SunSail - Caribbean Review

Highly recommend. Had a fantastic vacation. Boat was in great shape. No issues.

While the week went well and the BVIs are beautiful, there were some significant issues with Sunsail that disrupted and diminished our experience.

We were not able to leave Sunsail until about 2:30 on Sunday the 26th due to delayed boat briefing and fueling of the boat. We essentially lost an entire day of sailing out of our week's vacation. The whole boat briefing process and checkout for the week was a chaotic mess. Many other boats around us had the same issue. Sunsail management in the harbor seemed clueless and overwhelmed. There really is no excuse for this...Sunsail knows in advance how many boats they have to checkout on a Sunday morning...how hard is it to plan in advance to have sufficient staff available to do the briefing/checkouts and refueling on a timely basis?

The boat was missing a mooring ball hook and, more significantly, flares. Luckily we caught this before we left. Flares are a legal requirement for sailing in the BVIs and without a mooring ball hook we would have been required to anchor each evening

The boat was in relatively good shape but the starboard cabins smelled of holding tank discharge the entire week. Not pleasant!

Several cockroaches were seen on the boat (nasty!)...a significant problem given we had a week's worth of food on board and no airtight containers for the open dry goods.

The generator failed the first night out of Road Town due to a bad impeller that could have been identified with a proper boat briefing and review checklist. And the first time we called the SunSail emergency number to report the problem, no one answered! We finally got a hold of someone and they sent a repair boat out the next morning (the repair team were excellent)

What's worse, we raised these issues with SunSail Customer Service and they have not bothered to address (or even acknowledge) the issues. While I would definitely charter out of the BVIs again, I would probably not do so with SunSail given the issues with briefing/checkout, the issues with the boat and Sunsail management's apparent lack of concern regarding these problems.

Well equipped marina with great staff. Whether you are a novice or an experienced sailor, SunSail is a great way to get your fix.

Well organized. We chartered a Sundail 454. You could tell this is a well thought out boat. If it blows over 15 knots it sails nicely. Not to good upwind. About 125 tacking angles. But in 25 knots of wind it will go 8 knots up wind.
Everyone was helpful. There is a nice restaurant and bar at Sunsail

Sunsail's BVI Charter Base in Roadtown Tortola deserves a 5 star rating and a huge applause, for the mammoth effort to recover from hurricane Irma. We are just wrapping up our fifteenth charter and the service and quality, was as good as always. Special mention of the outstanding personal service received from our customer service specialist Morgan Persaut!

I have used Sunsail BVI twice now and both times had trouble with incompetent and rude staff at the base. Both instances led to a loss of one day of sailing and much frustration. The most recent episode was just trying to get someone to fuel up our boat so we could leave. The check out briefer disappeared midway through the briefing and it took a few hours hours of trying to find someone to finish it. After visiting the front desk multiple times I went to speak with Mr George, the base manager. He assured me he would take care of things and things will happen very fast now. But they didn t. More hours went by as my group of 7 waited at the dock. Finally after having to make myself a pest to get service we got fuel but only after being told the tanks were full. They weren t full - the fuel gauges don t work well. One tank was completely empty. I learned to check the tanks myself by banging them because the last time they sent us out full , we ran out in 2 days (the fuel gauges still showing full) and a service boat had to come assist us to a marina. Other than the lousy service and high frustration with the staff there, the boats are mostly okay. Little things, like the fridge, the oven, shower pump, didn t work but I guess that s what you should expect with the low prices they offer. I m definitely going to be looking more closely at other companies the next time we charter to hopefully have a less frustrating experience and get more sailing time in. There are so many companies in the BVI and I have heard good things about many of them. They just seem to cost a bit more. I guess you get what you pay for. The reason I am rating two stars instead of one is the price is low and the boats are generally adequate.

I have chartered there twice. The first time went ok, though not everything was working on the boat. The second and most recent time (back in January 2020).

As a repeat customer, I was promised a Saturday evening checkout. Not only did I not get a Saturday evening checkout, I was scheduled for an 11am Sunday checkout. Speaking kindly, repeatedly with the front desk accomplished nothing. During the 11am checkout, it was discovered the boat had not been refueled. It took Sunsail FOUR more hours to refuel our boat. We weren't able to depart until 3pm Sunday. At that point my crew and I had been on the boat 24 hours, on the Sunsail dock. This cost us an entire day of our trip.

When we arrived at our first destination, the dinghy started but didn't have enough power to move forward. Upon inspecting, one of the two spark plugs was snapped completely in half. I phones the maintenance people who seemed annoyed by my call, told me they would call me back, and never did. I called him back and he told me he would "send someone out". When I politely asked him when I could expect them he gave me a 2 minute lecture on how I needed to be more patient, and that I should not hold him responsible (never was I impatient nor blamed him - I know better than to act that way when I need help from someone). To no surprise, the repair crew never showed up and we had to swim to shore to eat our dinner. The next morning we had to sail all the way back to the Tortola marina and speak to the front desk to have our dinghy fixed. An hour or two later we had a working dinghy and could finally begin our vacation. At noon on Monday, when we were supposed to depart Saturday evening.

Our boat did not have all the water toys we requested and paid for as part of our boat reservation. I had to inquire about them 5 times before they were finally delivered.

I had reserved the brand new 464 but was told just a couple weeks before our departure that I was being moved to a 454 instead. I was given no discount for this downgrade. I was told the 454 was a premier plus grade, but the horn didn't work, all the outlets on the port side of the boat including in the cabins didn't work, one of the cabin lights wouldn't turn off, the desalination system didn't work, one of the cabin door-handles fell off, and the face of one of the cabinets was not attached.

I called and spoke with Sunsail customer service after my charter. It took weeks to finally get connected with someone. The gentleman I spoke with was very polite, understanding, and apologetic. He told me he needed to contact the dock to verify the story I provided above, and that he would send me an e-mail later the same day with all the information we discussed, then contact me again in a couple of weeks after he spoke with the dock staff. I never did receive that e-mail, nor did I ever receive a call back from him or anyone else at Sunsail. Then COVID hit and I understood Sunsail was experiencing a lot of cancellations and deferrals and were very busy with all that so I figured I would give them time. A couple weeks ago I noticed Sunsail sending out promotional e-mails again so I began trying to contact their customer service department to follow-up on my case. When you call their customer service line, you immediately get a recording that they are "closed" and to leave a message for next-day call back. I've left a couple messages and have not received any call-back.

I would not do business with this company again. They are in serious need of better management. I understand they are still recovering from the hurricane several years back but that is no excuse for the service issues we experienced.

Nothing but amazing things to say about my experience chartering a Leopard 44 with this company. The boat was clean when we got it, the staff were amazingly friendly. We had a malfunction with one engine and they came to us and resolved the issue while we went out for dinner. Just a Wonderfull experience!!