Cancellation Fees on Buccaneer Stingray City Excursion

[denvergirl]

I just had a bad experience with these people and was very disappointed. On April 29, I booked my husband and I onto their 3 hour excursion which goes 10:00 am to 1 pm on June 2.

 

Subsequently, after doing more research and reading your posts, I realized we would be better off taking an excursion that left earlier in the morning, was smaller, and was not a cash bar boat.

 

So I e-mailed them at Grand Cayman Cruise Excursions Reservations Dept on May 4 to cancel. They responded promptly but refused to refund me the 20% deposit they had charged to my credit card, saying that their policy is that they only refund deposits when they cancel or when we can't take the excursion due to changes in our cruise ship's schedules.

 

I thought, since I was cancelling promptly, in good faith, almost a month ahead of time, this was a poor customer service policy. So I told them this, and they e-mailed me back a long explanation about how they do this because people often reservation shop,make 5 reservations, then cancel 4 of them at the last minute, depriving other interested cruise passengers of those spots on their limited capacity boat.

 

So, I'm thinking, I can understand their perspective until this guy adds in his May 6 response "The excursion you reserved has been sold out for the past four weeks..." HUH? I just booked it a week ago on April 29!

 

Anyway, I don't recommend doing business with them esp. since I have booked excursions on other vessels in Cayman and in Key West which do not require non-refundable 20% deposits upfront.

[kammer]

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience with them. My sister and I took this excursion on 4/29. We had a good time. Not only were we one of the smaller boats at StingRay city, we had an awesome guide Asta who made sure that everyone (who wanted to) got to hold the Stingray and he took pictures for us with our cameras. There was also a videographer on board who took video of us at all three stops and let us preview the video on the way back (while the sail was up on the Catermeran). She was taking the video back to the studio and going to put caribbean music in the background. Yes, it was an additional fee, but I feel well worth it. Also, because of an "accident" on board the boat and minor delays due to construction, we were running behind schedule to get back to the ship and Capt. Bryan drove us directly back to the dock with plenty of time to spare. I enjoyed the excursion and would do it again.

 

Karen

[Kirasha]

Did you ask what their cancellation policy was before you paid them? If they told you one thing and did another, I would be angry too, but if you did not ask...well, sorry to say, but I would be angry at myself, not them.

[gfkr2]

Something stinks...I side with the original poster-- do not do business with Grand Caymen Excursions. I booked with GCE only to find out the Buccaneer was full on my port date. They never had the decency to tell me this fact and I show up expecting to have a reservation of 4. A very painful lesson .