Cancellation Policy

Diving / Snorkeling

Diving (snorkeling) trips and certification courses may be cancelled or rescheduled due to the weather conditions that are not suitable for marine sports activities, such as high waves and strong winds. Dive sites are picked daily based on weather and ocean conditions, your safety and the safety of our staff is paramount in our operation.  If your requested dive site is unavailable due to weather we will do our best to find a suitable alternative for you.

Our diving instructors / dive masters / boat captain make decision about the selection of the dive sites and/or cancellation of the diving trips. In making decisions, we regard yours and our own safety as the most important.

-Boat Diving Trips

When the waves are or become bigger than 2.0m, we may cancel our boat trips or return to the nearest port. For instance, we may change the diving sites from the Keramas to closer to the Okinawa islands (Chiibishi or Ginowan reef) or to shore diving.

-Certification Courses

If the weather condition does not allow us to have calm shallow water, we may use a pool designed for diving training for your Confined Water training sessions. If the ocean conditions are not good enough for Open Water training, your training dives will be rescheduled.

Refund Policy

Cancellation due to the weather condition or mechanical reasons that the boat does not leave port – full refund

Decisions on weather conditions and safety of the boat are at the sole discretion of the captain. Weather conditions that may cause cancellation- waves over 2.0 meters, typhoons, severe weather warning forecast.

For circumstances beyond the customers control such as canceled or delayed flights an attempt to reschedule will be made and if impossible a refund will be issued.

Depending on when you make the cancellation, the following cancellation fee will apply for all courses and dive tours.  Cancellation fees for hotels and airlines vary so if booking an all inclusive package of hotel and diving or hotel, airfare and diving separate rates apply for the hotel and airfare cancellations, please inquire for the exact policy when booking an all inclusive tour.

Dropping out

-Cancellation of multiple dives / trips
If you already paid for multiple dives for a day (2 dives, 3 dives) and decided to do less dives (at the dive site), you do not get refund.

The same policy listed above (the table) will apply to your cancellation of a part of multiple days of diving.]

-Certification Courses
We do not refund your course fee if you decided to drop out from your certification course after it has started.  Dropping the course before it starts is subject to the above listed refund policy.  When paying for a course you do not pay for certification, you pay for training- you must meet the requirements for your particular course to earn certification.  It is possible to fail a course; failure does not qualify you for a refund.

Your instructor will determine if you can get certified or not, judging how you are meeting the requirements for your particular course (skill demonstration, comfort level in the water, and total dive skills) and your score on written examination and quizzes.

If you do not follow your instructors’ directions, or if you cannot successfully demonstrate the skills that meet the requirement, you may not get certified.  If you disagree with your instructor’s evaluation of your diving skills you can request a reevaluation by the Training Director or another Reef Encounters instructor.  All students who do not earn certification in a course will be provided with a written explanation of why they were not certified.