The list · 5 minute read
Leave behind heels, open flames of any kind including cake candles, confetti and glitter, anything thrown overboard, and unlicensed alcohol. Heels damage teak and are unsafe; the rest are either a fire risk, a marine-pollution offence, or a legal problem. Everything else — food, cake, decoration, speakers — is fine and encouraged.
Published
None of these are arbitrary house rules. Each one is either a safety issue, a legal one, or a repair bill somebody has to pay.
Marine littering is an offence in UAE waters and the enforcement is real. That includes confetti, flower petals, paper lanterns and anything else that feels harmless because it is small or biodegradable.
For a wedding or a proposal this catches people out, because petals over the water is a shot people have in mind. It cannot happen. Petals on the deck are fine, and the crew will sweep them up afterwards.
Every item above is a conversation. The licensed guest number is not. It counts everybody physically aboard — children, infants, a photographer, a DJ, catering staff — and a captain who exceeds it is operating outside the vessel's licence and insurance.
A crew turning somebody away on the pontoon is the worst five minutes of anybody's day and it is entirely avoidable by giving the real number when you book. If your group is close to a limit, say so and get moved up a size.
Sunscreen, a hat that stays on in wind, sunglasses you do not mind losing, and a layer if the charter runs past sunset between November and March. Your own food and soft drinks, which are free on every boat and every charter.
Send a cake and decoration ahead the day before if you can. Carrying a boxed cake down a pontoon in a crosswind is a bad way to start.
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.