Arriving to a yacht on the Riviera: what to tell your driver
Getting to a boat is not getting to an address. The marina has gates rather than a front door, the berth may have moved since the last email, guests and crew use different entrances, and for a few weeks a year the whole port runs on accreditation. None of that is difficult — it just has to be known in advance rather than discovered at a barrier.
Give the berth, not just the port
Port Vauban in Antibes and Port Hercule in Monaco are both large enough that "the port" is a kilometre of walking away from where you actually need to be. A berth number, or the name of the vessel, gets the car to the right quay.
If you do not have the berth — and guests often do not — the vessel name is usually enough, because port control does have it.
Say whether you are guest or crew
It is not a status question, it is a routing question: the entrances are different at almost every port on this coast, and the security arrangements treat the two differently. One word in the booking avoids a phone call at a gate.
Crew transfers also run on a different clock. Rotations follow airline schedules, which means four in the morning as often as four in the afternoon. That is ordinary work and should be priced as such, not treated as an exception.
Show weeks and race weeks
During the Monaco Yacht Show the Principality runs on accreditation for four days and Port Hercule is closed to ordinary access. During the Grand Prix, half of Monaco is the circuit. In both weeks the gate you used last month may not be open, and the drop-off will be a walk from wherever a car may legally stop.
The answer is not a clever route, it is planning: book early, name the boat, and accept that the last two hundred metres are on foot. That is true for everyone, including the people arriving by helicopter.
The things that come up mid-charter
Provisioning runs, a part collected from a chandler in Antibes, a guest's case that followed a day late, an airport run at short notice because plans changed. These are the jobs that make the difference between a transfer supplier and a working relationship.
For management companies and brokers, the sensible arrangement is an account with monthly invoicing and one contact through the charter, rather than a card at the door and a receipt to reconcile.