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Dear Jamie and David,

We pride ourselves on the fact that we are a highly reputable company and we provide the utmost in customer service. I am shocked by your “24/7?” comment as you know better than most that this is what we provide. From the hours upon hours invested on helping you plan your vacation to begin with, to 2 staff members working with you for 24 hours – literally from 7 in the morning until 11pm on your travel day and again the next day to include texting on one of our agents personal cell phones. This included rebooking your flights and convincing the airline to waive your fees when you were stuck in check-in lines at the airport to rebooking your prearranged massages when you arrived.

We were honest with you throughout the planning process and once you arrived and wanted to change things. We provided everything you initially requested, from hotels you personally selected to a liveaboard with space for you to jump-rope each morning. We did not disclose the dive schedule incorrectly. Before booking anything you were provided with a confirmation that stated the details of the itinerary including boarding was 6pm the first day (and therefore impossible to dive the first day on the boat) and that you would receive 5 ½ days of diving which is exactly what you received.

You approached us for hotel stays at the beginning and end of the trip as you wanted a “9 or 10 night vacation”- we never mentioned you needed to stay on island before and after whatsoever. We book many happy clients on the same liveaboard as you and are familiar with the schedule and routinely have divers fly in the day of the boat departure. While we certainly agree building a 1-night stay before a liveaboard is a good idea incase things go catastrophically wrong with your flights due to weather etc, we didn’t even get that far as you stated from the beginning that you wanted to extend your vacation each end. And we certainly don’t force our customers into $600-$1000 per night hotels!!

When you originally came to us, you actually were looking at a much higher hotel than you ended up in, and as you will recall, we advised you it had a minimum stay which it, as well as several other hotels we looked at, was enforcing at the time due to it being spring break and one of the heaviest travel times of the year. We also offered cheaper options which you declined as you did not like the online reviews. You personally handpicked the hotel you settled on after an exhaustive search on both our parts to meet your criteria, and you personally requested the concierge area, again basing your decisions on the online reviews rather than our recommendations. As with airfare, hotel room rates can change and we cannot help if hotels lift the minimum stay restriction that they had 3 months earlier because now a week before travel, they have empty rooms to fill which I am assuming happened here.

We attempted to help you in every way and despite the dozens upon dozens of written exchanges between us demonstrating this, you became accusatory and untruthful in what I can only assume was an attempt to get money back once on the island after finding a last minute deal.

As I had told you on the day you were attempting to cancel your stay (which you were advised before booking was completely non-refundable due to the cheaper rate you choose), we have zero control over a hotel’s reservation system. We do not have the ability to block a cancellation or change. Additionally after you telling us the hotel had stated you could get a refund despite what they had provided in writing, I called 3 different areas of the hotel to request a refund on your behalf and each department stated no one had advised you of this. When I then offered to get on the phone in a 3-way call with you and management at the same time to establish if they had indeed offered a refund and to demonstrate it was not us blocking anything you did not do so. I then recommended you get the name of the staff members at the desk on shift at the time you were advised this as apparently the one that had told you this had already gone home and you had not “caught their name”. To this I received no response back from you.

Despite our best efforts, things sometimes do go wrong and should we ever fall short in providing excellent customer service, we will do all we can to make it right. However in your case we stand by all that we did and if you take the time to review all of our correspondences over the past 4 months as I have asked you multiple times to do, I don’t understand how anyone could conclude any differently. I wish you all the best on wherever your future travels take you.

Deep Blue Adventures commented on 04/09/2016