Pirates Life Boat Rental

I have always had a good experience with Pirate’s Life over the past several years. I probably have used them 12 — 15 times. However, for the past several months they have been non-​responsive when trying to make reservations. I know they lost their original dock near Lido Marina because of the construction. I do not think they are in business anymore as they do not respond to phone, text, or email; and their website is no longer active.

So we got a Living Social deal for this place last year and loved it. I saw it come up on my email again a few months ago and bought it. I had to make the reservation two months in advance since weekends fill up, but got it for yesterday evening. Well we show up and the place is not there anymore. We double check the address on the voucher and it was the same. We asked around and they said they moved across the harbor. Despite waiting around for 30 minutes and already paying for parking, we go across the harbor and ask around. Turn’s out they are OUT OF BUSINESS!!! No communication was given to us and we had to look for another company and paid full price. Had a great experience with Newport Fun Tours though — highly recommend them instead.

What a joke this place is! DO NOT GIVE A PENNY TO THESE PEOPLE! My sister in law booked a nice cruise for her husband’s birthday on Friday and we couldn’t find the place and the address didn’t even exist. She had 8 people coming down to enjoy the 2 hour cruise. I felt so bad for her because she had everything prepared for a nice picnic lunch on the Duffy. We talked to someone that services Duffy boats down there and they said they don’t service for Pirates Life anymore because they don’t pay their repair bills. She tried texting, emailing and calling but NO ANSWER!!! MAILBOX FULL! She bought it through Living Social and they refunded her money. We ended up finding another company that rented us a Duffy for the same price as Living Social and we had a fantastic day! PLEASE DO NOT RENT FROM THEM! The only reason they got one star is that’s the only way I could leave a review.
Cathy W.

We showed up for our appointment time today at 11:45 to meet Chris. He did not show. He did not return calls, messages, or text messages. My family waited on the curb for nearly an hour before we gave up. What a regrettable situation and monumental waste of time.

DO NOT USE this company! I would have given zero stars if it was allowed. Our boat NEVER showed up!
A couple weeks ago I had spoke with Tammy & reserved a 12 person Duffy boat for Wed, May 13, 2015 at 6pm. This was a surprise for my brother & his fiancé who are getting married this Saturday and our family who had flown in from out of state.
This past Sunday I had even spoke with a gentleman (I think his name was Steven) who had CONFIRMED our reservation and had my credit card info & phone number.
Got there yesterday at 5:30pm (30 minutes early) and no boat. We waited until 7pm and still NO boat & NO call from the company who had all of my information & contact phone number on file. Best part is I kept calling & calling the company and there was no answer & their mailbox was FULL so I couldn’t even leave a message.
Our Duffy boat never showing up is bad enough but what is even more upsetting is this was supposed to be part of kicking off the wedding celebration for my brother, fiancé, parents & cousins who flew in from out of state. We were looking forward to champagne & sunset on the water.
I have never experienced something like this and am in shock about the ethics of this company. So WARNING, WARNING, WARNING… even if you are to get ahold of this company & make a reservation, your boat may not even show up!!! Please do yourself a favor & use another company.
I wish I would have read Unilocal reviews but I didn’t. Matter of fact, I just now opened a Unilocal account to make sure I can help anyone else that I can from going through an experience like this!

Do NOT use this company. I received a gift in the form of a living social voucher to book at this location. Humans do not answer the phone nor do they return calls for weeks. I received a return call from Tammy today. She yelled that they are displaced and that living social has made her life hell for not contacting the the recipients. No dates were available to book. I requested June 3. They do all their info via text. I received a nasty text that booking was not possible. Tammy said they were displaced. I understand why!

I really wanted to give these guys a shot through living social on account of my 4-​year old daughter.
Called them at least 10 times,
Emailed them around 5,
Texted once,
And actually drove to their office Sunday (March 1^st) at around 4 PM.
Zero luck in contacting them.

