Lake Roosevelt Vacations, Inc.

This houseboat company put our lives in danger and created a nightmare of an experience for us. They are negligent, careless about the safety of their passengers, have ineffective and inefficient emergency procedures, and unprofessional workers. We rented two houseboats, and both did not work when we showed up. We had to wait at the dock for 4 hours past our original leave time for them to “fix” the boats. When we were finally given the go-ahead to leave, the boat stopped working 20 minutes into our trip, while we were driving. It took another 3 hours of calling to get someone to come out and help us. They were unable to, but luckily we had an electrician on our boat who was able to find the problem for them. While we were on the boat the next day, it was leaking black fluid into the water. Then we tried to start our boat and it would not start- again. We called for help for over 2 hours. They said they could not find us in the cove. However, we were the only boat in the cove and we were in the first cove from their harbor (5-10 min away). They told us to stand on the top of the boat, then wave and yell for help. You would think that there would be a better emergency system than that. After hours of the company “searching” for us, the three employees on a dingy boat found us, and decided the boat wasn’t fixable. For the next 5 HOURS they proceeded to pull our houseboat back and forth behind the little dingy boat to the harbor, because it was the only boat the company had working. These workers asked for beer breaks, complained about how they were supposed to be off earlier in the day but had to stay for us, and had no idea what they were doing. While we were about to be pulled into the harbor, another worker(manager) came out on a houseboat and yelled/belittled his workers in front of us, and untied us from their boat. Instead, he tied us to the side of his houseboat. The houseboats scraped against each other, creating damage to the sides of the boats, while we tried to fit through the two metal buoys. It was obvious we wouldn’t make it through but the manager insisted he could and continued anyways. He hit the side of our boat on the buoy and damaged the side. There was a dock close to us, so we asked if we could please just get off the boat there many, many times but the manager refused and said we couldn’t park there. He reversed our boats that were tied together side-by-side, hit the dock we were asking to get off on, breaking it off. We hit rock banks, ran over more metal buoys, and the toilets started to overflow into the boat. The ground was soaked, and to make us feel even LESS safe, the smell of propane was extremely strong. We called the company base, who was watching this entire event unfold, and asked them to get us off the boat immediately. They told us to tell the manager to beach it in the rocks and let us off. Instead of beaching it and letting us off, per instructions of his superiors, he threw his phone against the wall, and yelled at us that he wouldn’t do that and insisted he could get us in. The smell of propane was getting worse, and the floors were completely soaked by the still-overflowing toilets. After hours of attempts and damages, we finally were allowed off the boat. But as we were getting off as quickly as possible, the back of the boat started to crack and break off. After our experience we asked for a refund, which we weren’t given and instead the owner told us to go ahead and “write bad reviews”. This has probably happened before because many one star reviews are followed by 5 star reviews. I could go on about the rest of our experience, and the unprofessional conversations with employees, but hopefully my point has been made clear already. And I hope changes are being made! Please DO NOT use this company, save your time, money, and most importantly- yourself.

This was the worst “adventure” experience I have ever encountered. From unprofessionalism, to operational failures, to mechanical failures. Lake Roosevelt Vacations didn’t fail in just one aspect, they failed in every category. We rented one of the houseboats for the weekend (6/22/18). We arrived at 12pm and were supposed to be on the lake by 1pm. However the boat that we originally rented was not working. They were nice enough to upgrade us to the houseboat with a hot tub on top, for free. That is where the niceties end. The “upgraded” boat was not ready either, the boat wouldn’t start, the hot tub was broken, by the time they “fixed” it, it was 2:30. They sent us out on the lake and within 45 mins, it died again. It took over 2 hours for them to get someone to us (we were literally less than a mile away from them) and they didn’t correctly connect the battery they had scrambled to put in. We weren’t officially on the way until 6pm that night. We spent the night at the beach, woke up and spent the next day at a cove. All was fine until the morning we had to leave. Again, our boat didn’t start, the starter was completely shot. We had to be towed in, but their barge was also dead (on going trend). So they sent us 3 employees, two of which seemed to have zero training at all and more interested in drinking beer then getting us to the docks so we could leave. It took them 6 HOURS to tow us 2 miles. Along the way, they crashed into a dock, ran over bouys, the toilets broke and septic fluid split all over the floors, the broke the outboard engine deck in half. We seriously thought we were not going to make it in. I can go on and on about lack of communication from the office, lack of professionalism from the employees, lack of anything that resembles a well operating company but if this review doesn’t already change your mind about booking with this company then there is no reason to go on. Please choose another company to go to. Do not waste your time or money.

Dont rent from this company find someone else. Broken boats, no working hot tub, and the toilets smell like death when you flush, no music as CD and radio dont work... save your money do something else...

Had such an amazing experience here and it was good prices

Our group of 12 just got back from a 4-day vacation in Kettle Falls and stayed on a 62-foot houseboat from Lake Roosevelt Vacations. To say the houseboat rental was a disappointment is an understatement. Our first boat blew a head gasket on the second day. The company dispatched someone to check on us -- which took three hours. The kid had no training, no tools, and no ability to help us. The steering wheel on the upper deck was leaking hydraulic fluid onto the ground. One of the bathroom toilets actually came loose from the floor and was leaking septic fluid onto the floor. Then they sent a mechanic out and it took another four hours to "fix" the boat. He repaired the head gasket and the toilet, but not the hydraulic fluid leak. Once we were back on the water and moving, we were determined to have a good time and not worry about the time we'd lost waiting for repairs. The next morning, the head gasket blew again. (Yes, really.) The company took all day to send us another houseboat -- we called them at 10 am and got a new boat at 3:00 pm. By that night, the generator on the new boat started sputtering and eventually stopped working. Oh -- and one of the bedrooms filled up with a gas smell that was so bad, my husband, daughter and I ended up with headaches and felt sick. We had to sleep on the living room floor. When we got back to the marina the following day...the end of our vacation...the staff, which was very friendly when we arrived, was unfriendly and some of them wouldn't even talk to us. We couldn't get out of there soon enough. The company "kindly" refunded us less than half of our trip costs -- read the fine print on the contract...if your boat breaks down, it's not their problem. Avoid this company and rent from somewhere else!