We Tested Out 5 Sea-Doo Models by Cruising in the Florida Keys

There’s no better time to jam the throttle on a personal watercraft (PWC) than the dog days of July. A jet bike lets you blast through waves, jump wakes and reach speeds more common on the highway than the water. It’s also the easiest type of boat to stay cool on, since half the time you’re wet and cooled by wind. The experience gets even better with a group of friends, and reaches its pinnacle in the Florida Keys, where personal watercraft, thanks to their swiftness, agility, and minimal draft, are ideal vessels to explore the pristine, and often shallow waters.

Sea-Doo created the Sea-Doo Social Club to connect owners of any PWC brand with other riders for meetups. My wife, Helene, and my friends Jacob and Erica, experienced this recently during a long weekend in Key Largo, Florida, donning swimsuits and personal flotation devices while testing out five Sea-Doo models provided by Bombardier.

We were there for three days, getting in as much ride time as possible. The ability to use them freely in between other activities, such as lunch, dinner, and beach breaks, gave us a taste of what owning one might be like—so much so that, by the end, my wife and I narrowed down two models that would be the ones we’d choose for our family.

Sea-Doo was the early adopter in the personal watercraft market, launching the first sit-down personal watercraft in the mid-1960s. The bright yellow craft, marketed as a “jet-powered Aqua Scooter,” was loosely modeled on its Ski-Doo snowmobile line. That first Sea-Doo may have introduced a new watercraft category, but ultimately flopped due to its unwieldy size. The PWC segment re-emerged in 20 years later, first with Kawasaki’s stand-up Jet Ski, and then the industry hit its stride in the 1990s when demand soared. Worthy competition from Yamaha’s WaveRunner series and Bombardier’s vastly improved Sea-Doo line pushed the segment to its peak in 1995, when seven manufacturers sold more than 200,000 units.

Those numbers are now hovering around 85,000 per year, but this PWC generation is light years ahead of the 1990 models. These much more sophisticated craft have cleaner, quieter and more powerful engines, both in-line and turbo-charged, smoother-riding hulls for big water, and features more closely associated with larger boats. Bluetooth, fish finders, phone access and stereo systems.

We had a chance to experience this metamorphosis firsthand, from our Key Largo beach house. What struck me first about the Sea-Doo quintet was the versatility of the line. We initially cruised the local waters on the GTI and GTX models, carving tight circles, and then moved to doing in-water wheelies on the Spark Trixx, a lightweight jet bike with adjustable handlebars and integrated footwell wedges that let me do tail stands, and like smaller Kawasaki standups, nose dives.

We also had access to a Switch Cruise Limited, the top-shelf version of Sea-Doo’s 21-foot pontoon. Introduced in 2021, the Switch line is more hybrid pontoon and jetboat than a conventional floatboat. It has a trimaran hull and generous deck space, with a ride that beginners won’t find intimidating and experienced boaters can still enjoy.

The Switch doesn’t sit on top of the water like it’s on rails, as a traditional twin-hulled pontoon does, but is much more playful, cutting into turns for a sportier experience. The hull also proved more adept at soaking up rising swells after a day on the smaller jet bikes, and the modular deck allowed us to change the seating for what turned into multiple six-person sightseeing adventures. It was a great boat for sunset cruises with the entire crew.

After spending a few days near the beach house, we decided to venture farther afield on a 20-mile tour of the local waters. The Keys are filled with memorable names, such as the Florida Straits, Hawk Channel, and Backcountry, but Toilet Seat Cut claims victory in the only-in-Florida department. We floated along this narrow passage, which joins the Atlantic with Florida Bay, the engines of our Sea-Doo GTI and GTX models at idle.

Someone asked the question we all were wondering: Why would one of the most beautiful waterways in the world be accented with customized toilet seats from poles anchored to the marshy bottom?

The narrow passageway was created by Vernon D. Lamp in the 1950s, who used a small boat with a 50hp outboard to dredge a channel that cut travel time from his home in Plantation Key Colony to Plantation Yacht Harbor. He completed the project just before Hurricane Donna battered the area in 1960. In its wake, the storm left a toilet seat clinging to a nail on one of the markers that Lamp installed to mark the path. “He washed it, disinfected it, painted it and hung it right back where it had landed after Donna,” Lamp’s daughter Cheryl said in an interview. “My father had a sense of humor.”

So did a lot of other boaters. Meandering along the 60-foot-wide cut were much more than toilet seats. There was one marriage proposal, several makeshift memorial markers, countless family plaques and even a mailbox or two. Each was fashioned using toiletry detritus.

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Beyond the Cut, with room to roam, we let the watercraft do what they are designed to do: tear up the water and run straights flat out. I enjoyed the adrenaline rush of blasting up to 65 mph in the supercharged 230-hp GTX. But my personal favorite was throwing the GTI SE into tight spins. It offers an excellent compromise between stability and playfulness thanks to the hull’s V-shape and the 170-hp Rotax engine.

When you inevitably fall off after getting too aggressive, its integrated boarding ladder comes in handy. Sea-Doo’s Intelligent Brake and Reverse technology is another feature that shows the advances in personal watercraft technology. It acts as a brake and reverse gear. There is also a neutral setting between forward and reverse that lets the watercraft drift, a nice change from the old days of not being able to steer at all if there was no thrust.

Sea-Doo and its competitors make multiple watercraft versions for fishing, exploring, and even wakeboarding. One afternoon, we took turns strapping our feet into a wakeboard behind the GTI. After getting a demonstration from a pro wakeboarder, we all had visions of perfectly carved passes over the watercraft’s small wake. Those aspirations departed quickly. One by one we toppled sideways, until the final reluctant member of our crew gave it a try. She got up on the first try. We gave our colleague a rousing victory cry from shore.

Three days of riding jet bikes might sound like pure fun, and it was, but it’s also physically demanding. Doing tight curves, trying to muscle the craft with your legs and arms, and protecting your tush through big waves with your legs as shock absorbers does take effort. Which is why my wife and I decided that one GTI and one Switch would be perfect for our family. Quick blasts on the GTI would fulfill our inner speed demons, while the rest of the day relaxing on the water on the Switch with seating for our crew of four would provide the perfect respite from the sun, and give us time to talk about our best runs on the GTI.

The official name of this category indicates that these machines are designed to be enjoyed alone. Our weekend with friends and family suggested otherwise. Maybe it’s time to separate the personal from the watercraft.