Jay Custis

Review of Patoka Lake Marina

I was very disappointed with the upkeep of their b...

I was very disappointed with the upkeep of their boats. When we arrived the staff member told us our pontoon needed to be drained, but they were short on mechanics and didn't have time to have it taken care of. He advised us to put all of our coolers/things in the back to weigh down the back of the boat because it was leaning forward. We had to return the boat after just 20 minutes on the water, and lost another hour+ waiting on it to be fixed. Unacceptable that they did not have the boat ready for us at 9 am when we arrived.

The other negative aspect to our visit was the customer service. When we radioed that our boat wasn't acceptable because the water kept coming over the front, we were initially told the mechanic was fixing a motor on another boat and wouldn't be able to get to it. Essentially our only option was to return the boat or deal with it. That person was quickly told differently by someone and they agreed to fix our boat. We were told it was take 45 minutes(wrong) and they would give us an extra hour at the end of the day(irrelevant because there was a storm coming at 6 pm and we would spend our extra hour in a thunderstorm). We asked for a different pontoon that wasn't being used, but were told they were all reserved. However, many pontoons were at the dock when we returned and still there after completion of the draining of our pontoon boat nearly an hour and a half later. We had to wait another 10 minutes because they decided to switch out the propellers while they had us all sitting there waiting too. I believe they should have given us the option of an extra hour(which didn't help us) OR take an hour or TWO HOURS off our fee for renting since we were out that much time due to their neglect of their boat.

If it wasn't for the above problems I would give them 5 stars. Our children loved the boat and were asking to go back out again the very next day. We had a blast while on the fixed boat. This was our first time and we anticipate going back and taking more family. Next time we may try Gilligan's boats that also does rentals and see if they have better service and maintenance on their fleet.

My suggestion for the company is to add another mechanic or have him work overtime as needed to make sure the boats that are rented out to customers are ready for their departure each morning. They could also use some help with their customer service. When you make a mistake, you need to be more flexible in helping the customer to improve their overall experience.