By Yacht Week
Posted on 22nd May 2020
It’s with the heaviest of hearts that we at The Yacht Week have decided to postpone all of our trips departing between and including Weeks 23 and 31 (30th May - 1st August) this year. This is not a decision we’d ever take lightly, so trust us when we say we’ve been working around the clock with our partners and local governments to review it from every possible angle before making it. While there are currently no local restrictions preventing us from running our events, it’s clear that postponement is necessary to ensure the safety and security of our guests, as well as to clear up any uncertainty you might have about your summer. The rest of the summer is under continuous review, and all travellers will be informed at least 30 days prior to their departure date should the status of their trip change. Please take some time to read through this and all FAQs before reaching out to our Customer Service team.
But don’t worry, you have options!
We are fully flexible, and you can move your booking to 2021 instead. If you can, drinks are on us!
Don’t want to sail next year? We can refund you the final instalment now.
The remaining 40% of your booking total is held by the charter company, so we are not able to refund this immediately. Please give us some time to retrieve this amount as we negotiate with our suppliers and partners.
In the meantime, we will offer you a Refund Credit Note. This is a protected credit held with us, which can be spent on a new trip or can be redeemed for a cash refund after 28th February 2021.
Talk to your crew and agree on what option suits you best (it’s a group decision!). If you need advice or help, chat to our Customer Service team!
We are sorry about all of this - hope to see you in the water next year!
Option 1
We still believe that the experiences we create are unlike anything else in the world, and we’d love nothing more than for you to join us later on in the season or in 2021. As part of our flexible booking commitment, you and your crew can reschedule your trip to a future date with no admin fees and our Customer Service team are on hand to walk you through the details. As our way of saying thanks for your continued faith in us and your support of the wider travel industry, drinks on your yacht for you and your crew, or for you and your cabin mate, will be on the house if you rebook before your original departure date.
Option 2
We know that organising a trip with your mates is tough at the best of times (just ask our Customer Service team), so we realise that your crew might be split on how to proceed. If your whole crew doesn’t wish to reschedule its booking, we can issue each of you with a refund credit note, which can be redeemed against the value of any The Yacht Week trip in the future. We have some incredible new routes lined up for 2021, and all 2020 guests will have priority access to these when we open bookings. What’s more, your Refund Credit Note won’t just be valid for The Yacht Week. If you want to swap the sea for the slopes and travel this winter check out The Ski Week.
Option 3
As much as we’d love for you to sail with us in the future, we understand that rescheduling is simply not an option for some of you. We’ve been working tirelessly behind the scenes with our suppliers, many of whom are in the same boat as us, to be able to offer you the following refund schedule:
The lead booker has been sent a form to fill out indicating how your crew would like to proceed, so all you need to do at this point is discuss things amongst yourselves. If your booking is between weeks 23-27 you have until 15th of May and if your booking is between weeks 28-31 you have until 5th of June to fill out the form.
While we wanted to give you as many options as we could, this does mean that each of your requests takes longer to fulfil, so we’d like to kindly ask for your patience while we process all of your responses. We’re sure that you have a tonne of questions that need answering, so take a look at the FAQs below that we think might help in the meantime. Of course, if you still need to speak to our Customer Service team to get some advice, then feel free to book a call with them to discuss what's best for you and your group.
We appreciate your patience on this while we work with all of our suppliers and charter companies to recover the funds paid.
Our mantra has always been unforgettable guest experiences, so it’s ironic that this summer is shaping up to be memorable for reasons no one saw coming. The word unprecedented has been tossed around a lot lately, but there really isn’t another word to describe the situation we’ve found ourselves in. Over the past 16 years we’ve had the privilege of taking more than 70,000 of you on some of the best weeks of our lives, and we’ve forged some incredible friendships and memories along the way. We hope more than anything that we can continue that tradition later on this summer as planned, but whatever happens, we fully intend to carry the torch onwards into 2021 and beyond.
We’d just like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to our community for rallying around us while we navigate this crisis - your messages of support have kept us going through the long hours in the (home) office, and shown that not only will we make it through this, we’ll bounce back bigger and better than ever. We hope you’ll choose to reschedule your booking and join us on the water next year, but no matter what, please know that you’ll always be a part of The Yacht Week family, and someday we’ll all dance again.