Calypso Kayaking and Paddle Boards

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I have rented kayaks from Calypso on three occasions so far this year for my dive club (to clean-up our adopted spoil island in the Indian River). They have provided good quality rental boats/jackets/paddles at a fair price, and importantly, on-time. I've not yet had any issues with them regarding possible cancellations. If you are planning to rent anything from anybody, you should get that straight at the time you make the reservation. I'm comfortable recommending them to anyone!

We scheduled our family of 5 for the bioluminescence tour on a fabulously beautiful August evening. When we arrived, we got into our kayaks, then we were jovially informed that there was an alligator in the launching cove, 'But if you don't bother him, he won't bother you!'



My daughter became terrified and no longer wanted to go on the tour. She is already not fond of boats and she was really crying. After the entire family trying to calm her, I decided to send my husband and other two children on the tour and my daughter and I paddled back to shore before the tour started.



Phil's assistant was very sweet and tried to reassure my daughter that everything would be fine, when Phil came down, he saw us standing on the shore and said, "What's the problem, lets go."



My daughter was standing there crying, unbuckling her life jacket and I explained to Phil that she was scared of the alligator and no longer wanted to go. His response was to cop an attitude and make sure we knew, "There will be no refund, we have a strict 24 hour cancellation policy."



This threw me a bit, since I hadn't asked for anything at all, I would never force my daughter to do something she was genuinely fearful of (alligators are a good reason to be fearful) but he didn't stop there. He continued (with much attitude), "You know, I had other people who WANTED to go on this tour, I could have sold those seats, if I had known you were going to back out!"



He stomped and huffed, ordering his assistant/girlfriend around to get the dolly (to get the kayak back to the van) while repeatedly shooting me dirty looks. I stopped and let him know that he DID, in fact, sell those seats, since he was not giving us a refund. His response? "Yeah, Thanks!"



He made money on that kayak but that wasn't good enough.



Sadly for him, we are locals.



Also, sadly for him, our neighbors own a high end, oceanfront specialty resort in Cocoa Beach and had asked us for a review of the bioluminescence tour, hoping to send their guests his way.



Not a chance!



Regardless of how cool the tour is, you never get a second chance to make a first impression...and, when you are running a small business, you never know who you're doing business with...and who they do business with!



Also...there is no 24 hour cancellation policy on his website.