Monterey 302 vs. Sea Ray 290 - OR should we go smaller?

Just joined here as we are trying to get more info and find a great owner forum to be part of once we purchase a powerboat. Looking forward to chatting with everyone here!!

We are located in Colorado and our boat usage would be on Lake Dillon in the mountains. The temperatures can vary widely and the wind can be crazy. We currently have a 24' pontoon without a full camper cover, so when the wind picks up or the temps drop, it's not a lot of fun to have a bunch of people hanging out on. 30' is the longest boat that's really feasible for this lake and there are 30' docks that we use all summer (we assume we'll have to back it in). Typically, we only have a late May to early Oct season and pay for a slip, winter storage, etc and costs are by the foot. During the winter, it needs to be stored on a trailer and is shrink wrapped.

We have been looking at the Monterey 302 and the Sea Ray 290 based on the layouts combining deck space and down below space/layout where vee berth has ability to convert to a u-shaped dinette plus a standard dinette to hold a larger number of people down below. Two primary reasons for our looking at this size:
(1) My husband and I are both over 6 feet and want decent headroom down below so that we'll actually use that area and not have to slouch over to work in galley, etc
(2) We usually end up having 10 people or more at a time on the pontoon (mostly at the dock hanging out at night!) and we want a boat with more of a cover/interior space that we could still have a lot of people but not have to worry about the weather.

A few questions we were hoping to have people weigh in on:
* If we considered going down to a 26, 27 or 28 foot boat, would we see a huge interior height difference? Again, being as tall as we are, we are concerned we won't really use the down below if it's cramped. What are people's thoughts on this? Do you use your down below regardless? Is it tight with a lot of people regardless of if you have a 26' to 30' boat?

* Other thoughts on the Monterey vs. Sea Ray? Any known issues that we should consider? What else should we think about?

Appreciate all feedback! Thanks for the time.

 

Good luck in your search

 

The cabin space down below is not huge. 10 people would be split between the cabin and cockpit with the canvas up. They are not all going to fit below decks in comfort, IMHO. See how you feel moving around the boat in a showroom. I would not go smaller for this number of passengers.