Whaleshark Tour Swim Guarantee!
Whaleshark Tour Swim Guarantee!
We are a very small family business, working in a very seasonal tourism atmosphere.
Logistics are tough, running costs expensive and to survive we need to have some important policies.
We love the ocean and our unique location and we want to be here, now and in the future, to show you our wonderful backyard.
Please be Courteous and patient as we have to deal with slow internet, bad mobile phone coverage and juggling bookings to help make your holiday great.
We have a Zero Tolerance for aggressive behaviour toward our staff, a smile goes a lot further and we will be happy to help out wherever we can 🙂
All enquiries for Exmouth Dive & Whalesharks Ningaloo can be made via the email address below.
You can make payments by calling the store on (08) 9949 1201 with your credit card details, or by emailing or on a payment request form, using your MasterCard or Visa details to us on [email protected] for ALL of your bookings.
When booking, please complete the booking form with the correct itinerary, your Visa, MasterCard or AMEX details, names of divers/snorkellers, diver details and the amount to be charged.
Please note that bookings made with a credit card attract a 2% surcharge.
No bookings are confirmed until a deposit of $100 per person per tour is made (or $200 for a Course). Full payment is due 14 days prior to your first booked tour date.
CANCELLATIONS
Cancellations polices are set out as below but not limited to just these policies & will be adjusted regularly to suit changes in global circumstances and are therefore at the discretion of the company within reason.
Cancellations for up to & including 3 passenger bookings – Cancellations Must be made not less than 96 hours (4 days) in advance to receive a full refund. Cancellations made less than 96 hours (4days) will forfeit any Refunds. Any Date changes are subject to availability and must be made not less than 72 hours in advance, future refunds are then not permitted on any cancellations.
Cancellations for Group Bookings of 4 or more passengers – Cancellations Must be made not less than 7 days in advance to receive a full refund. Cancellations less than 7 days Prior to tour will forfeit any deposits . Any Date changes are subject to availability and must be made not less than 96 hours in advance, future refunds are then not permitted on any cancellations.
EXCLUSIVE / PRIVATE CHARTERS:
Cancellations for Exclusive or Private Bookings – Cancellations Must be made not less than 30 days in advance to receive a full refund. Cancellations between 30 days & 7 days Prior to tour will forfeit any deposits . Date changes for exclusive tours are permitted with 30 or more days notice only. A 20% payment is due to confirm your exclusive tour and this is not refundable. The 20% payment is not transferable to any tour, course or goods except to another available exclusive tour date with at least 30 days notice, future deposit refunds are then not permitted on any cancellations. Final payment is due at least 14 days prior to your booked date. For exclusive charters involving scuba dives, it is your responsibility to ensure your divers have their certification cards and are current in their diving skills.
Covid 19 cancellation policies
For any Covid Positive testing & isolating requirements, the standard cancellation policies listed above apply, except:-
1). For up to & including 3 passenger bookings – where no less than 72 hours notification to us has occurred, a voucher will be issued for the value of the seat. No voucher will be issued for less than 72hrs notification prior to the tour start times, unless we can sell the seats.
2). For Group Bookings of 4 or more passengers- where no less than 96 hours notification to us has occurred, a voucher will be issued for the value of the seat. No voucher will be issued for less than 96 hrs notification prior to the tour start times .
3). For Exclusive or Private Bookings- where no less than 7 days notification to us has occurred, a voucher will be issued for the value of the seat. No voucher will be issued for less than 7 days notification prior to the tour start times .
RE-Scheduling of Tours & Courses by Customers:
Any re-scheduling requests by customers must be made by an acknowledged notification email from you to us, no less than 72 hours for up to 3 people or 96 hours for groups of over 3 people, before the start of the Tour or Course.
This however could involve a re-schedule fee. This will depend on the circumstances, as assessed by Exmouth Dive, to cover any losses and administration costs incurred. This fee will be no less than 20% of the tour or course value.
Wherever we can re-book seats to cover any cancellations or schedule changes, we will endeavour to do so.
If this occurs with seats re-booked, we will happily refund or waive any fees, with the exception of any third party costs, eg Padi theory links, or any other costs that are seen to be unrecoverable.
Gift Cards
For any Tours, Courses or as a monetary Value. These are valid for 3 years and are not transferable to another party and no refunds are available.
DSD (Discover Scuba Diving)
All & EACH of the Participants must read and answer the ‘Medical Questionnaire’ at time of booking and acknowledge they have answered ‘No’ to all Questions on the booking form ‘Check Box’before the day of the tour. ‘The Medical Questionnaire’.
