On January 24 a group of us boarded this vessel for a day trip to Key West Florida. When we purchased the tickets, nothing was stated about not being allowed to bring our own beverages or food and when we boarded this vessel, there were no signs stating this either.
Our trip to Key West happened with no problems even though our group was loud and excited about the day ahead. Our group consisted of 9 women (ages from their 40's to their 60's). It was the return trip that was a nightmare.
Many people go to the Keys to shop and drink. The boat serves alcohol and just about every other business on Duval St is a bar so they know that passengers are drinking yet when some of our group started to have "too much fun" they were reprimanded by the crew in front of everyone.
Yes, some members got a little loud but we kept it to our own 2 tables and our party was not the only one on board that was drinking. Yes, several of us got a little "raunchy" but there were no children near our tables. The children on this vessel were in another part of the cabin closer to the galley.
When our group started singing (songs from the 50's and 60's) we were told to quiet down by a crew member even though they were not singing loudly. I was one of the "sober" ones of the group, having only 2 drinks containing alcohol earlier that day and I can say they were not singing loudly. I can understand if the crew felt the need to reprimand our group when we were playing with an adult version of a squirt gun, that was in poor taste but the rest of the trip it seemed that we were not allowed to have ANY other type of fun unless it consisted of sitting still and not speaking.
Several of our group purchased beer to bring on the boat because they like a certain brand and no one said a word about it when we boarded. I would also note that the crew said nothing about our flask that they knew we were drinking from. Yet during our trip home, it was decided by one crew member to inform us we not allowed to bring our own drinks on board and the beer cans were taken from our members. I would also like to mention that we DID purchase items from their galley such as food snacks and sodas and we put money in their tip jar so it wasn't like they did not make money off of us.
Several other people on the boat came to me and told me that they felt we were being treated unfairly as they were being louder and "raunchier" than us and no one said anything to them. I am the president of a social club and I can tell you that our club will not be using this company, another member belongs to another social club and she plans on telling her club not to book any excursions with this company and another of our group owns a business that deals with Florida "snowbirds" and she will be telling our customers not to use this company as well.
This boat has 2 decks, the simple solution would have been to tell either our party or the offended parties to gather on the other deck or they could designate one deck for "family use" and another for "party use" which would take care of any problems. If you are easily offended by drinking adults who like to have fun, stay in the "family area" but instead we were treated like naughty school children who needed to be punished in front of everyone else to teach us a lesson. The only lesson we have learned is to call another company who told us that they welcome "partying" adults. Another simple solution would be to place signs stating that no beverages are allowed to be brought onto the boat.
My advise, use this company if you belong to a church group or have small children but if you are an adult who likes to have a good time and let off some steam after working all week, don't bother because you could be the next one to be treated in the manner that we were.
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