Takaya Tours

While I was happy I got a great deal through Groupon, I was not happy with the customer service. We booked our kayak rental weeks in advance for a morning appt and the attendant showed up more than a half an hour late. We were quite unimpressed. Not very professional.

We bought a living social coupon and made a reservation less than a week in advance. We had some lovely, chatty bus drivers on the way there. We arrived eight minutes before our reservation. The staff (two employees) were busy setting up a large group about to go out. A couple minutes later, after they got the group in the water, we got to get set up.
Looks like if your forget your hat and sunscreen, they have some spares in the office they can lend you. I came prepared but as someone who can sunburn on a cloudy day I appreciate that I would have been covered either way. The office is a shack, small but functional and kind of adorable inside. The staff is friendly, easy going and quick to make jokes. They are kind enough to hold on to any bags or things you don’t want to go out to the water.
We got quick lessons on dry land then they helped us down to beach. We were in a tandem kayak. My husband is not a strong swimmer and has never kayaked before. I have only kayaked in small lakes and ponds before. But the location was perfect. The water is serene, and even the waves from the passing speed boats are tolerable. On the Monday we went, most of the traffic on the water was other kayaks and a few paddle boarders. The sights were amazing and both my husband and I agreed it was worth the two hour train and bus journey from Vancouver.

we bought a social shopper for the 2 hour double kayak tour. We made reservations for 11:00 am for a group of 4 (2 couples) but we had to reschedule a couple of times because of a family emergency and we finally went and did the kayaking last weekend and it was such a disaster.
First, when we got there we realized the business is actually a tiny shed — they don’t even hang up the life jackets they just throw them on the ground beside the bench outside. They seemed to be pretty busy and there were tons of random customers who didn’t make reservations that came to inquire about renting and they were so disorganized about what times certain kayaks were coming back and leaving. Some of their kayaks were up on the grassy hill by the shed and some were on the beach.
One of the employees was trying to leave for the day because he had a birthday party to go to — and another younger blonde employee asked him to take a paddleboard instead of a kayak because they didn’t have enough to rent out lol. If they have a book for reservations I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to plan out resources properly. So for some reason our reservation was written down as 11:30 but we still arrived at 10:45 am to sign the waiver and pay the taxes and I was told over the phone to arrive early for the «briefing» before we go out on the water.
We sat around and waited until 11:55 am before there were two double kayaks ready for our group. That already annoyed us.
Then there were a few extremely dirty PFDs (life jackets) left on the ground so I asked for a smaller size (I’m 107 lbs and 5’5″) and was told that they were all the same size and we should just tug on the straps to tighten. It was the same younger male employee that told me to tug on the straps. I pulled the life jacket up to see if it would go past my shoulders after I tightened and explained to him that if a life jacket goes up that high it wouldn’t save anyone’s life if they fell in the water. Mind you I can swim quite well and I’m not afraid of drowning but with all the recent drownings and boating accidents in the news this summer in BC I just wanted to be cautious. I made a joke to the kid about suing him if we drowned and he responded with «did you sign the waiver? ha if you did then you can’t do anything about it»
REALLY? that’s how you reassure your clients? TOP NOTCH service and attitude there. Honestly even if there was another groupon/​social shopper deal I still wouldn’t patronize this business they obviously offer no customer service training to their employees and place little value on the safety of their customers.