Active Yachts Skiathos - www.activeyachts.gr

Hired Nata, Bavaria 51, out of Skiathos. Broken bow thruster and very poorly equipped in the kitchen. Reimbursed with 50 euro… Overall worn down ship. Alarm for low battery going off at nine every night and in the morning we had to start the engine to flush the toilets.

I have around 30 weeks of experience from chartering boats in Greece and Croatia and this is the worst so far.

Worst experience ever!! We have been renting boats since 15 years and we never had such a bad experience. The boat was totally dirty - still the garbage and toilet garbage o fb the previous users + dust everywhere + sinks dirty + spots on mattresses and on sheets. The company has increased the cleaning charge and than pretended to offer us a discount. All this appended just after the COVID pandemic.Eventually they have literally taken 120 euros at the check out pretending that we broke it because of a strange noise, when actually that noise has been always coming since the beginning. Moreover, the boat was very old, the winch was very low quality making dangerous sailing with strong wind. On the whole renting with this company was a very bad experience and I would not recommend it to anybody! The personnel was also very rude when we complained and never available. It is worth noting that during the check out also other people had the same complaints..

We hired Paris out of Skiathos for 1 week recently from Active Yachts - having previously hired similar yachts in both Greece & Croatia. As is normal these days 3000 Euros was taken against my credit card at check-in for any at-fault damage etc etc. We had several issues throughout our week on the water. An issue with the main sail. that was not our fault, grounded us for 24 hours - not the worst result as we were in the gorgeous Skoploes Town, so made the most of things & eventually the sail issue was repaired and away we went again. Worse was to come when our auto-anchor mechanism "broke" during the week. Having completely stopped working through nothing other than normal operation - we were then forced to have to use our manual anchor for the last few nights moorings. Not particularly impressed and cursing every time we had to negotiate hauling the anchor in and out of the water - we nevertheless understood that occasionally things break - and some of this stuff is part and parcel of being out on the water for a week??! We were not happy, but were not going to seek discount or compensation of any kind for the inconvenience that it had caused - despite the fact that it would have been warranted.

Low and behold - when we return Paris to Skiathos at weeks end back to boat owner STEFANOS KYRIAKOU and after hours of him and his staff jabbering back and forward to each other about the anchor problem in Greek (we don't speak Greek) we are told the unfortunate circumstance that WE are liable for the cost of the damage to the anchor motor to the tune of 1000 EUROS! Several hours of arguing back and forth ensue - which gets us absolutely nowhere! Between the language barrier and their insistence that there is nothing they can do about it - we must pay - they do not listen to reasonable argument of any kind & eventually is like talking to a brick wall we are out of options! I mean what can we do? They already have my 3000 EUROS - so they offer me the option of doing nothing and losing my 3000 or else they will now actually take 1000 EUROS from my credit card & then "kindly" tear up the 3000 EURO slip.

Once this transaction is taken place - they are happy with the result and no doubt have not thought about it for one second more! Whereas from our perspective we feel cheated and robbed & it has put a nasty aftertaste in our mouths from our European holiday & Greece in general!

In my opinion this is tantamount toa crime etc etc - & gives their company & their country a seriously bad name and forever damages their reputation in our view.

We have tried in vain for several weeks from back in Australia to follow up this situation asking for proof of the cost & more importantly evidence of how it was OUR fault! needless to say we are getting nowhere & are now resigned to losing our 1000 EUROS.

Very very unhappy customers who would never ever recommend anyone do any business with them!

Active Yachts is run "hands-on" by Stefanos Kyriakou at Skiathos and he has six yachts for hire. We had (June 2014) an older Bavaria 39 in very nice well maintained condition, recently refurbished including new sails. We enjoyed this yacht very much and would definitely rent it again, it sailed very nicely and was to latest standards of comfort and nav equipment.

Our dealings with Stefanos were first class and straightforward, no third party or sub-contracting nonsense. He personally met us at the airport and arranged our transfer back at the end. He gets our vote of confidence!