Canoe Livery of Hocking Hills

I kayak frequently but this is my first time with the Canoe Livery in Hocking. The trip would have been great but the river was extremely crowded. We did venture out on Memorial Day weekend. However, the timing and heaviness of their groups could be better to allow for less congestion.
The reason I rated this visit a 2 is because of the lack of organization and the poor customer service. I stood at the counter for some time while men were called from next to and behind me to be helped. When I took the initiative to step up to the counter I was told «were there others in front of you? I don’t want to cut anyone» I proceeded to wait another 15 minutes while several other customers (all men) were helped with smiles and explained to in detail what direction to go.
Once I got out on the river, I was great.

Over-​promising/​under-​delivering!
We decided to try their torch light canoe trip. The idea seemed really unique and romantic. When we signed up we were told there would be snores and a live band at the end of the trip! We were very excited. The launching place for the canoes was very muddy. For sure don’t wear anything you don’t mind getting dirty! We had a great time canoeing the river at night. It was a little challenging navigating around trees in the dark but it was fun. The overall experience was soured by the horrible attitudes of the staff. They just acted like us as customers were annoying them. The bus driver backed up into the line of customers waiting to get on and nearly hit a little boy.
They told us at the end of the trip we’d get smores and wine. When we finished, we saw only a bag of marshmallows, campfire and a box of wine. No cups, no sticks to roast the marshmallows, chocolate, grams. it was just a disaster. We ended up leaving and having our own party back out our campsite.

Our party had reservations well in advance and guess what? There were no kayaks ready for us. Had to wait over 2 hours and still not enough for our party. Judging from the other reviews, this is normal! Ugh! However, they did refund us our money.

Stay Away!
This place is poorly operated. We reserved kayaks and canoes on their website 4 weeks in advance. Their website is very good, but service stops right there. We arrive 30 minutes prior to departure time as required. We are told that they are under-​staffed on this day; however, that doesn’t seem to stop them from taking people off the street and lining them up. They tell us we need to wait until our 7 kayaks come back as people finish on the river, because they don’t have any! We wait 40 minutes, and 2 kayaks have shown up. So, I am asking myself, what was the point of making a reservation? We gave up, took our party elsewhere for the day. The place is also very disorganized for someplace that has been in business for so many years. These people really should just sell this place to someone that cares about providing service. The only good thing about it was the refund I demanded.
Good Luck!

This was our first time canoeing with this company. As another reviewer had stated the check in time is very long. We waited for 45 minutes for a shuttle to the put in location. Once we arrived at the river we had to drag our own canoes down to the river. Very poor customer service if you ask me.
We have camped many times at the river’s edge camping area with this company and have loved it. This time we stayed at the livery campground. The bathrooms were far away from most of the camping spots. There was a very loud party group blasting music and I had to call the owner and complain. Within 30 minutes someone was sent and the music was turned off. Our camping site had trash all over but was the least muddy spot we could find. I would highly recommend staying at the river’s edge site over the livery.
We had a great trip but the livery operation was not even close to the competition across the river.

Do not take trip 3. I had to get out and drag my girlfriend for over a mile combined at times! Water was no deeper than calf length as a minimum! The staff should have never rented a Canoe for this trip! We were heading «down» the river/​stream, yet if you didn’t paddle, you actually ended going upstream backwards! We flipped at least 3 times due to low water conditions, as well as me dragging my girlfriend from outside the boat at least 1total out of our 11 mile trip. It was very disappointing, hope the owners see this and offer a partial refund! If not, we will be contacting the BBB! Staff was great, equipment was great, information from your staff was nonexistent! Why not tell us a canoe could not float??? For a good portion of our trip!!!

I’ve been here twice. Both times the employees weren’t very helpful. We had to wait an hour before we could even get taken to the starting point for canoeing and we showed up and were checked in about 10 minutes ahead of their ‘departure time’. The first time I went they didn’t help us get the canoe in the water. The river is gorgeous, but I would expect better customer service.