What to Know Before Renting a Houseboat

Renting a houseboat on Lake Powell is one of the few holidays where the accommodation is also the vehicle, the campsite, and your responsibility. That is what makes it worth doing. It is also why more first-timers get caught out here than on any other kind of trip in the Southwest.

None of what follows is meant to put you off. It is the set of things people say afterwards they wish someone had told them before they paid the deposit.

You are the captain

There is no crew and no skipper. You collect the boat, sit through an orientation at the dock, and then you are the person maneuvering a fifty- to seventy-foot vessel in an afternoon wind. In most cases no boating license is required, which surprises people, and should probably worry them slightly more than it does.

Take the orientation seriously. Ask for the beaching demonstration twice if you need it. Nobody at the marina minds; they would much rather explain it again than recover your boat.

It is much slower than you think

A houseboat cruises at somewhere around the speed of a determined cyclist. Rainbow Bridge is roughly fifty miles by water from the Wahweap end of the lake. Do that arithmetic before you plan it as a "day trip," because it is not one.

This is why most experienced parties bring or rent a second, faster boat. The houseboat becomes the camp; the powerboat or personal watercraft becomes the transport that gets you into side canyons, up to Rainbow Bridge, and back to a marina for fuel or ice. If you decide against a second boat — a legitimate choice, and a cheaper one — then plan a trip that stays within a short radius of where you launch and enjoy it properly, rather than spending the week transiting.

What the headline price does not include

Compare quotes on the total, not the nightly rate. The things that get added:

• Fuel. Houseboat tanks are large and the boats are not efficient. For many parties this is the single biggest surprise on the final bill, and it can be a meaningful fraction of the rental itself.
• The second boat, if you take one, plus its own fuel.
• A security deposit or damage waiver, which is usually substantial and held against the boat.
• Bedding, towels and kitchen basics in some packages but not others. Ask explicitly what is on board.
• Food, drink and a lot of ice. There is no shop where you are going.
• Park entrance and vessel fees, which are set by the Park Service and are separate from anything the rental company charges.

Ask for a written all-in estimate for your party size and trip length before you commit.

Book far earlier than feels reasonable

Peak-summer weeks are commonly reserved something like a year ahead. Cancellation terms are strict, and weather, wind, or lake conditions generally do not entitle you to a refund. Read those terms before you send money.

There is one question worth asking in writing: what happens if the marina you have booked cannot launch your boat, or the boat has to operate from a different location. Water levels and ramp availability change, and you want to know now whether that scenario is a rebooking, a credit, or your problem.

Shoulder-season dates are dramatically easier to get and materially cheaper. If your dates are flexible at all, read when to visit Lake Powell before you settle on a week — the difference between mid-July and mid-September is not marginal.

"Sleeps twelve" is not the same as "comfortable for twelve"

Sleeping capacity counts convertible dinettes, bunks and sometimes deck space. The real constraints on a week aboard are the number of bathrooms, the size of the fresh water tank, the capacity of the holding tank, and how much time the generator has to run to keep everyone charged and cool.

The advertised number counts every berth, convertible ones included, so it is closer to a maximum than a comfortable figure. What actually determines whether a week goes well is the number of bathrooms, and how much storage and living space each person gets once the beds are made up — not the headline capacity. Think in terms of how many people will really be aboard, living in that space, for a week, rather than the number on the listing.

The systems you now own

You are running a small building. Before you leave the dock, make sure you can find and operate:

• The fresh water tank and its gauge, and know how fast your party goes through it.
• The holding tank for waste, and where and how you can pump out.
• The generator — its fuel source, its permitted running hours, and how to start it.
• The difference between house battery power and generator power, and what runs on which.
• Propane for the stove and grill.
• The bilge pump and where the fire extinguishers are.

Beaching is the actual skill

You will not tie up at a dock at night. You will nose the boat onto a sand beach in a side canyon and live there. Done properly it is the best part of the trip. Done badly it is how boats end up adrift.

