Avalon's Excalibur 25 Elite
Avalon's Excalibur 25 Elite is a luxury pontoon boat perfect for cruising down memory lake.
July 1, 2005
If you're heading into or out of Atlanta from the northern suburbs, chances are you'll come across
a modest interstate bridge over a stretch of water known as Lake Allatoona. Although the lake
doesn't get as much attention as Lake Lanier to the northeast or Lake Oconee to the east, it packs
in more than 6 million guests each year spread over more than a half dozen marinas and 270 miles of
shoreline. But today, on an Avalon Excalibur 25 Elite, you've practically got the lake to yourself.
To you, Lake Allatoona means a bit more than a passing glance. You grew up not far from here, and spent a chunk of your childhood exploring Lake Allatoona's many fishing holes, hiking trails and campsites. The lake has a special sentimental value to you. So when Eric Williams of Georgia Boat Brokers offers you a chance to take a cruise with a few of your friends on a brand-new Avalon Excalibur 25 Elite, you grab it.
Eric's got the boat waiting in the water as you make your way to the dock. The first impression of the Excalibur 25 is that you picked the right boat for the trip. The Excalibur models are Avalon's top-tier luxury pontoon boat series. Avalon is a new venture of Playbuoy, which has been making pontoons for 30 years.
So what separates a luxury pontoon from just a regular party barge? One simple brush of the upholstery, and you have your answer. The three lounge seats are about as plush as you can get. Avalon uses Matrix 50 simulated leather radial furnishings with custom lounge arms. A quick hand jammed into the seatbacks to see how far the cushions go confirms the depth. Your body just melts into the lounges, with multi-density seat cushions providing a cozy spot and tall seatbacks so you won't feel like you have to hunch down at full throttle to keep from hopping with the waves.
The overall styling is classy,
and somewhat unique. You notice that the front gate isn't dead center on the bow, standard for some
pontoon boats. It's slightly starboard, which makes perfect sense for boarding, so instead of
navigating the bow platform to get in (a tad challenging if you're bringing aboard gear), you've
got your access right where you want it for easy boarding. The same goes for the rear gate. Aft
offers a small area outside the cockpit seating leading to a folding swim ladder. Boaters who hate
dripping passengers following watersports activities will automatically designate that a good
toweling-off spot before returning to the lounges. There's an additional gate portside, and all of
the gates come with finger guards, a nice safety feature.
Your friends board via the bow, but you take an aft entrance to check out the 115-hp Mercury 4-stroke EFI. Engine access to the outboard is pretty good, and you can lift up the sunpad up top to get a little closer. The engine setup is far enough away from the swim ladder too, so when you've shut it down, your crew won't be maneuvering around it to get into the water. The sunpad itself is nice and wide. You think to yourself that a changing room would be great for this area, and sure enough, you see that in your brochure the larger model in the Excalibur class, the 27 Elite, offers that feature.
Eric's got the boat waiting in the water as you make your way to the dock. The first impression of the Excalibur 25 is that you picked the right boat for the trip. The Excalibur models are Avalon's top-tier luxury pontoon boat series. Avalon is a new venture of Playbuoy, which has been making pontoons for 30 years.
So what separates a luxury pontoon from just a regular party barge? One simple brush of the upholstery, and you have your answer. The three lounge seats are about as plush as you can get. Avalon uses Matrix 50 simulated leather radial furnishings with custom lounge arms. A quick hand jammed into the seatbacks to see how far the cushions go confirms the depth. Your body just melts into the lounges, with multi-density seat cushions providing a cozy spot and tall seatbacks so you won't feel like you have to hunch down at full throttle to keep from hopping with the waves.
The overall styling is classy, and somewhat unique. You notice that the front gate isn't dead center on the bow, standard for some pontoon boats. It's slightly starboard, which makes perfect sense for boarding, so instead of navigating the bow platform to get in (a tad challenging if you're bringing aboard gear), you've got your access right where you want it for easy boarding. The same goes for the rear gate. Aft offers a small area outside the cockpit seating leading to a folding swim ladder. Boaters who hate dripping passengers following watersports activities will automatically designate that a good toweling-off spot before returning to the lounges. There's an additional gate portside, and all of the gates come with finger guards, a nice safety feature.
