You need 5 things before you talk to a yacht charter broker: your dates or a date range, how many of you there are, a budget range, where you want to go or what kind of week you want, and the 1 or 2 things the week has to have.
Send those and the first shortlist usually comes back the same day.
Everything else can wait. The cabin plan, the menu, the toys and the passports come later, and we ask for them when they matter. The point of the first message is to let a broker search the whole market for you instead of guessing at it.
The most common thing missing from the inquiries we receive is not the budget. It is the dates.
1. Your dates, or how flexible they are
A yacht is sold by the week. In Croatia and much of Greece the week runs Saturday to Saturday; in the Caribbean you can usually start on any day outside the holiday weeks. Without a date range a broker cannot check a single calendar, so the shortlist you get back is a guess.
You do not need exact dates. “The second half of July, 7 nights, we can move by a few days” is enough to work with, and flexibility is worth money: a boat with a gap between 2 bookings will often take a shorter charter or a better price.
If your dates are fixed, say so, and say why. School holidays, a birthday, a wedding. That changes which boats we hold first.
Holiday weeks are their own market: Christmas and New Year carry minimums of at least 7 nights and fixed start days on almost every boat, and our own records put the typical festive booking about 5 months out.
2. Who is coming
The number, and the shape of the group. 8 guests as 4 couples needs 4 double cabins. 8 guests as 2 families with 4 children needs a boat with twin cabins or bunks.
8 friends who are not couples need 8 separate beds, which means a catamaran whose cabins convert to twins, and not every boat has them. The same headcount lands on 3 different shortlists.
Tell us the ages of any children, and tell us about anything that changes the boat: a guest with limited mobility, a non-swimmer, a pregnancy, a dog.
Those belong in the first message, not in the paperwork later, because they decide which yachts we shortlist at all. More than 12 guests is its own question, and we have a page on where it works.
Broker insight
To be honest, I never think the guest number is that relevant on its own. That is why I always ask how many cabins you want. Twelve guests can be six couples or three families with kids, and those are different boats. In the Bahamas especially, a yacht listed for twelve is often a five cabin boat with pullman berths. Tell me who is sharing with whom and I only send you boats where the layout works.
John Boullin
Charter Broker
3. A budget range, and what it should cover
Give a range for the whole trip rather than a single number, and say whether it should include everything. Yacht pricing comes in 2 shapes. All-inclusive, the norm on Caribbean catamarans: a single figure that covers the boat, crew, food, drinks and fuel for about 4 hours a day.
Plus expenses, the norm in the Mediterranean and on larger yachts: the charter fee, then an advance provisioning allowance of usually 25 to 30 percent for food, fuel and port fees, more on big motor yachts, then VAT in Europe.
So $60,000 all-inclusive in the BVI and 60,000 euros plus expenses in Greece are not the same trip. Tell us the total you are comfortable spending and we work back to the right boat. Our cost guide walks through both shapes, and the glossary explains the words.
Broker insight
A range is enough. I do not need an exact number, I need to know whether we are talking 40,000 or 140,000, because those are different fleets and I would rather not send you boats you will never book. Tell me whether the figure is for the yacht alone or for everything, running costs and tip included. Then I can tell you honestly what your range buys where you want to go, and where the same money buys more.
Daniel Asmus
Owner, Charter Broker, Active CYBA Member, IYBA, ECPY
4. Where, or what kind of week
A destination is enough. So is a feeling. “Beach bars and short hops” and “quiet bays and no other boats” are different weeks in the same islands, and either tells a broker more than a country name does.
If you are between the 2 big regions, the difference is that in the Caribbean you stay on the boat and in the Mediterranean you keep getting off it.
Season decides a lot of this for you. Summer is the Mediterranean, winter is the Caribbean, and the shoulder months either side are where the value sits.
5. The 1 or 2 things the week has to have
Not a wish list. The 1 or 2 things that would make you say no to a boat if it lacked them. A hot tub on deck. Scuba from the boat rather than a dive shop.
A chef who can cook for a coeliac. A cabin the grandparents can reach without stairs. A jet ski, which depends on the country as much as the boat.
2 of those and we can cut a market of hundreds of yachts down to a shortlist in an afternoon. 10 of them and nothing fits.
The rest of your list is not wasted: once 3 or 4 boats clear the must-haves, it is what we use to choose between them. If you have seen a specific yacht, name it. It tells us your taste even when that boat is booked.
What you do not need yet
Passport details, the preference sheet, the exact itinerary and a boat name. The preference sheet comes after the yacht is chosen, about 6 weeks before you board, and it is where the food, the drinks, the cabin allocation and the mood aboard get set.
The route is built with you and the captain once the boat is booked.
What happens after you send it
A single broker takes your inquiry and stays with it to the end. The shortlist comes from yachts our brokers have walked at the shows and on visits, which is why the must-haves are worth naming precisely.
When a boat feels right we place a hold on your dates, passport details go in for the contract, and you pay 50 percent on signing and the balance about 6 weeks out.
Then the preference sheet, then the crew read it before you arrive, then you board. Our BVI site walks through the whole sequence step by step, and our etiquette guide covers the week itself.
People also ask
How far ahead should I contact a yacht charter broker?
For Christmas, New Year and peak summer, 6 to 12 months ahead; our own records put the typical festive booking about 5 months out. A shoulder-month week can come together in a few weeks. Earlier means more boats to choose from.
What if I do not know my budget yet?
Give the range you would be comfortable with for the whole trip and where it could stretch. We come back with 2 or 3 price points and what each one buys, so the number becomes a choice rather than a guess.
Should I tell a broker my real budget?
Yes, as a range, and say what it should include. The number does not raise the price. It narrows the search to boats you would book.
Does it cost extra to use a yacht charter broker?
No. The commission is paid from the yacht’s side of the published rate, so you pay the same as booking direct and get the whole market searched for you.
Can I talk to more than 1 broker?
You can. In this market every broker searches the same central listings, so a second inquiry usually returns the same boats. What changes the result is how clear your 5 things are, and one broker who has them does the whole search.
