The canals are safe
A boating holiday is an open-air adventure. Our canals and rivers are uncrowded. You share the boat only with your bubble. You can bring food with you, or shop in small shops in small towns, or in supermarkets close to your boat. You do not have to mix with strangers on the towpath any more than if you went out for a walk at home.
Your health
We take every care to clean the boats so that they will be safe for our visitors. The virus does not like soap and water, so thorough cleaning is effective. We put cleaning materials on board, so that you can clean as you wish. If you want to clean anything again, as you get on board, we shall not be in the least offended. At the end of your holiday, please take extra care with cleaning the boat, particularly hard surfaces. We provide bedding, but if you prefer to bring your own, that’s fine – please let us know.
We have redesigned our handover system to preserve social distancing. We will make it as natural as possible. The show round of the boat will be via an ipad and we would encourage you to look at our individual short instruction movies on this website before arrival. Lock instruction may be a mixture. For each of these stages, we should like two of you to view the iPad. This should be the same pair throughout, and we ask them to pass everything they can on to other crew members. Wearing a mask is optional unless you have to visit our office.
If a member of your party shows Coronavirus symptoms during your trip, please follow government advice, and also let us know before you get back to the yard. We will work out with you what to do.
New bookings
If the epidemic re-strengthens so that it becomes clear that we cannot operate on a given date, we will offer to defer the holiday to later date, subject to availability. A new date must be set. We would retain the deposit against the future holiday. We will not charge a transfer fee. If the new dates have a different price, we will charge or refund as appropriate.
If we can operate but you don’t come
Depending on the reason, we will treat this differently.
1 If we can operate but you cannot come because one of your party contracts the virus and has been instructed not to travel by the medical profession (proof required), we will offer to defer.
2 If we can operate but you choose not to come for another reason, e.g. you prefer not to leave home, then we will defer or cancel retain your full hire fee.
3 If we can operate but you are unable to take your holiday for a ‘normal’ reason e.g. broken leg, then the normal cancellation procedure in Condition 5 will apply. You may lose part of your balance unless we are able to relet.
Holiday Insurance
If you already have holiday insurance, for example through a credit card or company scheme, then we would ask you first to claim through that insurance. We do not provide or sell cancellation insurance.