Report Review
I am four months aboard as a full-time cruiser, and I'm beginning to gather an impression of Safe Harbor marinas as a whole: on average they have pretty good services and pretty nice facilities. Safe Harbor South Harbor Village is no exception.
The staff were quick off the mark to offer to help me and responded quickly to any questions I had. The facilities are spotless and recently renovated.
Diesel fuel was priced competitively but not particularly cheaply. No discounts applied except Safe Harbor membership. The depth of "local knowledge" regarding channel depth and routing varied wildly by staff member.
One place where I take issue with Safe Harbor is the standard $10 pump outs and pay laundromats. Yeah, I know: they got to pay the rent. But Safe Harbor is NOT an "economy marina" and I feel like I'm being nickle-and-dimed with those petty charges.
While there is enough water in the approach for a boat with an 8' draft, that channel is NARROW, with a pucker factor of 7/10. Stray out of the channel and you can find shallow water VERY quickly.
We were there in early September, and there was a LOT of small craft traffic in and out, which did not help the above pucker-factor.
While there are two good restaurants on site, there is little else within walking distance, and my provisioning expedition cost me about $50 in Uber drivers. There is no courtesy car, but sometimes, if the staff is not busy, they may offer to run you to the store if it is expected to be a quick trip. At least that's what my pretty wife says. Me? There was no such offer.
We will stop here again on our way back down.