Your friends board via the bow, but you take an aft entrance to check out the 115-hp Mercury 4-stroke EFI. Engine access to the outboard is pretty good, and you can lift up the sunpad up top to get a little closer. The engine setup is far enough away from the swim ladder too, so when you've shut it down, your crew won't be maneuvering around it to get into the water. The sunpad itself is nice and wide. You think to yourself that a changing room would be great for this area, and sure enough, you see that in your brochure the larger model in the Excalibur class, the 27 Elite, offers that feature.
Eric has the engine idling and ready to go, but you take your time eyeing the helm before casting off. The captain definitely gets the best seat on this platform. Avalon's Commander's Chair is tall and plush. You can adjust the chair back, forth, and swivel it to the side so you're facing the U-shaped lounge in the cockpit. It's so nice that Eric says he's ordered one for his office so that when customers come in they can sit down in a Commander's Chair while they talk boats.
Your fuel, trim and battery gauges rest in an elegant wood-grain dash that won't glare. Tilt steering rounds out your overall comfort piloting the Excalibur 25, but the kicker is the in-dash combination GPS, fishfinder and GPS speedometer ... standard. That's convenient for boaters who want more for their dollar in a top-tier pontoon boat, and good for you today because although you know your way around the roads surrounding Lake Allatoona, you're a novice navigator on the water. Good thing Eric is sticking around as you shove off.
What a perfect day for boating. It's on the fringe of big-time boating season, a couple weeks before Memorial Day weekend, and because you took off on a Wednesday from the office to do the cruise, you've got the lake all to yourself, aside from the occasional angler.
Lake Allatoona is about as high as it's going to get during the year. The lake holds water from the Etowah River, a tributary of the Coosa River. Allatoona Dam, built in the late 1940s, takes in about $3.5 million in revenue from its hydroelectric power generation. When the area was flooded to create the lake, an entire abandoned town was sunk in the process. The underwater town is located to the north, and is a favorite spot for local divers.
You, however, have another place in mind. You gun the throttle and make some mental notes on the performance as you head for your destination. With the base package and a 115-hp outboard strapped to the back, the best speed you get is 21 mph, which takes a shade over 10 seconds. You put some muscle into the turns, definitely not as responsive as a runabout or deckboat, but still enough to give you a fighting chance maneuvering in a crowded marina. The sound isn't bad; you can keep a good conversation going at full throttle because engine noise and wind are only 86 decibels. Max horsepower is 135 hp, and if you want a little more get-up-and-go than 21 mph, you should look into the performance package, which comes with lifting strakes and a triple toon that will get you up out of the water. But for the purposes of this trip, the speed's fine.
Besides, you might miss out on parts of your past. You head north to Red Top Mountain State Park, an outdoorsy haven with hiking trails and picnics. Turns out you cruise past a spot where you had a picnic on one of your first dates with your high-school sweetheart, although that only gets a brief chuckle out of the crowd on board when you mention it. On the other side of a bridge you used to drive across during your learner's permit days is Hurricane Cove, which has a small entrance, but once inside, you've got a wide cove with deep and calm water. Boaters often get so spoiled inside the cove that they don't even realize the rest of the lake is kicking up winds and waves until they're back out. You start to head in to Hurricane but spot a guy fishing, and decide to give him some peace and quiet.
You find another cove, put the engine on idle and pull out the cooler underneath the helm refreshment center. There's room for the cooler and other gear down there. The refreshment center also has a freshwater sink. You spot the fender storage behind the helm center, and it reminds you to take a look at the wine rack behind the cockpit lounge. Sure enough, there's a spot for four glasses and wine in a bucket of ice, should you be hosting a party.
No wine tasting today, however. You scoop up a soda and put it in the helm cupholder. Your crew is already making good use of their surrounding accessories ' the forward snack table (there's also one aft). And each lounge comes complete with hideaway cupholders, a lot more manageable than some spare cupholders you've seen that can go missing under seats instead of ready and waiting each time out.
