So I saw there was a houseboat thread on here from 2005 but figured I'd just start a new one. A few of my friends and I are turning 30 this year and we're thinking about renting a houseboat for 4 days or so in the summer to have a big celebration. I have done a houseboat trip before but this would have been about 12 years ago right after high school and I think there were only about 8 of us or so. I'm thinking this one would see a minimum of 10-15 people and probably more.
I guess my main question is mostly in regards to sleeping arrangements. I've noticed the boats will advertise as sleeping x number of people but that's usually on the assumption that people will be doubling up. I'm certain a few of the dudes going on this trip will bring their significant others, so they'd obviously be fine in that situation but I don't know how many of the single ones are going to be wanting to share small double-beds with each other, and quite a few of them are just too large to make that work anyways. Has anyone else done a large group trip like this and how did you manage with sleeping arrangements? Something I thought could work would be to get people to bring tents, sleeping bags, etc., and set up on the beach at night but I'm not sure if that ends up making things too crowded baggage-wise.
So I saw there was a houseboat thread on here from 2005 but figured I'd just start a new one. A few of my friends and I are turning 30 this year and we're thinking about renting a houseboat for 4 days or so in the summer to have a big celebration. I have done a houseboat trip before but this would have been about 12 years ago right after high school and I think there were only about 8 of us or so. I'm thinking this one would see a minimum of 10-15 people and probably more.
I guess my main question is mostly in regards to sleeping arrangements. I've noticed the boats will advertise as sleeping x number of people but that's usually on the assumption that people will be doubling up. I'm certain a few of the dudes going on this trip will bring their significant others, so they'd obviously be fine in that situation but I don't know how many of the single ones are going to be wanting to share small double-beds with each other, and quite a few of them are just too large to make that work anyways. Has anyone else done a large group trip like this and how did you manage with sleeping arrangements? Something I thought could work would be to get people to bring tents, sleeping bags, etc., and set up on the beach at night but I'm not sure if that ends up making things too crowded baggage-wise.
AFAIK you can't have more people than "sleeping places" but yes, they assume doubles will be shared, and includes all the folding tables and couches etc..
Bring a couple air mattresses and you should be fine. Tents are not a bad idea if people want to shack up on the beach. And book ASAP. You're kind of to the wire here.
EDIT: And get money upfront. Or at least a deposit. Even the best of friends can leave you hanging.
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Last edited by Coach; 04-19-2016 at 04:30 PM.
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I've gone houseboating a few times and generally love it. If it says it sleeps 16, it probably only comfortably holds ten people and so on and so on from there. We had a one of the bigger boats last time and we had the exact amount of people it said it slept, and honestly it was so crowded it wasn't very enjoyable. It was my wife's first house boating and she vowed never to do it again because of the cramped quarters.
I've always said if I do it again, I'd get a boat that slept double the amount of people that were coming.
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IIRC we usually book a 20 person boat for like 14 or 15 people. That way if there are some late additions there is room but also you only feel a little cramped as opposed to totally cramped.
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So I saw there was a houseboat thread on here from 2005 but figured I'd just start a new one. A few of my friends and I are turning 30 this year and we're thinking about renting a houseboat for 4 days or so in the summer to have a big celebration. I have done a houseboat trip before but this would have been about 12 years ago right after high school and I think there were only about 8 of us or so. I'm thinking this one would see a minimum of 10-15 people and probably more.
I guess my main question is mostly in regards to sleeping arrangements. I've noticed the boats will advertise as sleeping x number of people but that's usually on the assumption that people will be doubling up. I'm certain a few of the dudes going on this trip will bring their significant others, so they'd obviously be fine in that situation but I don't know how many of the single ones are going to be wanting to share small double-beds with each other, and quite a few of them are just too large to make that work anyways. Has anyone else done a large group trip like this and how did you manage with sleeping arrangements? Something I thought could work would be to get people to bring tents, sleeping bags, etc., and set up on the beach at night but I'm not sure if that ends up making things too crowded baggage-wise.
