Golden Emblem Review

[Jocave]

This is just our opinion of this boat, others may not agree but its just pro's and cons for any other people considering hiring it, from arriving at the boat it looked clean and tidy and relatively new considering its been around a few years now, stepping aboard it was straight into the rear double cabin, its a double bed but has a curved headboard and rounded off at the end too so not a true double, plenty of room though even if my feet hung off the end, huge amounts of storage though and nice led lighting, the rear shower is just that ,a shower and nothing else, plenty of headroom and space in general, nice pack of mini toiletries supplied , the rear toilet was separate to the shower and the rear bedroom, again a huge amount of space it must have been at least six foot long, into the second double and this is a bit tighter with a shower/toilet combo ,again plenty of storage and OK size for a couple of adults, into the saloon/galley a huge open plan area, decent size fridge ,four burner hob, separate oven/ grill that looked more than enough to cook a decent meal although we didn't use it, microwave and all the other mod cons that you would expect, even things like cloths and tea towels are provided, through the sliding door and up a couple of steps led to the sun deck and upper helm , only slight negative here was no seat cushions are provided so we borrowed the ones from the saloon, visability from up top was supurb and I spent all the time up here apart from the passage under ludham bridge which it passes with ease without having to fold anything down, pros for us at least was the immersion heater when plugged in, the great layout all one one level, the lovely seating area and upper helm ,spotless condition of everything and a newish modern feel to most things apart from........ The cons ,the manual pump toilets why oh why do they still fit these ,these were a major negative to me , also the noise in the saloon when under way could be pretty tiresome I could imagine ,even though I spent the entire time up top everytime I went downstairs it was pretty noisy and boomy and at certain revs everything rattled, would have preferred an engine out back on hydraulic drive , I would have put up with the negatives for the reduced noise , all in all a very nice boat and spotlessly clean on handover , would I hire it again? Yes its one of the nicest we have hired but the manual toilets need to go , Ferry marina have other boats with proper toilets so we will be hiring one of these next time, either Zircon or Whisper...

[SwanR]

Very interested to read your review. We hired Silver Emblem a few years ago which is very similar. If I was writing a review of that now then I think that the main points would be the same as you have written up for Golden Emblem.

I'm glad to hear that you will be going back to Ferry Marina as well. We'll be hiring with them for the third time later in the year.

I think their new boats look great and I will be very interested to read what you think of them if you end up taking one of them out another time. Passed Zircon Emblem down at Acle and that is one very smart looking boat.

[Jocave]

I think it will be perfect for us as it's the same size as golden but just a two berth so a larger bedroom a huge bathroom and plenty of space in the saloon, only had a quick look around before we left but it looks fantastic ,very modern and a proper shower and toilet..

[Broads01]

I'm with you on the manual toilets subject. My recent hire from Richardsons was on a budget boat and yet I was very pleased to see it had an electric toilet which had been fitted since I last hired it in 2014. Electric ones are a million miles better. 

[ranworthbreeze]

3 hours ago, Broads01 said:

I'm with you on the manual toilets subject. My recent hire from Richardsons was on a budget boat and yet I was very pleased to see it had an electric toilet which had been fitted since I last hired it in 2014. Electric ones are a million miles better. 

Hi Simon,

To be honest I prefer the manual type, we have been on a number of narrow boats with electric toilets, combination of single or dual flush, on one boat there were two different models of toilets, one used twice to amount of water than the other and we required a pump out after a few days because the tank was full.

On our last trip just over two weeks ago on an Elite craft there was three toilets and the design was not very good, the use of a green toilet fluid rather than blue loo did not help the situation because before the end of the week we were getting a smell on every flush.

Regards

Alan 

[Broads01]

I've never had any problem with electric Alan but it's interesting to read you've had different experiences. 

[LondonRascal]

Talking of toilets, I have no issue with the straight forward manual sort where you pump a handle - but I do hate the ones with the 'drop through' design. So many out there have a bad or missing seal for the bowel, this allows water to drain through even when the 'cup' which opens and closes is in place, which just so happens to allow the smells from the tank out. These need to go first.

As for the manual pump type - you can get electric replacements, same footprint, same connections all they need is 12v supply so one can only hope that in time this happens. But electric toilets are more prone to breakdown and blockage and not cheap to sort out.

[ranworthbreeze]

One of the issue with the electric toilets is if someone has put something down the toilet they shouldn't have done such as any wipes of any kind or the contraband toilet tissue other than the cheapest 2 ply then there can be a problem with the macerator  which may come to light one or two hires after the wipes have been put down the toilet. 

One the last boat we were on was an A4 sheet of all the things that should not be put down the toilet unless eaten, sadly I did not fancy bottle tops and razor blades

Regards

Alan

[Malanka]

Just as a quick aside Mal has two toilets and neither uses clean water to flush into the holding tank. Both use a river feed which saves our clean water for showers and drinking. Both are Jabsco manual pump ones both new and both work brilliantly. When we had moon discovery the leccy  toilets were fine but the water tank needed filling every day. On Mal we can go much longer than that even with two showers per day. 

 

M

Edited June 5, 2017 by Malanka
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