You hang out for awhile and chat about the good ol' days, everyone glad to be out on the water on a lazy spring morning. Three of your friends are sitting in the bow lounges while Eric mans the cockpit lounge, but it seems like everyone can stay tuned to the conversation without having to stretch their bodies at odd angles to hear. The discussion eventually turns into a brief history of the lake, and on your way back to the marina you remember to cruise past Allatoona Pass, site of a former railway and a gruesome Civil War battle after the fall of Atlanta. Sherman wouldn't recognize the place ' what used to be the railroad bed is now a roadbed that leads to a marina, and the pass, which was heavily fortified, is now enshrouded with pine trees and hiking trails.
Catching up on old times can be a dose of good medicine. On the Excalibur 25 Elite, it's made even easier with a seating capacity of 16, tons of cupholders, and features designed to accommodate a boating crowd looking for a good time cruising and lounging. You're a little reluctant to dock the boat and head back to the real world, but it's nice to know that the Excalibur 25 Elite isn't too far down the road on memory lane to board again.
LOA 24'
Beam 8'6"
Weight 1,976 lbs.
Fuel 36 gal.
Base Price $19,700
(w/o engine)
Price As Tested $33,295
(w/115-hp Mercury 4-stroke EFI)
Hull Warranty Lifetime
NMMA Certified? No (USCG Certified)
Avalon Luxury Pontoon Boats
903 Michigan Ave.
Alma, MI 48801
(800) 334-2913
www.avalonpontoons.com
Test Data
Test data was gathered with a 115-hp Mercury 4-stroke EFI, five people on board and a half tank of fuel.
Top Speed 21.2 mph
0-20 mph 10.9 seconds
Decibels @ Idle 74 dB-A
Decibels @ WOT 89 dB-A
Standard Features
Four-step boarding ladder, overstuffed sun pad, mood lighting, fender storage, woodgrain tilt steering wheel, courtesy light on dash, in-dash GPS, fishfinder, depthsounder, Clarion radio/CD player with four speakers, Commander's Chair, 28-ounce carpet, hideaway cupholders, wine rack and full mooring cover.
Options
Ski tow bar, full camper enclosure, walk-on sunroof with ladder, hydraulic steering, ski tower with high-power speakers, spotlight and wakeboard racks, vinyl flooring, cooler table and Sirius satellite radio.
To you, Lake Allatoona means a bit more than a passing glance. You grew up not far from here, and spent a chunk of your childhood exploring Lake Allatoona's many fishing holes, hiking trails and campsites. The lake has a special sentimental value to you. So when Eric Williams of Georgia Boat Brokers offers you a chance to take a cruise with a few of your friends on a brand-new Avalon Excalibur 25 Elite, you grab it.
Eric's got the boat waiting in the water as you make your way to the dock. The first impression of the Excalibur 25 is that you picked the right boat for the trip. The Excalibur models are Avalon's top-tier luxury pontoon boat series. Avalon is a new venture of Playbuoy, which has been making pontoons for 30 years.
So what separates a luxury pontoon from just a regular party barge? One simple brush of the upholstery, and you have your answer. The three lounge seats are about as plush as you can get. Avalon uses Matrix 50 simulated leather radial furnishings with custom lounge arms. A quick hand jammed into the seatbacks to see how far the cushions go confirms the depth. Your body just melts into the lounges, with multi-density seat cushions providing a cozy spot and tall seatbacks so you won't feel like you have to hunch down at full throttle to keep from hopping with the waves.
The overall styling is classy,
and somewhat unique. You notice that the front gate isn't dead center on the bow, standard for some
pontoon boats. It's slightly starboard, which makes perfect sense for boarding, so instead of
navigating the bow platform to get in (a tad challenging if you're bringing aboard gear), you've
got your access right where you want it for easy boarding. The same goes for the rear gate. Aft
offers a small area outside the cockpit seating leading to a folding swim ladder. Boaters who hate
dripping passengers following watersports activities will automatically designate that a good
toweling-off spot before returning to the lounges. There's an additional gate portside, and all of
the gates come with finger guards, a nice safety feature.
