I hate to admit that the boat show was a huge waste of time. Like wow, the prices on the boats were bordering on ridiculous. We walked over to the convention center from a parking garage because downtown Austin sucks now and if you dare venture down there, expect to pay to park. We knew that going in, so it wasn't the worst part of the day. Wife was kind of excited to stop and eat chicken at Gus's World Famous Chicken which I was willing to do since we had already gone and paid for the parking and it was along our walking route to the convention center.
The price to get in was no help, charging $10 for adults and $6 for children. Wife is good at staring people down saying her baby is still 12 to save $4, even if she has to shave his beard and tell him to look young. Anyways, we were in right after and the first set of boats was a line of about 8 pontoon boats, which Wife says is the kind of boat we should get. The prices varied from $55,000 to $104,000, for pontoon boats. This set the shock factor at ugh for the rest of the day. There was then a dealer with a few center console fishing boats, which I like how they look. Again, from $54,000 to like $159,000. Where are the cheap boats already? Another dealer had a huge display of beautiful boats, but they are all the kind you Wakeboard with and I do not like that they all tend to be set up with the propeller directly under the boat, you can't get into shallow water with those, and they tend to start in the $70,000 range.
There was a corner of the show dedicated to hot tubs and I had only seen them online, but they had the swimming hottubs and they look cool as can be. I really like this idea and am considering getting rid of the pool and burying the large hottub in the hole, then surrounding it with a deck of some kind. These giant hottubs were on sale between $25,000 and $34,000.
The Scarab boat line caught my eyes and there was a midsized one for about $40,000. They have been around a long time so they know what they are doing, still, when $40,000 starts sounding cheap, maybe you are in the wrong venue. I do like the idea of a couple jetskis, they would be less than $20,000 for two or thereabouts. I wouldn't have to pay for storage, they would fit in the garage, but Wife doesn't like that idea.
The other half of the floor was dedicated to RVs. We looked at them, but they were all tow behind types. If we get another one, I would like one we could drive, again, those prices are way out there. We hadn't been in a few years, so it was nice to go and make a day of it, but if those prices don't come down, I don't see how regular people are going to get into boating. More and more , it appears to be a game for the stinky rich.
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