Marina Etiquette Tips

Pumped gas at a marina in Urbanna, VA in the early 80s on weekends as a teen for $2.50/hour. I don't recall ever getting a tip.

As a boat owner I have no memory of ever being helped at the gas dock or offering to pump out the boat on the Potomac, Rappahannock or James Rivers in Virginia.
 
sbw1 said:
Sounds like you may be using the big marina near the Grand Haven pier point or the one in Spring Lake. Both have poor service for fuel. The SL marina has poorly trained staff. The other one has good help but they are not near the gas dock and you need to hunt them down. I find this odd as the techs who work on boats are top drawer.
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I feel like it's been going downhill for a couple years now. I don't think it's just Grand Haven either. The last couple times I did tip (well) I was quite a bit north. Ludington, Frankfort and Leland all had amazing crews. Once you get to our part of the lake it seems to fall off...
 
In high school I had two paper bike routes, a morning one and an afternoon one. I worked my butt off, and greatly appreciated the Christmas tips but didn't assume I would get them.

In college I worked as a waiter. I worked my ass off as well to give good service, and appreciated a good tip. I didn't assume I would get a good tip though. And there are always customers who just didn't tip well, and trust me, they got average service when we recognize them from their last visit. And the ones that tipped well always got better service the next time we saw them.

And then there were the customers that tipped well regardless of the service. Sometimes I got very busy and couldn't give great service to every table yet they would leave me a great tip. I think some people just like to tip well.

In my opinion, I worked for my tips and never assumed I was going to get one, or get a good one. I worked in an industry though that you depended on tips.

The forklift kids at my last Marina were great. They' were very careful putting the boat in the water, they tied it up nicely, they were there when I showed up, they were there when I returned, they let me stay in the water longer than they were supposed to on my returns, so I took care of them.
 
mrsrobinson said:
Pumped gas at a marina in Urbanna, VA in the early 80s on weekends as a teen for $2.50/hour. I don't recall ever getting a tip.

As a boat owner I have no memory of ever being helped at the gas dock or offering to pump out the boat on the Potomac, Rappahannock or James Rivers in Virginia.
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I wonder in our sue-you society the dock kids are told do not touch the customer boat. I know on Middle River they ‘may’ hand you a line sometimes but that’s the extent of any service.
 
Stee6043 said:
I feel like it's been going downhill for a couple years now. I don't think it's just Grand Haven either. The last couple times I did tip (well) I was quite a bit north. Ludington, Frankfort and Leland all had amazing crews. Once you get to our part of the lake it seems to fall off...
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I agree. The service up north is great. The Grand Haven city marina has not had comparable service ever and my experience which goes back to 1977. The city does not train any of the workers who spend most of their time in the office on their phones. Aside from fuel dock service, we are fortunate to have two major marinas that can fix or build anything on or related to boats. I've even used their vendors to have dock work done at my home.
 
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Jus Cruisin said:
I get excellent service at the gas docks around the Anchor Bay area of Lake St Clair. Most are college students busting their butts being helpful, courteous and a pleasure to be around. I always give them cash. I never add it to the credit card bill.
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I agree, I like to head over to Roy's on the Clinton River. Their crew is very helpful every time we go and tip them with cash.
 
mrsrobinson said:
Pumped gas at a marina in Urbanna, VA in the early 80s on weekends as a teen for $2.50/hour. I don't recall ever getting a tip.

As a boat owner I have no memory of ever being helped at the gas dock or offering to pump out the boat on the Potomac, Rappahannock or James Rivers in Virginia.
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Greg, in all of the marinas on the Occoquan where I get gas - Belmont Bay, Captain John S. Beach, and Occoquan Harbor; they all help tie up and usually ask if you want a pump out. At Belmont Bay, it's girls in bikinis during the summer. I'm sure their tips are better than at the other two, lol.
 
Mikemapva said:
Greg, in all of the marinas on the Occoquan where I get gas - Belmont Bay, Captain John S. Beach, and Occoquan Harbor; they all help tie up and usually ask if you want a pump out. At Belmont Bay, it's girls in bikinis during the summer. I'm sure their tips are better than at the other two, lol.
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Ok, now I HAVE to keep the next boat at Belmont Bay! :)
 
Your gas dock worker…
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Middle River gas dock worker…
E379AEAD-E235-4E80-8D47-A4B1E0B9856D.jpeg

Pity me.
 
Grand Isle’s gas dock girls have always done a decent job. The newer girls tend to fumble around a bit but they figure it out. I always encourage them and I tip them well. It’s kind of a thankless job. Not sure I would want self service fuel at the dock. Best to keep them there
 
Our fuel dock they help tie up and they pump the fuel. We usually tip 20.00 to 40.00 depending if it is just the big boat or if we have the jet boat, waverunner and fuel cans. Our average fill up is around $1,200.00

We clean the refrigerator out and give them what we have as we always fuel up at the end of each trip. They like that the best as the closest grocery store is a 2.5 hour drive for all the workers at Bullfrog.

At the end of season before all the summer workers go home we cook steaks and king crab for all of them at our slip. Last year we served about 45 workers.
Well worth to me to do this as most of these workers come back in the spring and this goes a long way at our lake on when you need stuff done.
 
So there's nothing better then a knuckle head who always comes in hot in his 20' boat into his slip and right before he hits the front of the dock he slams it in reverse to stop and then the boat stumbles and across the marina he hears me laughing at him because it knocks his drunk buddy to the floor and his boat ends up half way up on the dock.
 
It is a shame to see so many people not tip the two folks that work our gas dock at our boat club. I guess folks figure that because they are on staff. We also sell gas to the general public and we let them use our restrooms and pump out. I see folks use all of the above and not tip our staff one dime. People are just slugs these days.
 
I start every season with a $100 to each of the dockhands in our marina. Last season they told another boat to stay out of the marina (transient who was actually ahead of me) until they got me safely to the dock. I hadn't even called in, but they saw me coming. Transient came by later jokingly asking who I was. I told him I tip well.
 
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