The essentials: approach slowly, bow first, into the wind where you can. Set multiple sand anchors well up the beach, spread at wide angles rather than straight out behind the boat, and bury them properly. Allow for the boat swinging as the wind shifts, which it will, usually in the afternoon and again overnight. Re-check the lines before dark and again if the weather changes. Afternoon and evening winds on this lake can arrive quickly and hit hard; a boat that comes off a beach at two in the morning with people asleep aboard is a serious situation, not an inconvenience.

If a storm is building, the safe move is often to leave a marginal beach and find a sheltered cove rather than to trust the anchors and hope.

Carbon monoxide: the hazard that has actually killed people here

This is the paragraph to read twice. Generator and engine exhaust collects under and around the swim platform at the back of a houseboat, and in enclosed spaces inside it. Carbon monoxide is odorless and colorless, and the concentrations that build in the pocket of air beneath a swim deck can incapacitate a swimmer in minutes. There have been deaths at Lake Powell from exactly this.

The rules:

• Nobody swims near the stern while the generator or the engines are running. Not to cool off, not for a second.
• No teak surfing or platform dragging — riding, holding on to, or being towed immediately behind a moving boat.
• Keep sleeping areas ventilated, and never sleep with the generator running and hatches shut.
• Test the carbon monoxide alarms at orientation and ask the marina to show you where each one is.
• Know the symptoms: headache, nausea, dizziness, weakness, confusion. On a hot lake with a cooler on deck, every one of those is easy to blame on heat or beer. If more than one person feels it at once, get everyone into fresh air and shut the generator down before you debate it.

Rules you are agreeing to when you sign

These come from the Park Service, not the rental company, and they are enforced:

• A portable toilet is required for overnight boating in Glen Canyon. Human waste must be contained and disposed of at a pumpout or dump station — not buried, not left on a beach.
• Pack out all trash. Everything you bring on the boat comes back off it.
• Fires, where permitted at all, generally need to be in a fire pan with the ashes carried out. Fire restrictions change with the season; check the current ones.
• Life jackets for everyone aboard, with specific requirements for children. Both Utah and Arizona regulate this and the rules are enforced on the water — check the current requirement for your children's ages.
• Quagga mussels. Lake Powell has established populations, and boats leaving the lake are subject to mandatory inspection, decontamination and self-certification. If you are trailering your own boat, learn the current procedure before you arrive and build the time into your departure day.
• Boating under the influence is a criminal offense here and it is patrolled.

Check the details on the National Park Service's Glen Canyon National Recreation Area site, which is also where permit and fee information lives.

Navigating without getting lost

The main channel is marked with numbered buoys running up-lake from the dam. Learn how the numbering works on day one. It is how everyone on the lake gives directions, how the marina will describe a location to you, and how you would tell a ranger where you are in an emergency.

Get a current lake map from the marina rather than relying on an older one or on a phone. As water levels change, shorelines move, previously open passages close, and hazards that were well below the surface come nearer to it. Do not run unfamiliar water after dark. Cell coverage is unreliable to nonexistent in the side canyons — carry a VHF radio, know that channel 16 is the hailing and distress channel, and tell someone on shore your rough plan.

A realistic first itinerary

The single most common mistake is planning day one as though it were a full day.

• Day one: check-in, orientation, loading groceries and gear, and getting fuel will eat most of it. Cruise a modest distance, find a beach with room to spare, and set the anchors in daylight while you are still learning how. Do not chase miles.
• Middle days: pick one anchorage and use the small boat to explore from it, or move once and settle. Two long moves in a week is plenty.
• Last day: you will need to be back at the marina at a fixed time, fueled and cleaned to whatever standard the contract specifies. Work backwards from that and start the return earlier than feels necessary — headwinds do not care about your checkout time.

Where to launch from

Which marina you rent from shapes the whole trip, because it determines what is within cruising range. That decision is worth making deliberately: choosing between Wahweap, Antelope Point, Bullfrog and Halls Crossing lays out what each one sits near and who each suits. If Rainbow Bridge is on your list, it should weigh heavily on the choice — see planning Antelope Canyon and Rainbow Bridge for what that trip actually involves.