Weather can impact any ocean going tour in many ways. We can, and often do, head out in light rain and wind on some of our activities. After all, we’re going on adventures! However, if the weather makes for unsafe or very uncomfortable conditions, the trip will be changed or postponed. Our vessel is designed to be comfortable. Unpleasant or uncomfortable conditions are not what we want to subject our guests to at all.
Light rain is seldom an issue, but wind generally creates swell, which will combine to unsuitable and unsafe conditions at sea.
You will be notified the day before your trip if there are changes due to weather. As much as we would like to give more notice, marine weather is fickle at best, and forecasts change on a daily (sometime hourly) basis. You can always keep an eye on the forecasts weather on the Sunshine Coast Seabreeze weather page.
Weather has other impacts as well. It can change the location we go whale watching for instance. For instance, we may have hoped to head North towards Coolum on a particular day (We get regular calls regarding sightings there during the season), but as we head out find that the swell, wind, rain or a combination of any of those, makes that impossible. The skipper will make a call at the time on alternative locations, or in the worst case to turn around and cancel the trip altogether. And of course sometimes the conditions change or worsen unexpectedly. This may cause a trip to be shortened for safety reasons. These situations are rare, but can and do happen when the BOM gets the forecasts wrong.
Heading to different locations than those originally planned – brought on by weather conditions or other reasons – is NOT a reason for a refund. If the trip turns around without any whale watching happening you will be given the choice of an alternative trip or a refund. If the trip is shortened by 20% or more, we will be happy to discuss a suitable discount on another trip to offset this unfortunate occurrence. Unfortunately, as our costs do not change regardless of the shortening of the trip in this sort of situation, we cannot offer refunds or discounts for trips shortened less than 20% though conditions or situations that are out of our control.
