Sailing Sicily Palermo

The most disappointing charter possible. We recently endured a disastrous 21 day charter with Sailsicily out of Portorosa to the beautiful Aeolian Islands but nearly a week ruined by this opportunistic company - very disappointing to say the least. They don't maintain the boats properly and only react once the boat breaks. Which it did... 10 times! They wasted 4 days of our holiday time reacting to multiple breakages with over 10 separate items failing! including a snapped transom spectra line, a shower that wouldn't drain, 2 of 3 loos that wouldn't flush, a completely jammed toilet drain valve and a battery system that required the engine being run for 6 hours a day to keep the batteries charged. A constant smell in one of the heads was traced to a pile of poo inside the basin cupboard from a previous charter. They offered to compensate us with wine and a €300 voucher towards a future charter with them - How ridiculous, as if anyone experiencing this would use them a 2nd time. The base staff try their best but the ly are inhibited by stingy ness from their head office whose staff are pathetically evasive, but they don't care as they almost certainly would not have returnimg customers. Avoid these shonks.

Vacanze indimenticabili! Staff gentilissimo e barca in ottimo stato! Torneremo sicuramente!!!

Barca in pessime condizioni e personale arrogante e incompetente.La nostra barca aveva elica di prua rotta, ancora rotta (è caduta tutta in mare appena abbiamo sganciato la sicura), bagni che non scaricano/ rotti, poppa ribaltabile elettricamente rotta, rolla randa difettoso e così via.. abbiamo chiesto un rimborso e abbiamo ricevuto solo insulti (ma state tranquilli che ci vediamo in tribunale)

The holiday was great but the treatment by the company was terrible.I will pass you all the exchange of email to secure our deposit which initially was refundable and then was not any longer, due to Corona virus, which should have been the opposite. Well I can almost understand that...Then we cracked a port - hole, logically we have to pay for that! However they come up with the figure of 1000€!!! When we tell them we will want an invoice for it the price comes down to 250€. Unbelievable!!!On top of that the owner of the company calls my husband to tell him that he is doing him a big favor because this is how he usually makes his money. Are we serious here???? We will not ever take one of their charters. The family next to us at the Port had an hour argument with them too about the extra money they wanted to charge them on check out. To be avoided big time!!!

Una delle migliori società in Italia! Siamo stati seguiti dall'inizio alla fine!Panorami pazzeschi e barche incredibili!

Ottima barca e ottimo capobase

Beware!!Arrival. We were advised to go to Sail Sicily office in Villa Igeia marina, Palermo and spent 30 minutes looking for it, only to discover they don’t have an office! They operate off the pontoon behind a security gate. No one to greet you or tell you what to do. We had to phone them several times to understand where to go.Handover, all they cared about was getting their money and signing the forms. Apparently the water maker had packed up on the last trip? One of the reasons for going for Memi was that the water maker would mean we didn’t have to go into marinas to fill up (at €160_170 a night). We stated we could pop back in when the new part arrives but they were not interested with trying to fix it and was told the part wouldn’t be here in the 2 weeks we were on charter. In its stead we were offered 2 paddle boards we didn’t want but no cash rebate. They did provide an additional 100l water tank at our request but left it to us to secure and fill. We were not advised that we could run the air-conditioning off the generator (or that this was sole purpose of said generator). When we did run the generator fumes came into the cabin. One of the knobs on the gas hob was so stiff it was unusable - the manager was able to do it with the full strength of his forearm. So that was alright…!Departure. We left port in the evening but within 5 minutes of leaving were getting error messages due to contaminated fuel first on the port and then starboard engine and had to return. Sail Sicily were unapologetic but, to be fair, did spend their Saturday evening replacing the fuel filters, whilst we ate our supper to the smell of diesel. They could have offered to send us to the local restaurant while they fixed this issue. How or why the fuel was contaminated is unclear. The engines were fine thereafter.Port aft toilet. This stank from the moment we left. It became apparent that the manual pump was defective and allowed the waste to siphon back into the bowl and clearly had been doing so for some time, judging by the discolouration. They did offer to get it sorted in Lipari after we reported it, but as we had already been there we were reluctant to lose a day kicking our heels. They declined to come to where we were. The shower head was broken and the plug to the sink missing in this bathroom. (The others were ok).Outboard to the dinghy . Again we had water contamination of the fuel which meant that it stopped mid way back to the boat and because the thread on the pins retaining the oars had stripped, getting back to the boat was difficult and could potentially have been very serious. Only because one of the party had had considerable experience, he was able to drain the engine and blow out the jets etc. Not having the dinghy would have been very problematic.Kitchen equipment. Was pretty random. Only 3 wine glasses initially which they did augment. 2 large frying pans but only 1 tiny saucepan. They didn’t appear to have done a proper inventory. No drying up towels.Sails, etc. Mainsheet and jibsheet both stiff and in need of servicing. Smallish jib - difficult to get a decent shape at bottom and top of sail at the same time. Anchor windlass didn’t run easily and in need of servicing.There were in addition 16 other minor items which we detailed to Sail Sicily, who, rather than finding it helpful, seemed to deem it an insult!They said no one else had complained - as if that was an appropriate response.Their attitude gave us little reason to believe that some, let alone all, the defects noted would be addressed before the next charter.We have charted yachts around the world with many different companies and we have yet to come across a company so rude and unprofessional as Sailing Sicily, they were not sympathetic nor cared for the situation.We hope this helps if you are thinking of going sailing with this company.

Grande competenza e professionalità.

Il team di Portorosa è molto preparato e disponibile, esperienza super! Grazie mille ragazzi! Alla prossima ;)