I received an e-mail yesterday from a travel agent in Ontario, Canada. She apparently found CharterWave on the Internet and mistook me for a charter broker. Here is what her e-mail said:

“Dear Kim, I have a client who is interested in hiring a catamaran during Christmas in Belize. They would like to hire it for a period of only three or four days. Do you have a minimum rental for this period? They require four cabins and a full crew. If you could provide me with options I would appreciate it, and also if this booking would be commissionable to us?”

I share this with you here because I think it’s a classic example of why anyone booking a private yacht charter vacation should work directly with a reputable charter broker instead of with a travel agent.

This particular travel agent is quite clear about showing she knows absolutely nothing about charter yacht vacations, yet wants to keep the client away from a reputable charter broker who does, simply to keep her commission intact.

It’s an all too familiar tale, one that I hear all the time in the charter industry. Scenarios like this almost always end up frustrating the broker as well as the client, as the travel agent refuses to step aside even though she has no idea what she’s talking about when it comes to chartering yachts.

Even if your travel agent has been great in the past, the odds are that when you ask her for a private yacht charter, she’s sending out random e-mails like this one to people she doesn’t even know, trying to figure out how the charter industry works. Is that really the way you want your vacation to be organized? I seriously doubt it.

Go to the charter broker directly to get the best service, not to mention some basic assurances that you’re working with and actual broker in the first place.

I just received a press release with this headline: “Cruise on Your Own Affordable Private Yacht by Picasso Tours & Cruises.”

This press release caught my attention for two reasons. First, I’ve never heard of Picasso Tours & Cruises in the yacht charter industry. Second, very few proper private yachts use the word “affordable” in their press releases, even if it’s the truth.

So I did a little digging. It turns out that Picasso is a California-based tourism company, not a yacht charter agency at all. And the private yachts it’s promoting–at the bargain-basement rate of $275 per person for a week–are Turkish gulets, or motorsailers. These particular gulets (pronounced goo-LAYs) are no bigger than 80 feet long and carry as many as 24 passengers at a time.

Let’s break that information down. I have no problem with gulets, per se. There are several beautiful ones cruising in Turkey, including one that I’m hoping to get onboard later this summer for a feature on CharterWave.

But the rate for these particular gulets seems way off to me. At $275 for a week, you’re paying $39 a day. You can’t even eat in nice restaurants for $39 a day, let alone get onboard a nicely maintained, proper charter yacht with a professional crew and chef. By comparison, bareboats that you drive yourself cost more than that, closer to $600 or $700 a week per person, at least.

Red flag number two is the number of passengers these gulets carry. International regulations say that proper charter yachts can carry no more than 12 guests at a time. That’s what makes them yachts, as opposed to mini-cruise ships. That this press release promotes boats carrying 24 guests should make bells go off in your mind. Proper 80-foot charter yachts usually carry six guests, eight at the most.

I know that these kinds of press releases can be enticing. Editors who just don’t know any better sometimes turn this kind of information into promotional newspaper and magazine articles.

To protect yourself, try to read between the lines. Yes, you may want to visit Turkey by charter yacht, but you definitely don’t want to be onboard a turkey of a charter yacht.

Stick with reputable charter brokers instead of tourism companies offering discount packages. You’ll have a far better vacation experience.

I just had a chat with a girlfriend who is planning a large family reunion onboard a cruise ship. Her travel agent told her that she doesn’t need to take anything into account except the size of the ship, because the bigger the ship, the more there is for everyone to do and the less chance she has of getting seasick.

What a load of bull! Forgive my bluntness, but this is the kind of nonsense that makes me loathe the entire travel agent-cruise ship web of marketing lies.

First of all, a lot of things can contribute to seasickness. It’s not the size of the ship that matters, but how it’s built (a boat can be small but heavy, or small with top-notch stabilizers). And it’s not just how the ship is built, but also where it cruises (along a coastline is calmer than crisscrossing the Caribbean Sea, for instance). Then there’s the matter of whether your cabin offers access to fresh air, a view of the horizon… lots and lots of things.

Second, that comment about bigger ships offering more to do just makes my blood boil. Bigger ships do offer more places to go while onboard the boat–where the cruise ship holds you and your money hostage–but bigger ships actually reduce the options you have in ports of call because there are such huge crowds jamming into so few available excursions. Plus, the biggest ships need more time for all the passengers to disembark and then get back onboard, so the actual time in each port is often cut shorter. Talk about less to do!

Third, the fact that this travel agent wants my friend to believe that she needs to consider nothing more than the ship’s size is the biggest load of you-know-what in the world. How about the differences among various cruise lines’ service records? Safety records? Typical passenger demographics? Itineraries and extra fees? Meal plans and services for large parties like hers?

I’ll tell you, these travel agents sure do have a good scam going. They make it all sound so simple for people like my friend who have never before cruised, doing nothing more than handing them a glossy cruise-ship brochure and telling them not to think about any important questions that will affect the success of their hard-earned vacation.

I’ve set my friend straight, and she’s going to press her agent to actually give her the detailed information she needs. If the agent can’t, then my friend will take her business elsewhere, as she well should.

And maybe, just maybe, if enough travel agents let her down in similar fashion, my friend will turn the corner and consider private yacht charter instead. I have a whole year to try to convince her to do just that, and the lousy service offered by many travel agents who pawn off junky cruise-ship trips just might be the best sales tool I have.