I wanted to reach out after our recent trip to Munising on 7/23/24 when we had a booked 3pm kayak tour of Pictured Rocks. I want to share first that I understand that the weather that day, specifically the wind, deemed the original trip unsafe. Both my friend and I understood the reasoning for the trip cancellation. I want to share this upfront since this is not the problem we had with Uncle Ducky's.
When we checked in, I was disappointed to learn that was when we found out the trip was canceled, but understood why. It would have been nice to have been called or emailed ahead of time to know this so we could have thought about our options. This again is not why I am writing. We were given the three options to cancel, voucher for 2 years, or do the trip around the west side of the island. The person who checked us in, Connor, said it was his favorite places to go on his day off, so we said yes. This seemed like a solid endorsement. We did ask if we could go the next morning when we would still be in the area, but the weather forecast for wind was worse. So, we decided to do the island trip. This was our choice of course. This is also not my complaint. We were the only two people to go on the trip who had scheduled. Everyone else canceled. A trip with just us sounded like it would have its perks.
Here are the multiple things we truly had problems with from your kayak group. When we arrived at the beach, we were sent out with two guides who lived locally, one of which who had worked for Uncle Ducky's for two years, and NEITHER had never gone on the west side of the island tour. The kayak skirts we were given had ripped waterproof lining that meant water from the nonstop rain gushed in during the trip. The kayak we were first put in had broken foot rests. One of the guides said we could try another boat, but "Uncle Ducky's doesn't really take care of the equipment." This was evident when the only other boat that we were given out of a row of kayaks to use had a broken seat back, but had foot rests that could be adjusted. They gave us the "safety talk," but only remembered 3 points. One was to stay 6 boat lengths apart, no farther. We launched and waited for them. The 1st year guide was telling the o2nd year guide he was not going to paddle since he was "called in to work, but he shouldn't be there." As a result, we spent a lot of time just waiting for their boat. We were two 40 year old women. Two 20 year old guides should not have had a problem staying with us. They gave no directional guide to where we were headed, what we could look at, any information on the island we were paddling towards, and would often just hang back far behind. There was no indication of where we were headed. They didn't tell talk to us about the trip at all. Our tour guides told us they "had no idea where we were headed on the tour since they had never been on the tour." Never been on the tour. We agreed to go on a tour that ended up being led by guides who had no idea where we were going. They guessed back and forth where we would stop for lunch, which was only solved when they saw an earlier kayak tour returning and radioed to ask where the beach was.
For hours, we stopped repeatedly trying to find out where the guides went when there were no other boats besides ours to lead. And for hours, we tried to engage them in conversation. The 2nd year guide was friendly and at least tried some conversation. We tried asking them questions about the lake and island and were told "We don't have any stories, but we would if we were on the good tour." or "We've never done been, so we don't know. We could tell you if we were on the good tour." Eventually, we ask them to tell us stories from the original tour, to which we were told "Oh, I don't remember." At one point, the 1st year guide said "We have nothing to talk about."
By the time we reached the halfway point and stopped on the beach, we were cold, felt like we were put on a tour just to bring in money to Uncle Ducky's, and a complete inconvenience to the 1st year guide who wanted to be off. We were customers who were worth little effort who were paying to go on a kayak trip where we were placed in kayaks with skirts that were all broken. This later issue of the equipment being broken was exacerbated on the way back when the waves and wind picked up and the rudder was not engaged on the kayak. We spent the trip alone with the guides far away paddling only on the right hand side since we would spin otherwise. This added on to the 1st year's comment on the beach that Uncle Ducky's "doesn't take care of their boats." Eventually, they paddled close enough to us to ask them which beach we were aiming for. At this point, they paddled ahead to shore. Again, much farther than 6 boat lengths away. They got to shore and the 2nd year guide stayed, but the other one left us behind at the beach. read more