I don't know what this place is like the other 364 days of the year, but do not choose this company to help you to roll in the New Year. I wrote them a letter of complaint regarding our disappointing experience only to receive no response.
To whom it may concern at Pride of Vancouver Charters,
I am writing to ask how you can justifiably charge $100.00 per person for a New Year's dinner cruise that was as dissatisfying an experience as ours. When we first boarded the boat, we were told we would not be on the boat I had originally booked, but the star of something or other. That was fine with me until actually being seated on the boat beside at door leading to an outside viewing deck. The boat itself was absolutely freezing to begin with and myself and many other passengers asked waiting staff when it would become warmer, one of the many questions they did not have an answer to. So, as well as having to sit at my table in my jacket for half the evening, we spent the entire night assaulted by gusts of cold and wind as tourists opened the viewing deck doors immediately beside us. It was very annoying to have to ask patrons ourselves to go any find another door, only to be met with looks of annoyance or be ignored completely.
The waiting staff were friendly but did not know the drink menu offhand which was inconvenient as every time we ordered a drink she would have to disappear for 10 minutes to see if she has a particular ingredient. Later in the evening we requested water and waited nearly 20 minutes before going to the bar ourselves and waiting another 10 for the bar staff to "find water." Though, the least impressively run area of the boat had to be the sound system for both the lack of skill of the DJ and his broken equipment which started failing early into the evening. He could not mix songs properly and the sound of his speakers kept changing, making awkward mono sounds before cutting out completely right after midnight. Needless to say this totally ruined the atmosphere of the boat. Our table as well as surrounding ones were completely dissatisfied with the way in which the situation was being dealt, only piping in music from the upper level sound system after midnight. The DJ also forgot to count down to midnight had the boat awkwardly count down 3 minutes after New Year's had past already. I assume this was meant to be followed by some sort of fireworks show of which we saw four pathetic flares extinguish in the night. The most disappointing part of the evening was pulling up at the end of the night with every patron on our boat seated and looking tired while the boat beside us pulled up with a working sound system and a boat full of people inside looking like they were very much enjoying themselves.
The only part of the evening which was marginally enjoyable was the food, which was actually not that amazing and we feel as though for the money spent taking part in this cruise, we could have gone to a nicer dinner somewhere else.
It seems to me that this company has attempted to fulfill all of the promises made on the initial website for buying tickets, but to a completely substandard level. We did not enjoy ourselves and feel that for the lack of service, comfort, entertainment and atmosphere, any decent restaurant or touristic service would provide a refund.
I look forward to your response.
0 comments