Jagalchi Cruise cancellation Experience, Busan

Jagalchi market in Busan has a cruise option. The 90 minute cruise takes us for a ride along the Busan coast, costs around 25000 KRW (1600 INR) and felt like a good option to spend some time and see Busan from the ocean.

However we made a mistake not going for the Jagalchi cruise on a weekend. We reached the entry point on Monday morning 10.30 AM for the 11 AM cruise. However we were told the cruise will NOT operate unless 30 tickets are sold. As of that moment only 7 tickets were sold. Many people walked in but went away after knowing that the cruise is not certain to operate. If the ticket counter staff had accepted money and issued tickets to everyone, maybe they could have reached 20-25 pax easily, but because they expressed uncertainty, many went away.

We roamed around, waited for another 20 minutes to see if they would get more customers and operate-but eventually we were told cruises would NOT operate in the morning. They have a second cruise at 2PM, which was also not certain.

So this is the risk we’ll have to factor. During off season, during weekdays, operators may not run certain services if their cost of running the service can’t be recovered due to low patronage. For cruises, weather is also a factor, though the weather was fine during our visit.

Cruise operators could have planned some contingency- like say keep a smaller 10-15 seater boat in case fewer tickets get sold. Of course very easy for us to say. They will have their own costing, effort and other reasons.

In a way it was good we didn’t book a ticket online. Online portals happily take money without explaining the complexities and any cancellation, refund, rescheduling will be made complex due to complicated rules, attempt to extract as much money as possible from customers and other reasons. Often websites try to refund in credit points instead of cash or only give a reschedule option trying to retain you as a customer and hold on to the money.

This kind of situation often arises during travel- a destination or attraction may be closed or under maintenance or partially accessible. Weather may play spoilsport or you may not get a ticket due to overbooking. Always have a plan B, find something else to explore nearby and move on. If booking online, do check cancellation & refund rules.

We went to explore a hilltop near Jagalchi market to explore. Will explain in a separate post.