Making it special

Deepa Bharath

For Greg Mohr, gondolas bring back special memories.

He especially remembers that magical night almost 10 years ago

when he proposed to his wife, Elisa, during a gondola cruise in

Newport Harbor.

Shortly after that cruise, the couple decided to make a business

out of it. Soon after Mohr bought Adventures at Sea -- a Newport

Beach company that offered luxury yacht cruises -- in 1993, he added

gondolas to the mix.

“It was great because there already was a built-in demand for it,”

Mohr said.

Newport Beach has a history with gondolas, he said. The romantic

boats that wade through Venetian waters cruised Newport Bay as early

as 1906. Newport’s waterways are ideal for such cruises, Mohr said.

“Newport has a number of islands, for one thing,” he said. “It

also has beautiful canals on the north end of the harbor. And it’s 36

miles of beautiful coastline.”

Mohr owns eight gondolas and has 12 to 15 gondoliers on call. Some

of the gondolas are exclusively rowed, some are motorized and others

offer a combination. The busiest time for them is, of course,

Valentine’s Day.

“On an average Saturday night in summer, we have five or six

gondolas operating,” he said. “But in the winter, it’s just one or

two gondolas. But on Valentine’s, it gets pretty busy. We have all

boats operating all day and into the night.”

His employees also take special care to make sure the couple on

board enjoys the “perfect cruise,” Mohr said.

“Most couples are either there for their anniversary or a

birthday, or they’re about to get engaged,” he said. “Everybody wants

such occasions to be perfect.”

When 100 people are put together in a yacht, they tend not to

notice minor imperfections, Mohr said.

“But when you put two people in a small boat for an hour or two,

they notice everything about the boat,” he said. “The chocolates, the

champagne, the silverware -- everything needs to be perfect. When a

man takes his blond-haired girlfriend on a cruise, the last thing he

wants her to see is a strand of red hair on a blanket or someone

else’s fingerprint on a drinking glass.”