Waverley Excursions, what a shambles

We just had a holiday in Belfast and there were a bunch of tall ships there making a big stir. We booked on a Waverley Excursions cruise that was meanrt to accompany them as they sailed out of harvour, promising pole position to view them under full sail, rather than competing with the tens of thousands on the shore. On the day, we headed out very early to ensure a decent parking space in the small town of Donaghadee before the rush. Later we discovered that they had cancelled the cruise, leaving messages on our home phones well over an hour after we had left. It took ages to find out what had happened, but they claim the captain had decided the weather was too bad and the ship couldn't sail safely. To which claim I am extremely skeptical indeed. The sea was very smooth, not just in harbour, but along the rest of the shore. Their ship, the Balmoral, was highlighted in a press article later as being the only one that hadn't sailed that day. So either their captain isn't much of a sailor, or is unusually timid, or has very poor judgement, or more than likely, the company hadn't got enough bookings to make it worth their while so just tried to fob everyone off with a silly excuse and refund their cash. Given the time we'd invested, and the fact that we had missed out not just on the special day, we were of course too late to get a good position elsewhere to watch, so simply returning the fare is woefully inadequate. Such bad behaviour should be dealt with by awarding punitive compensation to everyone who was inconvenienced. Just returning cash means they suffered nothing and are free to do the same thing again and again. If you're reading this, don't even think of booking with Waverley Excursions. They might let you down just as badly, with no compensation for your inconvenience at all beyond a straight refund. There are good companies and bad companies, and Waverley have proved to be very firmly in the latter camp.

This morning I read that Eurotunnel's just had a breakdown leaving hundreds of passengers mid channel, in the dark, with no air conditioning, for 6 hours, with several people fainting. Their response: a refund, and vouchers for future trips. Slightly better than Waverley, but still far short of what would be honourable.