A ‘Yes’ answer may definitely require clearance from a doctor before you can participate.
No refunds or monetary downgrades are possible on the day of the tour if you suddenly answer a ‘yes’ on the medical questionnaire. And it is the responsibility of the persons who book the DSD, to ensure every & each person in the party has completed the medical questionnaire prior to the date of the tour.
NOTE!! An additional form is to be actually filled out on the day of the tour with your Instructor, upon which if you suddenly answer ‘Yes’ will result in you not participating in the DSD, but you will become a snorkeller. No refunds or monetary downgrades are possible on the day of the tour if you suddenly answer ‘yes’ on the questionnaire .
Special additional considerations for all scuba and free dive courses:
Please plan extra time to complete your scuba and free dive course in case of delays to our diving schedule. We cannot under any circumstances provide a refund/partial refund due to delays in completing a course due to adverse/unsafe weather conditions or other factors beyond our control.
We will ONLY fully refund your scuba and free dive course, if you are permanently medically UN-FIT & provide a copy of your completed diving medical form signed by your doctor stating “PERMANENTLY UNFIT” no less than 1 week prior to the beginning of the first day of the course. Once the Course is scheduled to start less than 7 days prior to & or during the course, we will only look at a partially refund (This is purely at the discretion of Exmouth Dive) when you provide a diving medical form signed by your doctor stating “PERMANENTLY UNFIT” due to a physical condition that prevents you from continuing with your course.
If you decide that diving is not for you, or you cannot complete the skills, or are for any other reason, other than a physical condition signed off by a doctor as above, we do not offer any refunds.
Costs of Padi theory links are not refundable once activated.
Scuba and free dive medical information for Open Water Courses:
We strongly Insist that you Read ‘The Medical Questionnaire’. If you need a medical, you must obtain your diving medical to the Australian Standard 4005.1 Before you arrive in Exmouth for your Open Water Course. Only your doctor can determine if he/she can complete the medical to this standard. Medicals are NOT available in Exmouth. Our diving Centre has no control over availability or costing of scuba and free dive medicals and no course refunds will be given in the event medicals are not available or are deemed too expensive by the client.
Video & Picture transfers:
We will endeavour to have the Video & Pictures from the previous days tour available by 9am of the following day. This will take 15 minutes to upload to a USB, as they are high quality large files.
We accept no liability when copying to your USB, this is done at your own risk. You will require a minimum of 3GB of free space. We are not able to remove files or copy onto any other format or device, Phones or memory cards. A 8GB ‘whaleshark’ USB is available at our store . If you are unable to collect or wait for your USB, we can post it to you for the standard postal costs.
Unfortunately due to the file sizes of the video and slow speeds experienced in Exmouth, we are unable to upload over the internet.
Date changes for exclusive tours are permitted with 30 or more days notice only, any future deposit refunds are then not permitted on any cancellations. A 20% payment is due to confirm your exclusive tour and this is not refundable. The 20% payment is not transferable to any tour, course or goods except to another available exclusive tour date with at least 30 days notice. Final payment is due at least 14 days prior to your booked date. For exclusive charters involving scuba dives, it is your responsibility to ensure your divers have their certification cards and are current in their diving skills.
We reserve the right to alter Dive Site Locations or cancel specific dives/tours/courses without notice due to weather, sea conditions, minimum numbers or other factors. We always recommend that you travel with flexibility in your itinerary and with travel insurance – please contact your local travel agent for details on the best travel insurance for your travel needs.
Scuba and free dive Site Locations can change Due to Weather. We always Try to Anticipate Weather Conditions & May need to change schedules & dive locations to suit. No Refunds are available for dive site location changes. We will gladly refund the difference between Reef & Muiron Island trips, when these locations are changed.
Multiple Tour Discounts
This applies to Boat tours solely operated by Exmouth Dive. The offer of a discount package is for Multiple days of Boat tours booked at the same time for the same person. We offer 10% off the cheaper subsequent Boat tours booked for the same person when you book more than one tour. Example pay in full for a Whaleshark tour & get 10% off a Muiron Islands trip. These packages do not include Discover scuba dives, Scuba or Free Diving Courses, the Navy Pier or any other third party tours, eg yardie creek or Birdseye View tours.
