bearBOATING Ltd

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Paul Whibley

via Google

MollyMoo was advertised as a luxury boat. It may have been 10 years ago but the standard has not been maintained. The boat interior was dirty and had not been cleaned for quite some time. We paid for WiFi but after many calls to Andy we found there was no SIM card in the router. A sub-contractor was called out to the boat and eventually had to sign up to EE to purchase a SIM card which we paid for again. We found that the electrics tripped every morning and had to be reset by removing the steps in the galley to gain access (we were horrified by the dirt we found, along with a previous occupant’s false nail). Leaking roof vents leaving stains on the seating cushions, leaking radiators, door on freezer box broken, no pillows and most worryingly was the broken hinges on the bow’s external storage door - entry to the gas bottles and water hose. Definitely a health and safety concern where fingers and hands could be broken or crushed. We are experienced boaters having owned our own boat for 7 years and can offer only one suggestion. Avoid like the plague!!

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julia Walker

via Google

Booked with them in June 2025, as the months prior to this had been very dry we asked twice are we still able to go. We were told everything was fine and we could to. Bingley 5 locks would be closed from sunday to wednesday for repairs we would have to avoid them for the 3 days. The boat was lovely and clean and we received training that was really good. However there was not enough water in the canal the the boat constantly kept grounding. The door lock was faulty and we ended up being locked out for hours on the hottest day of the year. The toilet broke and we ended up walking at 6am to find a 24 hour macdonalds simply to use the toilet. The worst part was the constant grounding of the boat, we ended up staying in the same place for 3 nights as we were fed up of the grounding. We contacted the owner who blamed the canal trust for not dredging the canal. The boat owners who had to keep helping us when grounded told us we should not have been there as the water was so low. The day we left the canal was then closed the all boats. We left the holiday a day early and it was the most expensive worst holiday i have ever had. The owner of this company will put his profit before your safety. When we left the boat we met a couple on another boat belonging to the same company who, like us had had the same problems and the same response when they complained.

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Mark Wheeler

via Google

Hard work, not enjoyable and not loved ... This review is of both the boat and the canal as they are intrinsically linked. For context we have done 3 or 4 canal boat holidays in the past, last one was about 15 years ago, on narrow boats on canals in the midlands and south. The Canal: We hired the Little Duke for a week in June because we wanted to go up to Gargrave and perhaps a little beyond and then return. We got to the bottom of Bingley 5 rises and returned, which is 7 miles each way … so we only did about 2 miles a day! We would have gone further than Bingley but the 5 rises were closed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday due to water shortages. We got to the 5 rises on Sunday but realized if we went up them, then we’d have to get from the top of 5 rises down to Apperley Bridge in a day, just 7 miles so easy in a day, but not on the Leeds Liverpool Canal! The locks are very hard work, especially the ground paddles, so you really need a minimum of 3 people on the trip (i.e. 2 on the locks and 1 on the boat). However, worse than the locks were the regular and some extremely difficult swing bridges, which need 2 people to open them. The canal was very low on water so it was difficult to moor in many places and we went aground several times. The banks were often collapsed making mooring not possible. Boat steering: If you haven’t been on a wide beam boat with a steering wheel then be aware. It’s really really hard to steer. You have to be 100% focused on steering, constantly looking back at the rudder behind you and even then you’ll swerve off course all the time. A lock keeper said that he often saw Little Duke serving from side to side, which made me feel better knowing it wasn’t me. As steering is so difficult you can’t get up much speed otherwise, you’ll go off course, so even if the canal wasn’t poorly maintained and without difficult locks or heavy swing bridges (my wife had nightmares about 211B for days after our trip), then you can’t go very fast and you’ll be over taken by even the slowest of walking pedestrians. Boat issues: • If you charge 2 phones overnight then the battery would regularly trip, so I’d advise taking power packs with you. • The fridge would often turn off overnight even when reducing the temperature, so a lot of food we brought went off. • The gas needed replacing or fixing as it was very weak and it took 10 minutes to boil the kettle with only water for 1 cup (I timed it). • The water gauge on the boat is broken, because on the final day we ran out of water despite the gauge saying 40%. • The lounge inside is designed more to be a sleeping area than seating area, with it being difficult to sit there and get in and out. This kind of makes sense because I would not advise less than 3 people travelling on the boat due to the difficult locks and swing bridges. • The port hole windows at the side of the boat are either closed or removed. • A vacuum cleaner is stored in one of the 2 storage cupboards in the bedroom. Presumably to make the cleaners life easier during turn around but not nice for storing your clothes in. • There is no storage under the bed or sofas, so clothes and things are everywhere. On arriving on time to pick up the boat, we were told to unpack our things as quickly as possible, which meant unpacking our bags as there was no room to store the soft bags on the boat and putting the bags back in our car. Then at 13:00 we had a briefing on the boat and then, to our surprise, we were taken up the canal to show us how to handle the boat, locks and swing bridges. This is a good idea, but we weren’t told about this training, so it meant we didn’t have any lunch and when our guide eventually left us halfway up a set of locks at 4:30 we were knackered, hungry and stressed. Not how we wanted to start our supposedly relaxing canal boat holiday. When we returned the boat, we weren’t asked how our trip was or if there were any issues with the boat. The focus was on the turnaround for the next boaters and not on customer satisfaction.

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Steve Gaffney

via Google

Our main holiday of the year, 2 weeks of hiring the narrow boat Mollymoo from bearboating was in jeopardy through very low water levels due to a record 90 year dry spell on the leeds to Liverpool canal. Having contacted the owner for reassurance beforehand, due the Canal and river trust map showing massive unnavigable stretches of canal and closed locks and flights, no reassurance or advice was given, disappointing for such an expensive hire. We arrived to pick the boat up only to be told we had Skipton to Leeds as navigation available to us, well short of the 120 miles we expected. Wanting to make a bad situation better we disembarked only to find out that we were constantly getting grounded and Mollymoo being stuck on the canal bottom. Every confidence I had from many previous boating hire soon disappeared along with the enjoyment, it was a chore finding any moorings to keep her afloat. We woke the next day to find the 240v electrics had tripped leaving food in the fridge to warm up, this problem persisted everyday, every few hours with no attempt to be fixed by the owner or staff that were informed. Combining this problem with a malfunctioning toilet, back filling with waste constantly, a self filling shower tray and crockery falling out of cupboards, things weren't great. We endured 7 days of this before handing the poorly boat back to the owner, cutting the holiday short by a week to retire to the serenity of our caravan. The reason for this review is to highlight the issues of the boat and to be hopefully rectified before the next hire. After a few weeks and several emails the owner Andy thankfully agreed to a partial refund to compensate a half holiday.

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McAllister Guinness

via Google

Place closed when we went there, and there is a good snack shack there to allow you to sit and enjoy the canal.