09 Sep 2024
We'd booked the 5.30 tour on Sunday September 8th through TripAdvisor. These tickets had been confirmed and charged by the organiser.
We had arrived 15 minutes early, as instructed, only to find nobody there. Now, we had seen that there had been a storm forecast for that evening, but if there had been a cancellation due to bad weather, they would've notified us sooner, as per their own guidelines.
What bothered me most about this whole ordeal, was us spending the next 15 minutes dialling every phone number listed in the ad and visiting both mobile websites of Emilio Excursions (one of which said they were on holiday), without getting a single response.
Eventually my wife managed to get a refund sorted through chatting with TripAdvisor customer service, and we'd received refund confirmation before we even walked away from the boat.
A few hours(!) later we received a message from Emilio Excursions that the trip had been cancelled that morning due to weather conditions, apologising that this message had not reached us.
I understand that things can get lost in spam folders or that one might make a typo in an email address, but you might have wanted to make sure that I'd have received the cancellation by calling or texting me using the phone number I had also provided.
Overall, I'm sure all the rave reviews these people have are valid, but the way this was handled was poor to say the least, and would have put quite a damper on the end of our holiday had it not been for the incredibly friendly boat tour guide next door, who offered us a private boat trip for the same price.
Go to Flipper Pula!