stormster said:
My word of warning: make sure everybody being invited actually likes water and the ocean.
We have lots of friends where one half of the couple really, really wants to come and says they'd love to come. Then you question the other half of the couple and you discover that that person is so afraid of water they won't take a bath or hates immersing themselves in water or gets seasick very easily.
I'm not joking. This has happened to us many times. So I always talk to everyone who wants to come and never take their partner's word for it that they'll enjoy it.
(We did take one couple where the woman was not crazy about sailing, boats nor swimming but she'd done it a number of times and was willing to go. She was a real trooper.)
I mentioned on another thread we explored doing a crewed cat charter twice and the above is a reason we decided not to do it.
Our best friends are great travelers. Three of the four in the group used to live together, we really know each other. I think they came up with the charter idea but when it came time to commit, the wife half said sorry, but she liked her 20 minute, scalding hot showers, icy AC and king-sized bed (often alone) too much to give them up for vacation and she would be happier on land, in a villa. I appreciated her honesty.
The next time, it was my husband who "bailed" on me, the same husband who was 100% on board the first time. He just didn't like the idea of a small cabin (he thinks a queen bed is roughing it and referred to the owner's side of a large cat as a "casket") and having limited choices as it related to meals.
The charters we were considering started well above $12,000 so I didn't push it.
Maybe some day......
