Cancellation Policy

[Dale]

As you may have read, I recently returned from a trip to Aruba, and I was honestly more than pleased with the diving experience. I was not expecting the greatest, as Aruba is not generally known for its good diving, but like I said, I was surprised. My only problem was discovering when we showed up for our first reserved dive (reserved about a month before the trip over the internet) that this shop has a no refund policy for cancellations. I can see their point if a lot of divers fail to show up after a night of partying, but scuba is too serious an activity to dive when one shouldn't, such as with ear problems, other physical problems, etc. MY QUESTION IS THIS: Is this a common policy in other areas of the Caribbean??? We experienced quite the opposite in St. Martin and Prov.

 

[Scubalnks]

That is not common practice, at least not in my experience. Anytime a dive operator had to cancel a trip I was going on they either refunded the money or gave you the trip at a later time. In the case where you are on a vacation where you cannot really come back for a make up dive to much later they would make the dive(s) up while you were still there.

Not sure who the operator was that did this but it does not sound like a very respectable way to do business if you want to keep repeat customers coming back in the future.

Edit: Sorry, I think I read your post wrong. I think your actually saying that you canceled the trip and not the operator. Is that correct? If so then that would be a different story and depending on how much advanced notice you gave or did not give would determine what the penalty would be as far as monetary loss. If you walked in right around the time that the trip was to take place to notify them then I'd say it would be pretty common place for them not to give a refund. If you have dive insurance and it was medical related you might be able to recoup that money through a claim with them.