There are a number of companies renting duffies. Last year we used Pirates Life and we loved it. Nice boys get you off and running, and back in quickly. The boats run well, though today ours was so slow we were being passed by paddle boards! As a result, we got in late. We took the route we always take on duffy’s…but were so slow we ran so late that it had us really worried about being charged more.
We had already had a surprise extra 20.00 charged to our living spaces deal for «taxes». I didn’t think they could do that… but they said it is in the fine print.
In this reviewers mind, that is definately a LARGE PRINT memo, for the time of booking. So, I do not recommend them with a Living Social deal. I am curious if they tax regular rate customers 20.00 upon arrival. I doubt it, and that bothers me.
So, in spite of a wonderful, beautiful day on the ocesn with fun people, bagels &lox and mimosas… The experience of the company was poor. There are too many other companies renting duffies, and I have used them all.
Pirates goes to the bottom of my list for their fine print hidden fees and super slow duffy. And you know duffies are slow enough… they should be, but when bein passed by SUP and kayaks… coming in late and worried robs the relaxation.
I will say that our 2 boys at the dock were super nice. I should add that last year when we used them, they were late arriving. We were the first booking of the day and had to wait 20 minutes for them to show up. So I think the trouble with this business lies in managing, not the boys on the dock. We tipped them, because bad policy and hidden fees aren’t their fault.

A PIRATES LIFE for me BOAT RENTALS
I LOVE DUFFY BOATS! And being that I live in SoCal we can almost enjoy them year around which is AWESOME! I’ve rented these little boats from several electric boat places and this is one of my top places. Why do you ask because they are so ACCOMADATING and NICE! Plus I NEVER have any boat issues like them NOT WORKING PROPERLY!
The first time I rented them several years back was for a Family Fun Day event! Papa Smurf was coming out to visit and mom-​n-​ator the sequel, my uncle, and a friend and her mother. It was spring so I thought this would be something fun to do and we could have lunch on the boat.
I made the reservation with NO PROBLEMS and waited for the date to arrive. The day comes and my HORRID HOUSE GUEST FROM H*LL and HER MOTHER made it nearly impossible to do anything in a timely manner, thus we left the house late! To top it off it was Memorial Day and it seemed like EVERYONE, there momma and the DOG was head to Newport because it was a FAN-​TAS-​TIC BEAUTIFUL DAY OUT! EVERYTHING from the roota to the toota, freeways and streets were all backed up to the point I probably could have walked faster than the traffic was moving making us even more late!
I called PIRATES and they said no worries that they would get us on ASAP as soon as we checked in as to NOT waste any more time! The closer we got to the water it got cooler so by the time we arrived it was FRICKIN COLD but PIRATES had several blankets waiting for us and ushered us on to the boats while I quickly filled out paperwork and signed my life away. The TERRIBLE traffic and HORRID HOUSE GUEST from H*LL had turned our 2 hour lunch water adventure into a 45 min float in circles and come back to the dock. Even though we had cut into our 2 hours because of traffic but we STILL had a blast! Papa Smurf drove the boat while we ate and took pics. He had a blast! Some of our boating patrons were a bit afraid of the boat but they STILL had fun, especially once we docked and got off! Haha!
PIRATES was so NICE that since we didn’t get to enjoy out full 2 hours they gave us a FREE hour for a later use and discounted an additional hour! NOW THAT IS CUSTOMER SERVICE! It wasn’t even their fault we were late but they STILL were SUPER NICE and ACCOMMADATING!
I been back several times and ALWAYS HAD FUN! I LOVE WATER so it is REALLY RELAXING thing to do in SoCal, especially with all the rush, rush, rush, we do all the time.
Summer gets busy out on the water so you will need to be UBER CAREFUL. It was like the Indy 500 out there one year with sail boats trainees, regular sail and motor boats, kayakers, SUP’ers, water taxi going back and forth, etc! So just be careful and mind the water rules!
Ankle Biters are also welcome and will be provided with Life vest in case they lean over too far and fall in! Get a group of friends together and celebrate a birthday or just go out and have fun!
Parking is easy and readily available in the brick parking structure! As you come out go to your right and they are located by the BIG CLOCK! There are a few little shops you can look in after or before as well.
It’s a PERFECT WA Y to enjoy this BEAUTIFUL SoCal weather we have!

I called and left a voicemail everyday for one week, that was about two weeks ago. I have never heard back. I have used them in the past without issue. I no longer recommend this company due to their poor customer service. I can only assume they are closed as they didn’t want to take my money and let me book a Duffy boat.