we have our schedule to follow"?? And when we went to use the bikes (10 euros a day each) mine had a loose handlebar locking mechanism which i was unable to fix - dangerous, as when riding it would steer off to one side. I also think 10E per day per bike is too much.
I get the impression the staff are under-resourced. Very nice people but lacking capacity. We also had an electrical issue (which to be absolutely fair was caused by myself knocking the starter key from the 3rd to the 2nd position inadvertently, but when i called base with the symptoms,warning lights flashing etc, and they were not covered in the manual other than ""call base, the person i spoke to could not help - and when we arrived in Narbonne they told me this was a common occurrence! It caused us stress as we did not know if this was a serious or otherwise problem. And guys, the phone numbers of the bases needs to be more prominent - "Ën cas d'urgence"- i suggest a sticker at the steering position, or an A4 sheet laminated, not the size of a business card.
On the good side the stove, sink, everything in the kitchen was great. Bedding fine, generally clean though how a large spider web could be missed is beyond me.
We thoroughly enjoyed the week'overall despite all this, and i don't want to put people off this type of holiday - it is a wonderful experience cruising down the canal in peace and beauty. My granny used to say "comparisons are odious'" but we couldn't help but look at other company's boats as we went along, so come on Le Boat, lift your game. Again to be fair there were no issues with the returned condition, But be exacting in your acceptance condition inspection, as the person who checks you out will probably not be checking you in, especially on a one-way. I would like to do this again, but you are making it difficult for me.

While we had a problem with the boat all the way from Tanny to Migennes (a high pitched irritating noise between 1500 and 2100 rpm) the base manger at Migennes was very courteous and very helpful. He deserves praise and is an excellent PR person for the company.

The boat was well prepared but since we were taking it for ten days it would have been nice to have a change of linen and towels. And the simple basics such as salt, pepper and sugar would have been appreciated.
Cleaning products would be a good idea as it's not easy when you don't speak the language fluently to know exactly what to buy and they're always sold in such large containers.

Good advice on the time required to do the distance that we wanted to do, we had originally thought 1 week and they had recommended 10 days. (Get rid of that stupid note highlighted in blue in the bottom corner of this box................almost caused me to abandon straight away, I don't need ridiculous prompts like that!!!). All other aspects handled very well.

as we have done previously we had a great time on the Canals and rivers in Brittany. didn't have any hassles and knew you were there to help if needed.

We had a great week on the Le boat countess
Our original booked boat was unavailable so we were given a larger 1.
The only thing we found unsatisfactory was the kettle had a lot of scale inside and was broken so we didn't use and some of the cooking equipment was old and worn.

The boat had a battery problem after a couple of days but the technician arrived within 2 hrs and had it repaired an hour later.
Whilst it made us a bit later leaving we used the extra time to enjoy Bruges for longer So no real issue.
It is to be expected that the boats are a bit aged and will have some minor problems sometime but the back up service provided was totally except able.

Yes I would travel with them again
Second time around would be a breeze
There were a few things that perhaps we weren’t shown/advised about at check in which would have made life a tad easier, but of course you don’t know what things you need to ask until you’ve left the base
Facilities on the boat were great Loved the layout of the Royal Mystique for two couples

Australian service was good it was the French end that was not so good.

Our boat was wonderful but delayed on pick up, which meant we really lost a day when the return is 900am.
The bikes we hired in the package we are disappointment. Not all gears worked and no puncture kits or tools.
The boat was well stocked and the wifi was good. We would definitely recommend to others and we will book again ourselves.
One oversight was we were lead to believe we could access Lot and Basie rivers but at departure we were told no.
All good though, we cycled to Nerac- a must visit.

Regards
John Belbeck

We hired an expensive boat and it broke down on the 2nd day. The service man came quite promptly but it was annoying that this happened. Also the air conditioning/heating did not work. The lady at check-in in St Gilles and the man that showed us the boat there were both excellent.

The boat had a leaking water tank which leaked over 800 litres into the bilge per day, which made the bilge pump run ever 15 minutes preventing any sleep on the boat. The door handles where hanging off so we purchased some screws to put them back on. Tried to call the contact number a few times with no answer. The boat needs a proper clean.
On the positive the bases that we left from and arrived at where very clean. The canal and river where fantastic and loved it.

We had an excellent holiday with Le Boat.We had a 6 birth boat for 4 people so had ample space. Used the extra room and en suite as a dressing room and only used that shower. The Le Boat staff were wonderful, especially the Portumna team. They could not have been more helpful and generous. We loved Ireland and the Irish people. Learned lots about the history of Ireland and enjoyed the beautiful countryside. The rain and drizzle was a bit tiresome at times.

Jamie in Sydney has been very helpful during the process and all the staff in France were also good. Not a good experience at Trebes when reporting a faulty toilet but this has been mentioned in Castelnaudry. We all had a fun holiday and would hire another boat from Le Boat in the future.

I dealt with Amanda Reynolds and she was great, very helpful and replied quickly to my questions.

From the minute we landed at Le Boat office at Laroche-Migenne until the minute we handed over the keys and signed everything off we had a wonderful experience from all the staff. Just a few minor hiccups regarding the bikes but that was rectified swiftly. The instructions we received from Dominique on how to drive the boat were thorough and he was very knowledgeable and patient. Alise In the office was wonderful as well, very welcoming and caring.