Bayside Marina

We had a wonderful experience with bayside, Marla and Jeffery. They were attentive, called back, gave us suggestions and thorough water instructions. The 24 foot pontoon ran beautifully, the interior had some tears and was definitely not new, but comfortable with a Bimini top. We were given a full tank of gas and a container of oil, which we refilled on our return. I did take pictures inside and out, just a good business practice. The location of bayside is perfect. When we returned Ryan checked the boat over and advised our deposit would be dropped in seven days.

Beware! This business is a totally scam operation. First off, my husband had a hard time even making a reservation. The owners son answered and said his mom has to take the reservations. She was supposed to call but did not. The marina we wanted to book through was closed due to covid so he called again. This time he spoke to the owner. My husband inquired about a particular boat that was listed online and the owner, without missing a beat, says oh that sank. My husband was a bit taken back by the nonchalant reply “it sank” so he asked, “did I hear you correctly?” The owner then went on to explain that they have had a bad season and they have list about 10 boats due to renters “running them into the rocks”. When he told me this I felt the conversation was very strange. My husband booked anyway based on location. I wish he had read reviews first because every site I have been to tells me everything we needed to know. Run the other way! The boat was very dirty. Blood stains on the back of the seat (hopefully fish blood and not human). Either way, gross. Rust stains behind the bench seat. The cuddy was disgusting. We stayed out of there after seeing how gross it was. We had no relief from the sun and even after applying sunscreen several times we all got burnt without any shade. There was no Bimini and we avoided the filthy pit below. Before even leaving with the boat we thoroughly cleaned all the areas we were going to be in. Even if the boat was spotless we would have done that anyway due to the virus. The seats were torn and had floatation cushions placed over them. There was only one bench seat and 2 lawn chairs in the back. I don’t know what genius came up with that idea but it was frightening sitting on a lawn chair on the back of a moving boat. I thought for sure we were going to flip off the back or lose a finger or toe as the chairs slid into each other. I debated leaving from the start but the kids were looking forward to the day. I decided to make the best out of an awful situation and despite the filth and safety issues with seating, we had a nice time. When we arrived back at the dock the owners son met us to check over the boat. He immediately went to the back of the boat and in a poorly orchestrated act “noticed new damage”. “What happened here”. We stood in confusion wondering what he could possibly be talking about. Then he says that the lower end of the outdrive was cracked. Then he says, “did we take a picture of that? I don’t think we did”. Of course he didn’t. My husband then tells him it’s impossible that we did that. First of all we would have had to have hit something which we did not and if we had the prop would have had damage as well which it did not. Then he tried to say we must have broken it when we used the ladder. Impossible and outrageous. He was determined to pin this damage on us. My husband points out how that is impossible. Mind you, my husband has over 20 years boating experience and we both come from boating families. The only reason we rented was because we couldn’t tow our own boat because we were towing our camper. The son then says he needs to have his father come take a look at the boat. Surely the father would have some sense. Well, as soon as I saw who his father was I had a feeling that wasn’t ending well. While we were waiting for the boat (which we got about 45 minutes late) the father was fighting with a woman who appeared to be another business owner. At the time I didn’t realize who he was but thought it was an awful way to act in front of customers. Neither of these men were wearing masks. The town of Clayton recently had a covid outbreak! Businesses are suffering because of this virus and these two clearly aren’t taking this serious. They kept getting entirely too close to my children both of whom are high risk. When I commented about them getting too close without masks the son snapped back, “we are outside. We don’t have to wear masks” and this is exactly why this pandemic is out of control. Anti mask wearers. I informed them that I am a critical care nurse and disagree. Bottom line, I was not comfortable and they were not being respectful of our boundaries. Between them being confrontational, dishonest and having no respect for our health, I decided to leave and call the police out. How sad that it got to that. We had the officer escort us back out the boat to get photos of the alleged damage. We were supposed to get a call the next day but no one called. My husband talked to the wife who said her husband hadn’t updated her. She said she would call back and never did. In the meantime they are still holding $1,000 of my husbands money for damage we did not cause. My children had to see this. We were stuck on a dock for over 20 minutes listening to these lies then we had to wait for the police to come out, who were quite helpful. Meanwhile my youngest who is a type 1 diabetic was dropping low so I stayed in the car to manage his hypoglycemia while my husband spoke with the police officer. How ridiculous that we had to go through this ordeal in the first place. We are both front line workers trying to enjoy some relaxing family time before we return to our high stress jobs. Meanwhile our vacation was ruined by these awful people. I had hoped they would just do the right thing and return the money. We had no problem paying a deposit. If we caused damage we would absolutely take responsibility and pay up but to totally take advantage and pin old damage on innocent people is disgusting. Then to avoid returing our calls while keeping money they aren’t entitled to is about as low as a person can stoop. Don’t make the mistake we made. There are plenty of other marinas around here. Read the reviews! They are very telling.