Sea Sickness
It can happen to anyone on any tour. Please make sure you are prepared before your tour – it is too late once you are on the boat. As we are not a pharmacy we cannot sell medication. You can purchase anti-motion sickness tablets etc at Exmouth Pharmacy (9am-5pm most weekdays; closed Saturday afternoon & Sunday…check with them for complete opening times) and the Supermarket in Coral Bay. Exmouth Dive & Whalesharks Ningaloo, Exmouth, does not supply seasickness tablets. We cannot give refunds for sea sickness
Your Last Scuba and Free Dive
You will need to show your certification card for our tours. If you have not logged scuba and free dive within the last 12 months you may be required to do a refresher session with us before your tour. Please let us know at time of booking so we can arrange this for you. We reserve the right to refuse to let a diver who does not meet these requirements dive on a booked tour and no refund will be issued.
Diving in a buddy team without a guide: You may be able to scuba and free dive without a guide, in a buddy team, if the conditions permit. Each diver in an independent buddy team must have a suitable timing device, safety sausage and a surface noise maker.
Repeat policy for Exmouth Dive & Whalesharks Ningaloo’s Whale Shark Swim Tour Exmouth, Western Australia
Please see Whaleshark Good Swim Guarantee
We cannot guarantee sightings of any creature, nor do we control their behaviour, as they are all wild animals in their natural environment. In the unlikely event that no whale shark is sighted on your Deluxe Whale Shark Tour with Exmouth Dive & Whalesharks Ningaloo, we offer a no shark swim guarantee. This is explained below.
Every season for any Deluxe Whaleshark swim tour running from the 1st of March, or any Deluxe Mega Fauna swim tour running at any time of the year, where you don’t get to swim with just one of the big 3 (Whaleshark, Humpback or Manta Ray), we offer One 50% Off the price for a Repeat tour Voucher to each paying passenger to be taken within 3 years of issue.
Repeat tours are not transferable to another party/season/tour/location/and no refunds are available. Please note that availability for repeat tours may be limited – and are Not available during Easter and the Western Australian school holidays. Exmouth Dive & Whalesharks Ningaloo always recommends that you travel with some flexibility in your schedule and that you travel with travel insurance. A Free Video & Photos of your tour will only be available on your successful tour & will not be produced on a Non-sighting day.
Eco- Tours are an End of Season trip, that do not have any Guarantee of seeing or swimming with wildlife and do not offer any repeat voucher.
Humpback Whale Terms & Conditions & In-Water Interaction Guarantee
Please see Humpback Whale Swim Tours
On all humpback whale swims you will have a Maximum group size of 7 swimmers with a guide & Videographer in the water. If a suitable resting Whale is found we will spend time gaining the animals trust, which may take 30 minutes. When we find a whaleshark we will have groups of 10 passengers with a swim guide & videographer, able to swim with these magnificent fish.
All Video & photos from yours for Free! Just supply your own USB(Souvenir usb available at our store for a small fee).. For whalewatching, we can manoeuvre to within 100m of the whales. If the whale chooses to swim over to us – we will shut down the engines and enjoy the close interaction from the vessel. On whale swim tours – If the whale is very subtle, the boat will move within 75M of the whale, where the first group will enter the water 75M from the whale, we will then swim slowly toward the whale trying carefully not to splash or scare it, to within 30M. Should the Whale approach us we are allowed to get as close as 15M to the Whale. Should the Whale attempt to get closer we will swim away to maintain at least 15M of distance. This is an in-water experience that will give you the thrill of being close to such a large Mammal with surface views closer than you can imagine, with luck you may even see the whale under the surface. Entering the water for the purpose of swimming with a Whale, Whaleshark or Manta Ray, is considered a swim by definition, Dept. of Parks & Wildlife fee’s will be charged to Exmouth Dive & Whalesharks Ningaloo. Exmouth Dive & Whalesharks Ningaloo & Crew will at all times try to offer a safe enjoyable experience, where possible, but cannot guarantee a wild animal will want to interact with us.
We may consider at anytime the activity may become unsafe, where we will immediately recall all persons out of the water. At no time will we attempt to enter the water if there is a calf present. A calf by definition is a whale up to 1/2 the length of its mother and dependent on its mother. Minimum age of 13 years to swim with the humpback whale, you must be a comfortable, good snorkeller to participate, as this is an activity that requires good snorkel skills & involves serious distances to swim. A snorkel test will be conducted to ensure that swimmers meet minimum requirements as determined by the crew. This activity can be dangerous, whales are very large, unpredictable Mammals that could become aggressive if they feel threatened. They could move very quickly, faster than any human can swim. By participating in this tour you accept that the risks of swimming with a wild animal could be hazardous resulting in injury.
Conditions:
Now at 2 locations:13 Ross Street mall, Exmouth
Western Australia– Next to the Bakery
2 Pelias Street, Exmouth
Western Australia
