Dear Mary,
I am happy you enjoyed your time kayaking with us and I am incredibly sorry that your initial reservation was rescheduled due to high-risk weather conditions. Unfortunately, while Lake Tahoe is known for over 300 days of sunlight each year, the biggest threat to the clear kayaking on Lake Tahoe, is wind.
To clarify, Pam did not contact you to re-schedule. Our reservation team did. Pam simply reached out to help coordinate your arrival and make sure you found parking ok.
At Clearly Tahoe we make our best attempt to ensure our guests have the best possible experience and will reach out if we think your scheduled tour is at a high-risk of cancellation. If possible, will attempt to reschedule you for better conditions. In matter of fact, this is why many of our guests choose Clearly Tahoe.
While we may offer the opportunity to reschedule at no additional fee, it is always optional. If you preferred to keep your initial reservation, we would have gladly provided a full refund in the event of cancellation due to unfavorable weather conditions. We have never forced guests to reschedule in attempt to accommodate new reservations. We simply open additional availabilities when we have new reservation inquiries.
The winds on Lake Tahoe are known to change rapidly and sometimes without much notice. We generally recommend early mornings for glassy calm waters and lowest risk of cancellation. Afternoon experiences are always at a higher risk of cancellation due to wind.
When there is wind in the forecast the day of your scheduled tour, it can commonly change overnight for the better, or for the worst. Rather than cancelling tours completely, we will attempt to reschedule guests for a lower risk of cancellation. Otherwise, we provide a high-risk cancellation notice and await conditions. Any remaining space on high-risk tours is automatically closed and only re-opened IF, and ONLY IF, weather permits.
In this scenario, you choose the option to reschedule to an earlier time slot for better conditions and indeed, had much better conditions. Your original time slot was not re-opened until 10:12am the day of your scheduled tour. The guests that booked same day were warned at the time of reservation that their tour could get cut short due to afternoon wind conditions.
During the month of March, we experienced sudden high winds that resulted in the cancellation of 13 tours. Because of our due diligence, extra care and knowledge of wind patterns, we have been able to successfully reschedule more than 50% of those guests. We prioritize our already existing customers and have rescheduled hundreds of guests each year to help make their clear kayak experience possible.
While we are sorry that you were under the assumption that we contacted you to re-schedule for other reasons, I hope this explanation helps clarify the process and provides insight on the added time and consideration our team takes to ensure you have the best time on the water.
Please contact our reservation office at
[email protected] or (530)554-4664 with any additional questions you may have or for further clarification.