Boat Charter Guidelines

Recently the city of Chicago imposed new COVID guidelines for all boaters in the city of Chicago effective May 1, 2021. After speaking with both the city and Chicago Harbors, we were advised that these restrictions would be temporary and further guidance would be issued shortly after the initial announcement. Further guidance was issued this past week. The mayor of Chicago stated that all COVID-related guidelines and restrictions should be lifted by July 4, 2021. Please note, however, that this is not a guaranteed or confirmed date. 

While we do expect these restrictions to lift entirely by early July, the Chicago Harbors is lacking a lot of direction from the city and that the Chicago Harbors [and ourselves] are all doing our best to navigate and perceive these new rules. You can view Chicago Harbors' announcement here.

With this information, we wanted to update all of our clients regarding our plan of action and response to these updates. Please see below for these plans:

Boat Charter Mask Policy

Charter clients and their guests must all wear masks while on harbor grounds, including when outdoors walking around the harbor, onto their dock, to the dock restrooms, and after returning to the harbor at the completion of their outing. Guests may remove their masks once their charter has left the harbor, but must put their masks back on once the boat has returned and docked back at harbor grounds. We will have extra masks on board in case yours gets misplaced during your outing. We are here to help and want you to remember that this mandate is temporary.

Sanitation Procedures

Sanitizer stations have been installed at the harbor offices and at every dock gate. Harbor staff will also be regularly cleaning high-touch point surfaces at the harbors.

Increased Inquiries for our Larger Boat Charters

With this recent news, we are expecting almost all pontoon rental, deck boats, and smaller riverboat companies to be deeply affected by this change, reducing their capacities to as low as 5 guests before a captain. As the 12 to 5 guests reduction is quite sizable and considering the large market share these smaller vessels hold in the Chicago boat rental space, we are expecting to see a surge in inquiries as the supply of vessels that can accommodate up to 12 guests before a captain/crew has now dropped drastically in the city. With this information, we recommend guests book their dates out in advance as we are quickly booking up for the summer.

We appreciate your understanding of these new guidelines and look forward to hosting you this summer in Chicago!