Cancellations are rare, but they do happen. The most common reasons are illnesses and personal injuries, but it could also be an act of God or even the loss of a relative, God forbid. Since we reserve the date just for you and also book a chauffeur and a vehicle for you, we must take into consideration the possibility of unforeseeable circumstances preventing you from being able to have the shore excursion. It goes without saying that one should always have a good travel insurance to cover possible expenses, especially for circumstances that are nobody's fault (regardless of how improbable that might seem).
Guiding is a very seasonal job and every day is significant - more than in a “normal" job that takes place all year round. And although the actual guiding is the most important aspect of our profession, it is not the only one: There's accounting, customer service on the phone and in emails, coordinating drivers, website maintenance, plain office work etc. In fact, the actual guiding makes about 40-50% of the work, so the whole operation only makes sense if we get to do the tour as planned.
Nevertheless: Whatever the reason is, we will accept your cancellation. Always. You won't need to convince us of anything. What's important to us, is that you let us know as soon as possible. Some people book us eight months in advance, others just two weeks before they come - yet the negative impact of a cancellation depends only on the time left for us to find other clients.
Having said that, we don't want to make you wait for your refund until we would get other clients, which might not even happen. Instead, we want you to get your refund even if we won't be able to find other clients after all. So ultimately, this is a question of probability: The more time we have, the higher the chance is that we could find someone else. That's why we think it's fair to both sides that the amount that we can refund will be relative to the time left between your cancellation and the date you booked - the more time, the higher the refund:
If you cancel more than four months before the tour, we will refund 80% of the total price.
If it's less than four months but more than three months: 70%
If it's less than three months but more than two months: 60%
If it's less than two months but more than a month: 50%
If it's less than a month but more than two weeks: 40%
If it's less than two weeks but more than a week: 30%
And finally, if it's less than a week but at least 48 hours before the tour, we will refund 10%.
Based on this, we can issue your refund regardless of whether or not we'll actually get another booking for the same date. So even if we won't find other clients, you will still get your refund.
To avoid any misunderstandings (specifically when some people in your group want to cancel, but others might not), please make sure to notify us about your cancellation with our online cancellation form. It's short, fast, and clear.
We hope you'll find this cancellation policy fair. It is our goal to make it as fair as possible for both sides. If you have any suggestions for improvement, please let us know.