A good charter broker who can help you book the right vacation for your needs is a far cry from a travel agent who simply passes along cruise ship brochures that international corporations send her.

On the contrary, a good charter broker is a person who tours hundreds of yachts each year to learn what makes them different in terms of cabin space and other features. A good charter broker has to keep track of which captains and crew were working aboard which yachts--and how their personalities are likely to interact with different types of vacationers, like you. A good charter broker has to know about destinations, too, especially as more and more yachts are beginning to cruise to new and different places that cruise ships would never even consider going--places that all have different rules, taxes, and regulations concerning private yachts.

A good charter broker even has to know such minute details as which 60-foot motoryachts have shaded top decks as opposed to open sunshine, for clients who prefer to cruise without getting sunburns. A good charter broker has to know which boats are built with safety features that families with small children will need during their charters, as opposed to which boats have the biggest, fanciest bars onboard for couples looking to party their vacations away.

Such is the job of a charter broker, a complex mix of knowledgeable boater, world traveler, crew and client psychologist, yacht design expert, and highly organized planner.

Working with a broker may be optional when booking bareboat or instructional charters, but that’s not the case with crewed yachts. If you plan to book a partially or fully crewed yacht for your private charter vacation--be it your first or your 50th--then you should do so through a reputable charter broker. Period.

The reason is simple: There are too many variables and legalities involved in crewed yacht charter. You will be dealing with an individual’s personal yacht instead of with a company’s fleet of boats. You will have as many as a dozen different crew members onboard whose experience you will want to verify and whose personalities will affect your vacation. You will be talking about spending bigger money than you would on a bareboat--and in some cases, bigger money than some people spend on even the finest suites aboard cruise ships. You may be dealing with escrow accounts and wire transfers instead of credit card charges. You may have to work through overseas management companies and with occasionally complex travel details, such as chartered helicopters and transfer boats. 

It’s just too much insider information for even an experienced charter client to process without the help of a full-time industry expert. Your regular travel agent simply will not do.

And since the yacht’s owner--not you--pays the charter broker’s fee, there really is no reason not to make use of the broker’s expertise.

Reputable charter brokers make your life easier in terms of charter planning--a fact worth seriously considering when booking a new type of cruise vacation. Good brokers can tell you in a single phone call which airport you need to fly into, where exactly in the airport the yacht’s crew will meet you, how long it will take to get from the airport to the yacht, how long it will take to cruise from island to island, what you can expect to find on each island, what the weather is typically like during your travel dates--in other words, pretty much all the general information you could ever need or want to know.

A good broker also can act as a buffer, or middleman, between you and the yacht should problems arise. And all of that is in addition to the assistance good brokers provide with charter contracts, insurance policies, international legal considerations, boat choices, crew interviews, chef provisioning, meal planning, and the many other things that no charter guest should ever want or need to sort through on her own.

Considering that all of this expertise and assistance comes free of charge to you, the charter guest, your question should not be whether to work with a broker, but how to find a good one. You can start by looking in the Why You Need a Broker section of CharterWave (yes, it’s free content). The brokers listed there have NOT paid an advertising fee. They’re simply reputable industry folks who have been around charter yachts for years and deserve your business.

Which one of these reputable brokers is the best for you and the kind of charter you hope to book? There are definitely questions you will need to ask, and you can learn about them by reading Dream Cruises: The Insider's Guide to Private Yacht Charter Vacations, from which this information is adapted.