I met with the sales rep yesterday....below is some info I found out. She said they could get me signed up and started with training within the next week. I have thought about it, and I think in order for me to seriously consider joining, they would have to come down to $5,000 for the initiation fee. Otherwise, there is no reason why I should join now vs. waiting until April 2019. Assuming I joined now, I would be out $300/month without any boat usage (due to off season) from Nov 2018 through Mar 2019. $300/month * 5 months = $1,500. Am I thinking about this correctly? I don't really know what the "going rate" for boat club initiation fees are so it is possible that the $6,500 initiation fee is inflated to begin with and that $5k wouldn't really be that good of a deal anyway
--->Initiation fee was quoted at $6,500 initially, and she came down to $6k. Then, I pushed back a little since it is late in the season, and she came down another $500 to $5,500.
--->She is "new" and was not sure if you can sell the membership to someone else down the road, or if you can get any of your initiation fee back. This is something I would want confirmation on.
--->You can only add your significant other to your membership if they are your SPOUSE. This is a negative for me. I am going to ask them if my SO can be trained to drive the boat but not actually be on the membership. It would be nice to share driving responsibility so we could enjoy drinks on the boat
--->Monthly dues are $300 for unlimited boating April - October in Chicago, and you can use reciprocal locations across the country (there are a ton).
--->You can suspend/pause your membership BUT it has to be for a full year (12 months). You are required to pay $39.99 per month under this scenario.
--->You get two rolling black out dates that you can book out as far in advance as you'd like for the season. Aside from your two black out dates, you can make unlimited reservations but only ~1 day in advance. She showed me a live calendar on their computer and there were a fair amount of open reservations, though weekends were generally more booked up.
--->She said they have about 160 members and their boat to member ratio is about 1 boat per 8 members.