hotelboats

[purplehaze]

I know this hotel pair well

Just let me say having spent a week on board I was so stressed out it was unbelievable, stress is catching I can tell you.

 

It was the most unrelaxed boat hol that I had ever had. Thank goodness we had a ordianary boat hol booked for later in the year you will never catch me on a hotel boat ever again.

[alan_fincher]

There's been some amusing threads on here recently, but the posts on this one today have made me smile more than most

 

I remember well the article in Waterways World about getting this pair built, which is reproduced

 

Here

 

If the experience is as at least 3 people have described, then it's clearly currently not funny if you have paid for it

 

But the images it's put in my head of this guy who quit the church because of "stress", being even more stressed by this venture is surely one of the most bizarre stories yet to appear here......

 

It's an interesting point though, that hadn't occurred to me..... Something like this might be just what someone dreams they want to do. But, if you haven't already got extensive experience, not just of operating a 70 foot motor and butty, but ALSO in a way that is calming to your passengers, how the hell do you know you are going to pick up those skills fast enough for your new venture ?

 

I guess we should feel sorry for him, and hope he gets better at it as fast as possible

[purplehaze]

I actually won the week for two in an on line comp, which at the time I was really chuffed about. We have been on the canals for the last 20 years (on hirer boats) and we were really looking forward to a different experience. How right we were!! To be honest if we had paid we would have complained but felt that as it was a freebee we should keep stum!!

 

Needless to say by day 1 we were not happy bunnies and we jumped ship a day before the holiday finished and spent a lovely weekend with my bro.

[Hairy-Neil]

 

It's an interesting point though, that hadn't occurred to me..... Something like this might be just what someone dreams they want to do. But, if you haven't already got extensive experience, not just of operating a 70 foot motor and butty, but ALSO in a way that is calming to your passengers, how the hell do you know you are going to pick up those skills fast enough for your new venture ?

 

I guess we should feel sorry for him, and hope he gets better at it as fast as possible

 

I know of two couples who had similar dreams that turned into nightmares for one of each couple. Both took early retirement to run, respectively, a village pub and a transport cafe.

[Callum]

Just for the sake of balance, I also have first hand experience of this hotel boat pair, having spent New Year on them.

 

Our experience was a relaxing 4-5 day break being very well looked after by our hosts. The food was excellent, with truly epic portions, especially the 6 course meal on New Years Eve. Said Captain is also the cook, btw. The rest of the crew (family & paid crew) were also very friendly and attentive.

 

I can however appreciate where the impression of a stressed out skipper comes from, since our impression was of someone who 'flaps' a lot in any abnormal situation. After half a day or so we realised that this was just his way and as he was never once 'short' with any of his guests we pretty much let it go over our heads - certainly his crew seemed to much pretty much ignore it!

 

I can well imagine that someone who reacts in this way to comparatively non serious events on the canal would indeed find it very, very difficult to cope with bereavements etc. as a priest.

 

Anyway, we thought they were very nice people.

[mikevye]

Nice to see I've opened a deep vein with this one. My original posting didn't identify that we followed the show from bottom to top witnessing all events. At lock 4 bottom an impression of a headless chicken was being enacted which might have saved him pain when he rushed below and we heard a bump and a heavy oooh! He didn't appear for ages and we thought he'd knocked himself out. He duly appeared looking not a happy bunny. We were having a chat with a lovely couple on a boat called Halloween when the lady of the hotel boats handed them an invite to a christian gathering at their church completely ignoring the couples obvious religious persuasion. At the top locks poor old colin the lock keeper was getting both barrels as the skipper was demanding the name and address of the managing director of BW to arrange a special opening time to avoid the congestion he had caused, there's more but I'll R I P on this one.

[Jotheboat]

Halloween is a neighbours of ours. Lovely couple who cannot wait to have more time for cruising.

Fortunately it will take much more than 'holy orders' to put them off.

[Graham Blott]

I haven't yet had the "pleasure" of meeting up with the reverend gentleman and his hotel boats (but did watch with growing disbelief the Waterworld programmes) so cannot comment on his boat handling or levels of stress. However, I have frequently come across Taurus and Snape in the past as well as another pair whose names escape me at the moment and I moor near to a (retired) hotel boat owner. For all those doubting the wisdom of taking a hotel boat holiday I would urge you to think again - by and large they are run by enthusiatic people with a deep love of the watreways. And yes, I'm quite sure that runnuing a waterborn hotel is stressful, but the trick that most of them seem to have mastered is that of keeping the stress hidden from the guests.