What would you do? AITA?

[rjack321]

This is getting surprisingly heated. Accusations of tax fraud was not on my bingo card. I mean, in all seriousness, I think most of us would agree that asking about a refund would be totally fine, and nobody here seems terribly obsessive (like, to the point of filing a lawsuit) over not getting a refund. At minimum, can we all agree that a person would not be unreasonable to not return to a dive operator who canceled a trip without a refund? After all, even if there are no hard feelings, as a diver, you'd really prefer to get what you paid for, so why return to someone who, for whatever reason, took your money and did not deliver?

Some of us fully accept that refunds are provided when the weather, boat, staffing or otherwise prevent the "boat leaving the dock". Once the boat leaves the dock then your fees are sunk. So it never even occurs to me to ask for a refund.

But this is also contingent on skippers not taking advantage of this mutual understanding and leaving the dock knowing full well conditions suck. If they are just trying to game the expectations and get paid for untying and starting the boat, then I wouldn't book with them in the first place. This seems to be a problem unique to FL charters honestly - and since I refuse to give anyone in FL any of my tourist dollars, the trash has taken itself out and this is purely an academic argument for me.

 

[Bubblesong]

Financial policies affect behavior. A captain that stresses about giving refunds (given nobody is refunding his fuel costs), is less likely to act quickly to take your sick looking butt back to the doc. The diver on a budget that can’t get refunds is less likely to call a dive they feel uncomfortable with.
Safety equipment costs money to maintain, so stingy guests get shoestring operations. Well maintained boats are not going to be the bargain hunters dream.
And finally, stingy guests on safety-shirking boats are the ones bringing the cheap chinese batteries that catch fire. The Californian Scuba Horror Liveaboard boat was the best deal around, until it wasn’t.

 

[girlwithbigtanks]

Eat it. It could be you. Dive another day. No big deal. Ive called dives because my buddy woke up with a blocked ear and i wasn’t willing to join another team. It was a hard to access dive. Tides. Weather. The right buddy. I’ve refused to jump because the boat was a complete **** show. Didn’t ask for money back. Will never book again.