Your friends board via the bow, but you take an aft entrance to check out the 115-hp Mercury 4-stroke EFI. Engine access to the outboard is pretty good, and you can lift up the sunpad up top to get a little closer. The engine setup is far enough away from the swim ladder too, so when you've shut it down, your crew won't be maneuvering around it to get into the water. The sunpad itself is nice and wide. You think to yourself that a changing room would be great for this area, and sure enough, you see that in your brochure the larger model in the Excalibur class, the 27 Elite, offers that feature.
Eric's got the boat waiting in the water as you make your way to the dock. The first impression of the Excalibur 25 is that you picked the right boat for the trip. The Excalibur models are Avalon's top-tier luxury pontoon boat series. Avalon is a new venture of Playbuoy, which has been making pontoons for 30 years.
So what separates a luxury pontoon from just a regular party barge? One simple brush of the upholstery, and you have your answer. The three lounge seats are about as plush as you can get. Avalon uses Matrix 50 simulated leather radial furnishings with custom lounge arms. A quick hand jammed into the seatbacks to see how far the cushions go confirms the depth. Your body just melts into the lounges, with multi-density seat cushions providing a cozy spot and tall seatbacks so you won't feel like you have to hunch down at full throttle to keep from hopping with the waves.
The overall styling is classy, and somewhat unique. You notice that the front gate isn't dead center on the bow, standard for some pontoon boats. It's slightly starboard, which makes perfect sense for boarding, so instead of navigating the bow platform to get in (a tad challenging if you're bringing aboard gear), you've got your access right where you want it for easy boarding. The same goes for the rear gate. Aft offers a small area outside the cockpit seating leading to a folding swim ladder. Boaters who hate dripping passengers following watersports activities will automatically designate that a good toweling-off spot before returning to the lounges. There's an additional gate portside, and all of the gates come with finger guards, a nice safety feature.
Your friends board via the bow, but you take an aft entrance to check out the 115-hp Mercury 4-stroke EFI. Engine access to the outboard is pretty good, and you can lift up the sunpad up top to get a little closer. The engine setup is far enough away from the swim ladder too, so when you've shut it down, your crew won't be maneuvering around it to get into the water. The sunpad itself is nice and wide. You think to yourself that a changing room would be great for this area, and sure enough, you see that in your brochure the larger model in the Excalibur class, the 27 Elite, offers that feature.
Eric has the engine idling and ready to go, but you take your time eyeing the helm before casting off. The captain definitely gets the best seat on this platform. Avalon's Commander's Chair is tall and plush. You can adjust the chair back, forth, and swivel it to the side so you're facing the U-shaped lounge in the cockpit. It's so nice that Eric says he's ordered one for his office so that when customers come in they can sit down in a Commander's Chair while they talk boats.
Your fuel, trim and battery gauges rest in an elegant wood-grain dash that won't glare. Tilt steering rounds out your overall comfort piloting the Excalibur 25, but the kicker is the in-dash combination GPS, fishfinder and GPS speedometer ... standard. That's convenient for boaters who want more for their dollar in a top-tier pontoon boat, and good for you today because although you know your way around the roads surrounding Lake Allatoona, you're a novice navigator on the water. Good thing Eric is sticking around as you shove off.
What a perfect day for boating. It's on the fringe of big-time boating season, a couple weeks before Memorial Day weekend, and because you took off on a Wednesday from the office to do the cruise, you've got the lake all to yourself, aside from the occasional angler.
Lake Allatoona is about as high as it's going to get during the year. The lake holds water from the Etowah River, a tributary of the Coosa River. Allatoona Dam, built in the late 1940s, takes in about $3.5 million in revenue from its hydroelectric power generation. When the area was flooded to create the lake, an entire abandoned town was sunk in the process. The underwater town is located to the north, and is a favorite spot for local divers.
