The Shapiro family aboard their yacht in the British Virgin Islands.

We’ve done the 7-day private yacht charters twice before to Greece, August of 2016, and Croatia, May of 2018, but for various reasons (i.e. boat was tired and was not remotely close to what the pictures on-line presented; Captain and/or crew was lazy; food and beverages were mediocre; I used a typical travel agent, not a yacht broker, for one trip; I organized the other yacht trip myself on-line; etc.) these experiences fell far short of my expectations.

Approximately five years ago we started using Wendy Perrin’s WOW List experts to plan various trips such as India, Sicily, Amalfi Coast, Thailand, et al and were extremely pleased with all of these travel adventures. Although we were certainly disappointed with our past private yacht trips, my family and I loved various aspects about the private yacht experience (i.e. the solitude of the water without hundreds or thousands of other passengers; having a boat to yourself and making plans with the Captain where you want to go; total flexibility; being barefoot from start to finish; comfy clothes and/or bathing suits everyday; incredible views from everywhere; spectacular sunsets and moon rises; being in awe of the sky-filled stars at night; finding private coves or islands to explore, have fun and/or spend the night; being as active or as inactive as anyone wants anytime; the air and sea are very soothing and relaxing; experiencing the yachting world for a week; etc.) and after a long break I especially wanted to give it another try. We decided our next and possibly final private yacht attempt would be to the British Virgin Islands over New Year’s. We heard the BVI is a beautiful and very popular destination for the private yachts, the weather should be nice and our kids, 24 and 27, were available to join us.

Total transparency, our daughter and son, and even my wife, were resistant to the private yacht charter given our past history combined with the fact that trips with our entire family because of our kids’ ages, their jobs, etc. were getting much more difficult to organize. They were lobbying for a new Four Seasons in Mexico but with some convincing and definitely reluctantly, were prepared to give the private yacht one more try. I really wanted to do everything I could to get it right this time.

I reviewed WP’s WOW List and saw there was a “Yacht Charters” section but there were no specific WOW List expert(s) highlighted, only to “ASK WENDY” if interested. I emailed WP and conveyed what we were thinking. The response was “We do not yet have a Yacht WOW Expert BUT are currently working with someone who handles different parts of the world for private yacht charters including the Caribbean/BVI who we have high hopes for. With that caveat we will gladly put you in contact with her if you’d like. Her name is Mandy.” Why not?

Sidebar — I have since learned that there is a rigorous, extensive and extended vetting process for any travel expert who makes the WOW List. Moreover, the WOW List is constantly being evaluated, which is why reviews and honest feedback is so important. I’ve also learned and seen that making the WOW List does not guarantee one will stay on the WOW List. The WOW experts earn (or can lose) their place on the list with every trip. I love this!

I started communicating with Mandy via phone, email and text. I liked her and was impressed immediately. Mandy’s intelligent questions, professionalism, enthusiasm, very apparent expertise and experience with private yacht charters, detailed and prompt (very important to me) follow up, really trying to thoroughly understand what we liked and didn’t like from our past yacht experiences, and perhaps most important, what we wanted in our BVI yacht adventure, was all giving me a confidence and comfort level.

This BVI yacht charter was just going to be for our family of four. Based upon our past experiences we only needed three cabins and a boat ranging in size from 55’ to 80’ would work well. We also felt a total crew of two (Captain and Chef who also acted in the crew capacity) would be perfectly fine for our family of four if that option was available, which it was. I wanted a beautiful, upscale, elegant, very comfortable, good size cabins each with a shower and toilet, ideally with good Wi-Fi, well maintained, luxurious boat. I wanted lots of toys — water skiing, 2 person Kayak, 2 paddle boards, snorkeling gear, etc. I wanted an experienced, safety minded Captain who on our 7 days’ charter would give us a BVI greatest hits with the islands we visit. Equally important, I wanted an awesome Chef!

