Carib Dancer Cancellation

[DandyDon]

This is one of those "don't care" events.

If I get hosed on a purchase, I'll give whoever I paid one chance for a full refund.

After that, it's just too much work. It's easier and much more certain to deal with the credit card company. If it's the agent getting hosed, they should make whatever business provisions are necessary to handle this type of event.

While I feel bad for anybody who gets screwed over on the deal, one of the benefits of buying stuff as a consumer is that other people's business problems aren't yours.

flots.

Ok, well - in this case, the travel agent offered to give him back the commissions paid and he declined. If he'd accept that, it'd be the same outcome.

In general, yeah - I agree with you.

 

[Allison Finch]

I always say the integrity of any operation is never exposed by how they handle things when everything goes well and as planned. It is only seen in how they handle things when the feces hit the fan.

recently, on a trip aboard the Damai, we were supposed to go from West Papua to Timor. Our flights were booked from Timor. Well, the weather was too bad to get to Timor, so we decided to head to Ambon. The Damai office rebooked all of our flights out of Ambon. THEN, the weather wouldn't let us get to Ambon, so we had to (last minute) rebook out of Sarong.

The Damai office not only goot all of these flights booked and rebooked, they got us on great flights. And they never passed one cent of the booking fees to us. Not one cent!!! That is a company who treats their customers well.

 

[BDSC]

on a trip aboard the Damai,...........That is a company who treats their customers well.

Maybe they can hold some type of seminar for the Dancer/Aggressor people.

 

[SAPIUS]

Like all businesses, the attitude of staff at any level and function is defined and permeates by/from the top management. Start there for any company that shows poor customer service or conversely excellent service. To clearly show that axiom the earlier read on the Carib Dancer (which unfortunately SB decided to bury in the 'Whine and Cheese' "forum"... bad move guys) fiasco is the poster child.

 

[BDSC]

To clearly show that axiom the earlier read on the Carib Dancer (which unfortunately SB decided to bury in the 'Whine and Cheese' "forum"... bad move guys) fiasco is the poster child.

I noticed they moved that as well. First time I have seen a trip report placed there but I'm not really surprised by it. Money talks.

 

[Mitchell Teeters]

I noticed they moved that as well. First time I have seen a trip report placed there but I'm not really surprised by it. Money talks.

I don't know about that. I think a mod may have read it, and the back and forth and found it to be an appropriate location. Now if we were on a site like ar15.com I would agree. LOL


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[Shasta_man]

Agreed on the extraordinary service by the Damai (particularly in the situation described), and a great bar to set but technically Damai does charge considerably more so that sort of bar would be difficult for Dancer to hit, but your point remains the same.

 

[BubbleBlocker]

I don't know about that. I think a mod may have read it, and the back and forth and found it to be an appropriate location. Now if we were on a site like ar15.com I would agree. LOL


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IMNSHO, the trip report from the 12 of us on the June trip was buried in "Whine & Cheeze" specifically and solely to try to bury it. Kind of like closing the barn door after the horses have left, but whatever. The initial report was an unbiased trip report, stating facts experienced by the 12 charterers on the boat, and including photos (both underwater and of the boat, etc.). If a particular mod had an issue with the "back and forth" he/she could have very easily eliminated those comments. What they did instead appeared solely as heavy handed bias toward an advertiser, vs. allowing a reporting of the facts about the trip. It really doesn't surprise me that ScubaBoard chose this route. I'm sure they were in an uncomfortable position. At least the results will come up in any search anyone does on this operation so it doesn't really matter where they try to bury it.

 

[theduckguru]

The first liveaboard I booked cancelled on me and made me whole including the airfare. An unbelievably responsible company, so never say never.

Itoosilly, I understand your disappointment at the last minute cancellation. The moment a deposit is paid to an operator, a contract comes into force, the terms of which the payee would be wise to become familiar with, particularly as these vary from one operator to the next. You learned the conditions imposed in regards to guest cancellations and accepted these, but did you request clarification of the parallel operator-cancellation policies? If you paid your deposit to the agent and then your agent paid it forward, your contract isn't even with the operator, but rather with the agency, and in this case you need to review what their refund policies stipulate (they are sometimes different from those of the boat operator); when an agent books for a client, the boat operator's contract is with the agent and not with the diver, so it's the agency's policies that will apply in such a case. Furthermore, operators typically invoke a "force majeure" clause so that it's sometimes the case that there is no refund at all, not even a partial one, if a cruise is cancelled due to unexpected mechanical failures or other contretemps.

Because cancellations do sometimes become necessary, I always recommend buying trip insurance. This protects the traveler from losing money on a missed trip regardless of whether the source of the cancellation is with the traveler or with the operator. Just in the past couple of months I've had liveaboard cancellations for a number of reasons: one diver broke his leg in an accident, so both he and his wife had to cancel; one contracted dengue fever; one had a work crisis and had to fly to London to resolve it, so he and his wife canceled; one group of three had an operator cancellation due to a mechanical failure of the boat; one got spooked about a news story in his destination and canceled; and so on. Of all of the cancellations I've dealt with over the past couple of months, only one client followed my advice to buy trip insurance, and he got all his money back, including airfare, hotel deposits, etc. One lost 60% of what he paid to me, and the 40% I was able to return to him included my entire commission, and he lost additional money on airfares.

My point (without blaming nor defending this particular operator) is that any customer who gets 100% back without insurance covering some part of the loss is going to get the agent's commission as well. The operator isn't going to give back more than they got, at least not without a court judgment ordering them to do so, regardless of what any individual customer feels he has a moral right to expect.

 

[shmuggy]

Has anyone heard if the Carib Dancer is going out tomorrow?