You, however, have another place in mind. You gun the throttle and make some mental notes on the performance as you head for your destination. With the base package and a 115-hp outboard strapped to the back, the best speed you get is 21 mph, which takes a shade over 10 seconds. You put some muscle into the turns, definitely not as responsive as a runabout or deckboat, but still enough to give you a fighting chance maneuvering in a crowded marina. The sound isn't bad; you can keep a good conversation going at full throttle because engine noise and wind are only 86 decibels. Max horsepower is 135 hp, and if you want a little more get-up-and-go than 21 mph, you should look into the performance package, which comes with lifting strakes and a triple toon that will get you up out of the water. But for the purposes of this trip, the speed's fine.
Besides, you might miss out on parts of your past. You head north to Red Top Mountain State Park, an outdoorsy haven with hiking trails and picnics. Turns out you cruise past a spot where you had a picnic on one of your first dates with your high-school sweetheart, although that only gets a brief chuckle out of the crowd on board when you mention it. On the other side of a bridge you used to drive across during your learner's permit days is Hurricane Cove, which has a small entrance, but once inside, you've got a wide cove with deep and calm water. Boaters often get so spoiled inside the cove that they don't even realize the rest of the lake is kicking up winds and waves until they're back out. You start to head in to Hurricane but spot a guy fishing, and decide to give him some peace and quiet.
You find another cove, put the engine on idle and pull out the cooler underneath the helm refreshment center. There's room for the cooler and other gear down there. The refreshment center also has a freshwater sink. You spot the fender storage behind the helm center, and it reminds you to take a look at the wine rack behind the cockpit lounge. Sure enough, there's a spot for four glasses and wine in a bucket of ice, should you be hosting a party.
No wine tasting today, however. You scoop up a soda and put it in the helm cupholder. Your crew is already making good use of their surrounding accessories ' the forward snack table (there's also one aft). And each lounge comes complete with hideaway cupholders, a lot more manageable than some spare cupholders you've seen that can go missing under seats instead of ready and waiting each time out.
You hang out for awhile and chat about the good ol' days, everyone glad to be out on the water on a lazy spring morning. Three of your friends are sitting in the bow lounges while Eric mans the cockpit lounge, but it seems like everyone can stay tuned to the conversation without having to stretch their bodies at odd angles to hear. The discussion eventually turns into a brief history of the lake, and on your way back to the marina you remember to cruise past Allatoona Pass, site of a former railway and a gruesome Civil War battle after the fall of Atlanta. Sherman wouldn't recognize the place ' what used to be the railroad bed is now a roadbed that leads to a marina, and the pass, which was heavily fortified, is now enshrouded with pine trees and hiking trails.
Catching up on old times can be a dose of good medicine. On the Excalibur 25 Elite, it's made even easier with a seating capacity of 16, tons of cupholders, and features designed to accommodate a boating crowd looking for a good time cruising and lounging. You're a little reluctant to dock the boat and head back to the real world, but it's nice to know that the Excalibur 25 Elite isn't too far down the road on memory lane to board again.
LOA 24'
Beam 8'6"
Weight 1,976 lbs.
Fuel 36 gal.
Base Price $19,700
(w/o engine)
Price As Tested $33,295
(w/115-hp Mercury 4-stroke EFI)
Hull Warranty Lifetime
NMMA Certified? No (USCG Certified)
Avalon Luxury Pontoon Boats
903 Michigan Ave.
Alma, MI 48801
(800) 334-2913
www.avalonpontoons.com
Test Data
Test data was gathered with a 115-hp Mercury 4-stroke EFI, five people on board and a half tank of fuel.
Top Speed 21.2 mph
0-20 mph 10.9 seconds
Decibels @ Idle 74 dB-A
Decibels @ WOT 89 dB-A
Standard Features
Four-step boarding ladder, overstuffed sun pad, mood lighting, fender storage, woodgrain tilt steering wheel, courtesy light on dash, in-dash GPS, fishfinder, depthsounder, Clarion radio/CD player with four speakers, Commander's Chair, 28-ounce carpet, hideaway cupholders, wine rack and full mooring cover.
Options
Ski tow bar, full camper enclosure, walk-on sunroof with ladder, hydraulic steering, ski tower with high-power speakers, spotlight and wakeboard racks, vinyl flooring, cooler table and Sirius satellite radio.
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