Amalfi Coast Self-Drive Boat Rental

Go elsewhere

Booked a 6 Hour self drive. boat. At hour three, we were cruising along deep water, heading towards Positano when the engine revved very high and then made a noise. My husband who is an experienced skipper (we own a deck boat) immediately put the boat in neutral. When he tried to accelerate the boat the engine would make a high-pitched noise. He jumped in the water with goggles and looked at the propeller. Everything underneath was fine. There must be a problem inside that he can’t fix he thought . I called and texted and sent video to the contact person and other person as well. They did not respond but I could see through WhatsApp that received the messages. When I told them it would take us hours to get back at idle speed. they said “no problem take your time”. I said yes, that is a problem, please send us help! We were excited to see a boat arrive with two guys to help us. One man jumped off, and the perfectly good boat drove away. We were left on the boat to idly painfully back to Amalfi in a broken boat. He then drove the boat directly into a wave which caused a tidal wave of water onto the boat, soaking us, our clothes our food, our bags everything on board. I never said a word, just hung my head. My husband, who knows how to skipper has never done that in his life! The Italian driver proceeds to tell us that we have hit the bottom of the sea. No. We probably sucked in trash into the engine. No! Later another boat arrives and I get excited because the driver says that he’s the boss, he owns the boat. I’m thinking great! He will accommodate us. He immediately starts insulting us that we have broken his boat. It’s our fault. Funny thing is, this man had no idea that I speak Italian. I stayed silent. He pulls up to the boat, never offers us a hand- only insults. My husband is left on the broken boat, where they immediately idle over to the gas station to fill up the gas that we have used for the day. When me and my children arrive at the port with the boss, I look at him and say in Italian, “so are you gonna give us a discount?” He’s shocked at first then he is in full on defensive mode- “no way you’re gonna pay for my motor!” And I say oh no, I am not! We argued back-and-forth and I said oh yes, I forgot in Italy the customer is always wrong. That is the very short and sweet version of a really bad argument. Viator has no idea who they are using. We had emails from a company called exclusive cruises, but yet the boat said Amalfi tours. Second party, third-party, fourth party… In the end, he threw his hands up and cussed me out. And drove away. Hopefully we will not get charged on our credit card for his crappy motor. Good luck everybody enjoy Positano for us. Oh, and if the rebuttal below is, “we are so sorry but you signed the contract.” Yes, we signed a contract true but it was not operator error. It was the engine error. And if you would like me to show you the video and all of the screenshots of my communication. I will gladly post those as well. I immediately knew once there was a problem to document everything with video and in writing. I lived in this country for six years,I know how they think.

via Viator

Wonderful experience

Excellent experience. First time driving a boat and it was easy. Instructions were provided by the skipper and they were available by WhatsApp as I had questions. Internet/Data was available (Orange eSIM) throughout the coast and that was a surprise.

via Viator

Highly recommend!!

Flora was very helpful leading up to the excursion . Antonio met us at our pick up location and talked us through how to pilot the boat. The views were great and the excursion was good value for money, fuel was cheap to! Highly recommend!!

Response from the operator: Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm so happy to hear that everything went smoothly with your excursion and that you had such a great time on the water, it’s truly a special experience! I'm also glad to hear you found the excursion to be good value for money. Warm Regards, Flora

via Tripadvisor

Buyer beware

We made our reservations months in advance & planned to take our boat from Positano to Capri island and were looking forward to it. We told this company of our plans and they gave us practically no information about our boat size, didnt ask what we planned to do or how far we were going. They made us come farther away to them in Amalfi instead of bringing the boat to us in Positano. The day we arrived they told us it wasn’t possible to go to Capri with the size boat we rented, that also we hadn’t made a reservation far enough in advance with Capri to dock there that day. They should have told us more of this and let us pick the size boat we want. They only ask how many are in your party when booking and there’s never an option to see the actual boat you’re getting. It was an ugly orange very small dingy boat. Needless to say we were highly disappointed.

Response from the operator: I am sorry that you were disappointed with your self drive rental. A self drive is different than booking an excursion because you are renting the vessel, not the excursion. I currently only offer rentals from the dock in Amalfi, I do not have self drive options available from Positano. In fact Positano is not listed as an option to book from. So when you book a self drive boat, I do not know where you are coming from or where you plan to go, the boat pickup location is from Amalfi. There is no boat size to choose from, they are all 21 ft as listed on the booking page, as Italian Law will not allow you to drive larger if you do not have an Italian boat license. Regarding Capri, it is over an hour away from Amalfi. Capri is in the Bay of Naples and Amalfi is in the Gulf of Salerno. If there is wind out in the Bay of Naples by Capri, which tends to happen, that could be why it was suggested not to go out that far. Being that you are driving the boat without a skipper, it is really really really important that you understand the area, sea conditions and distance. I am so sorry you were disappointed, but whoever is reading this message-if you are planning on renting a small boat to drive on your own, please look at a map first and understand the geography of the area you are traveling in- distance, etc.

via Viator

Best experience ever

Absolutely the best part of our trip to Italy! The staff was easy to communicate with and everything went seamlessly. We had an amazing time!!! Truly would do a 1000 times over

via Viator