After our weekend at Roche Harbor, we spent 3 nights at Rosario on a family trip. This was our 37th, 38th and 39th nights on the boat.

We had a great time with family that was staying in a house nearby.

The drawback is really a couple of things with Rosario.

• Other than the actual docks which are new, the rest of the resort is really run down.
• Even thought the docks are new, they are poorly maintained.
• The harbormaster and dock staff don’t really understand the hospitality business, and are really quite rude.
• The dock side restaurant did not open this year.

I would recommend that if you going boating in the San Juan Islands that you stay anywhere other than Rosario.

We had some great home cooked (or not cooked in the case of sushi) food on this trip.

On our second day there I took Alex and George scuba diving. Here are some photos from that excursion.

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We did have another outing to minigolf which was a good time between East Sound and the ferry terminal.

Overall we had a great time despite the weaknesses of Rosario.

Back to why you should not stay at Rosario:

• Other than the actual docks which are new, the rest of the resort is really run down.

The rest of the resort just felt dirty and run down. The sidewalks, parking lots and roads were all really cracked concrete with gravel and dirt all our them.

• Even thought the docks are new, they are poorly maintained.

• The harbormaster and dock staff don’t really understand the hospitality business, and are really quite rude.
  When we arrived at the dock we released our dinghy/tender that we had in tow, and the boys drove it in on its own so that it would not complicate the docking. When the tender arrived, we temporarily tied it off while the boys loaded some gear into it. The one dock crew worked asked if we had cleared that with the harbor master, and when I asked what we needed to clear she did not reply and immediately went to get the harbor master. When he arrived, I asked if he was the harbor master and he totally ignored me and went on to say that we can’t do that. Still with no clarification on what we can or can’t do I was confused. Are we not allowed to have a dinghy? Are we not allowed to tie it up in our slip with our boat? Are we doing something wrong. At that point, after being on the dock for less than 10 minutes I was regretting my choice to stay at Rosario. After several minutes of him treating us like we were criminals of some kind he explained that he wanted the dinghy tied in a different location, which we were fine with. It is possible to tell people to do something different without treating everyone like we are stupid. Then they proceeded to charge us additional for the length of our dinghy, which is something that would never happen at Roche Harbor or at Deer Harbor.
  
• The dock side restaurant did not open this year. With no reasonable restaurant at the resort it makes it hard to get some food there. The Mansion Restaurant was open, but way over priced for what it is.

Do yourself a favor and do not stay at Rosario. We did have a great time because we spent a fair amount of time away from the dock and the resort.