How to · 6 minute read
To quote a corporate charter in Dubai accurately, an operator needs seven things: the date, the window, the headcount, the purpose, the catering position, whether you are filming, and the invoicing entity. Sending all seven in the first message usually turns a three-day email thread into one reply.
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Every one of these changes either the boat, the price or whether the charter is possible at all. Missing any of them means an operator quotes a range, and a range is not something you can take to finance.
The number on a vessel licence is a legal limit, and it counts everybody physically aboard — your guests, the caterer's two staff, the photographer, the DJ. A team of twenty with a photographer and two catering staff is twenty-three, and that is a different boat from the one that carries twenty-two.
Adding a person on the day is not a favour a captain can do. They will be turned away at the pontoon, which is a poor thing to happen to a client.
Photography and video for your own channels are straightforward and permitted with notice. Drone work is not straightforward: it needs a permit, and the realistic lead time is a week rather than a day. Say at the enquiry stage if a drone is in the plan, not when the operator arrives.
For a launch or a brand shoot, send the shot list too. It changes the route, the time of day and sometimes the boat — a shot of the Burj Al Arab behind a product needs the boat in a specific place at a specific hour.
Send the registered entity name, the address and the TRN with the booking rather than after the event. A tax invoice reissued in a different name after the charter is an accounting problem for both sides, and some finance teams will not accept it at all.
If your company holds a UAE trade licence, ask about payment terms at the same time. Terms are commonly available to companies and never to individuals, and it is easier to set up at booking than to renegotiate once a deposit has been taken.
Everything above fits in six lines. Something in this shape gets a boat, a price and an availability answer in one reply:
"Thursday 12 March, 16:00 to 20:00, four hours. Twenty-two guests including a photographer and two catering staff. Client hosting, so quiet enough to talk. Canapés and soft drinks through you. Stills for our own channels, no drone. Invoice to [entity], TRN [number], thirty-day terms if possible."
FAQ
Check a date
Leave the date and roughly how many of you there are and we will come back with the boats that are free and what each costs. No deposit at this stage.