My friends and I have gone the last two summers, both times with around 10 people I believe. You should be able to get an 18-20 person houseboat where there should be plenty of beds. The thing with the houseboats I've been on is that once you have the beds folded out there's almost no room for anything else so you'll be hard pressed to find places to blow up mattresses or anything like that. Only place I can think of on the boats we had would be in the one hallway but then everyone would have to try and walk around the person sleeping, or outside.
If sharing beds is an issue I'd definitely make sure you get one of the bigger boats.
I really doubt you're going to be able to book anything this late. I'm going for a bachelor party this summer and the boat was booked last year.
Never had a problem with sleeping arrangements though. people just kinda pass out wherever and if you bring a could air mattresses as mentioned, that's even better.
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If you get 2 boats be sure to get a recording of the bugle reveille. We did this back in the 90's and planted a ghetto blaster (volume cranked way up!) in the other boat at 4 in the morning. We put it on a casette tape with a long period of no sound to give us a chance to get back to our boat. The cursing and swearing was hilarious as they stumbled around in the dark trying to find the source of the sound
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Last edited by Dion; 04-20-2016 at 12:27 AM.
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I really doubt you're going to be able to book anything this late. I'm going for a bachelor party this summer and the boat was booked last year.
Never had a problem with sleeping arrangements though. people just kinda pass out wherever and if you bring a could air mattresses as mentioned, that's even better.
By the looks of things, we might not be going until later in the summer when the crowds are smaller. Looked at a couple of websites and there seems to be some availability for the weekends we want. Also have a couple of backup plans if things fall through.
Not really, If you have 7 couples and a stray you might want two boats but 15 "whatevers" can be very comfortable on a 22 man boat.
One piece of advice I always have gave is if your boat is mostly male and looking for great party's and chicks avoid long weekends, it's a complete sausage fest for both the Shuswap and Okanagan on long weekends.
If you have 2 boats, and one of those boats happens to break down, and you need to tow the other boat, and you end up on the front boat while everyone else is partying on the back boat, and you want to get to the back boat, so you hop on the inner tube to transfer from the front boat to the back boat while they are in motion, and you accidentally lose your grip on the tow rope, make sure you tell someone your cunning plan before you do it...it gets lonely out there.
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We always went with whoever pays first gets first choice on bed. I also agree, if the boat sleeps 16 you want 10 max. I did a 12 guy sardine on one of those small boats, and while it was hilarious it really sucked to be climbing all over each other.
Last trip I did was one of the bigger boats with a double decker and big waterslide. We half filled it and everyone was really comfortable. It was worth the extra cost.
If you get a boat with a slide, bring a few bottles of hawaiian tropic to lube it up. Super fun.
If you're worried about booking then try Koocanusa. That's where we went both times and I'm pretty sure we booked rather late.
The only thing with Koocanusa is it's far less busy than Shushwap apparently. We saw a few other boats when we went (once on a random weekend in June and once for September long) but there was no cross-boat partying or anything like that. We preferred that since we go a little crazy sometimes and prefer to not have to worry about being judged by randoms but it also did feel like we were missing out on some of those legendary stories you hear about.
We also never saw cops in Koocanusa either, just don't stray too close to the border.
Heading house boating for a bachelor party and looking for some ideas for some fun to have while we are out there? I have house boated before and so have others but just looking for some ideas that I may not have thought of.
Heading house boating for a bachelor party and looking for some ideas for some fun to have while we are out there? I have house boated before and so have others but just looking for some ideas that I may not have thought of.
Well you're on a house boat on the Shuswap in the Summer. Fun will not be hard to find.
Party beach gets crazy if you decide to anchor there. You may not want to depending on the age and marital status of your party as there will be a lot of sex, thievery, and drugs.
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Houseboat advice?