Mandy took note of all of these criteria and started emailing me various boats and crew to review and discuss. Though some were interesting and may have been a possibility, it wasn’t until Mandy excitedly called me and said “I have your boat and crew! It’s perfect! You’re going to love it!” It was because of Mandy’s private yachting expertise and experience that she knew of an amazing boat and crew that was doing charters in the Bahamas and became aware that they were switching to the BVI for the upcoming season and called me immediately. I loved what I saw and we locked it up immediately and this was 14 months prior to our trip. TIP — I’ve learned finding the right boat and crew and using an excellent yacht broker like Mandy is critical to having a great experience, so give yourself plenty of time to do your research and then lock it up, especially if you are planning your trip during the busy season, which New Year’s and Christmas are the two busiest weeks for the BVI yacht charters!

Long story short…my family and I were blown away by this boat and crew! Everything about it was amazing and met or exceeded my criteria! The food and beverages throughout (i.e. breakfast, lunch and dinner) everyday were extraordinary, including a nine-course seafood tasting menu on New Year’s! The meals we had on this trip were some of the best food we’ve had anywhere in the world! This entire 7-day yacht experience from start to finish FAR exceeded all of our expectations! It was absolutely perfect! We all LOVED it! Everyone in my family not only declared this easily our best yacht experience but our best fun-and-sun trip and our best New Year’s! We will always be grateful to WP and Mandy for making this BVI private yacht trip one of our most memorable family experiences! I’m also very pleased to say that the Shapiro family private yachting adventures will continue…

We traveled to the BVIs the last week of March 2023, and Mandy Walker coordinated our visit aboard Emysa, a catamaran. Mandy was terrific. She handled all of our transfers (and there were quite a few). She counseled us in choosing a boat and our ultimate destinations. She also pivoted quickly when our teenage daughter was delayed 24 hours and missed her flight to St Thomas, and arranged for my husband and daughter to meet up with us 24 hours later while we were already under charter. The boat and crew were amazing. It was a very special vacation. We would gladly go back tomorrow and do it all again.

Our family loves traveling with our best friends, and for this trip, we decided to take all 10 of us (4 adults and 6 kids, ranging in age from 10-14) to the British Virgin Islands. We made a last-minute decision in December to travel over Spring Break (in late March/early April) and weren’t sure we could plan something that fast. But our trip planner Mandy Walker made it happen!

We chartered a full-crew catamaran for this adventure, as we had heard this was the best way to see the BVI — and we were so glad we did! Mandy has intimate knowledge of the boats and crew available in the BVI, so she was very quickly able to recommend several that would work for us. The best decision we made was choosing one that had a dive master on board, as this meant we could scuba dive whenever and wherever we wanted. Our 3 youngest were just finishing their scuba certifications, and our crew made it possible for them to finish their required open-water dives in the BVI (so memorable!).

On Mandy’s recommendation, we took a private water taxi from St. Thomas to our boat, and this proved to be a very smart call. Immigration in the BVI is very difficult — the rules are unclear and change all of the time. For example, on their website, they say passports just need to be valid for the time in country, and our private water taxi company confirmed this before we left (we had two kids whose passports had less than 6 months left). We were told to bring our kids’ original birth certificates and then all would be well. It WASN’T! Our water taxi captain took all our passports inside the immigration office and emerged an hour later to tell us there was a problem. We got pulled into the head immigration officer’s room and were scolded for being so assumptive and trying to enter the country without filling out a form no one had told us about. We texted Mandy and she was immediately on it, and fortunately, our water taxi driver went to school with one of the immigration officers, so we were able to work it out. But had we been on a group taxi, we might have been sent back to St. Thomas. So if given the choice, I highly recommend private!

Our favorite spots were definitely Jost Van Dyke (the Soggy Dollar Bar and Foxy’s are both so fun — our captain took the tender to take us to both), and then Anegada (this is a 2-hour sail at the top of the BVI, but the sunsets up there are amazing — we saw a green flash for the first time in our lives). By being there on a Sunday, we got to see a regatta with over a hundred sailboats, and the fireworks that end the regatta, so that was spectacular.

Mandy was very helpful connecting us with each member of the crew ahead of time so we could plan our route, our meals, our special requests, our bed set-up — everything! Having a full crew made it possible for us adults to relax and for the kids to have someone always ready to take them tubing or wakeboarding — and make them endless strawberry daquiris.

The weather was beautiful, the water was warm, the boat was impeccable — we loved every minute of this trip, and would highly recommend to others.