Are you happy with your Freedom Boat Club membership?

Yes and no. At the end of the day it is not the same as owning a boat. The Club I am a member of is the Lake Lanier Club and this is my 3rd season with them. Things have progressively gotten worse since I have joined. Year 1 all reservations were done with emails and phone calls. Year 1 I was never ever turned down You reserved a boat one day at a time and it was fantastic. Year 2, they changed to an online reservation process which made it too easy for people to reserve their boats, the reservations went from a full day, to 2 x 1/2 day reservations. So you either get a 9-2pm or a 3pm - 8pm reservation. The times are not always convenient. The result of the change year 2 meant that getting a boat was much more difficult. Also a few boats broke down and they waited till the season was over to repair them.

The biggest issue as I see it is that people are reserving their boat, yet many times dont show up. The club needs to make new rules that say specifically.

1 reservation are held for 1 hour, if no show your boat is given away. If your late, call and they will hold it.

2. all reservations that are made and not used with no calls or anything should incur a $50 penalty.

This way we would reduce the amount of bogus reservations. Every time I am there the boats are assigned and every time I pay attention, I can see boats not being used. This is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Year 3 they changed the reservations again.

Now we went from 4 1/2 day reservations to 2 1/2 day reservations. So now, its even more difficult to get a boat. 3 years ago, I could get pretty much any boat I wanted at any time, year 2, I was able to get a boat almost all the time except that I was never getting the boat I wanted.

Now year 3, they screwed up my reservation for an out of town club. Boats are completely booked up for 3-4 weekends in advance. Weekdays are clear but hey I do have a JOB.

So the short answer is this. My experience shows that the club is getting less and less attractive. Is it worth the initiation fee and the monthly fee. I would say that if you use your boat 6 times a year then yes. anything less then that, then it probably makes more sense to just rent the boat when you want it rather then joining the club. The problem is I am not sure even if I am aggressively trying to rent a boat that I will be able to actually get one 6 times this year.

The employees at the dock are fine, Some speak more English then others but the are all helpful. The help that take your calls and facilitate your reservation are just not the brightest people and seems to screw up more often then not. They also really dont care much about screw ups, they dont apologize for their mistake its almost as if we should be thankful that we are members and not that they should be thankful we are paying their salaries. I guess once they have you, they can change their tune.....

Good luck.

So would I do it again? Probably not. since I am already a ember will I stay on, Yes. I have too much to loose at this point but the satisfaction level has gone from extremely satisfied, to not very satisfied at all.