Skydive Cairns — Attraction in Cairns City

We booked Skydive Cairns prior to leaving UK to visit several parts of Australia, but our highlight of the trip was supposed to be the Skydive Cairns experience. This was something both me and my wife were looking forward to, as it was a birthday treat for both of us as we were in Australia celebrating our birthdays. Our experience was ruined when we were waiting at the hotel lobby to find no sign of our transfer (arranged by Skydive Cairns) to take us to the Skydive Cairns office. Only when we rang them we found out that they decided to cancel our skydive as they wanted a min 3 people before taking a plane up to Skydive(We were never told prior to booking or infact up until the morning of the Skydive that the dive was subject to a minimum of 3 participants, had we known, we could have planned our trip to Cairns much better instead of planning everything around the Skydive Cairns experience). We decided to go to their office to speak to them direct as its difficult to discuss these issues over the phone. Upon arriving we found out that they sent 2 other planes up that morning with 8 people on each taking part in the Skydive Cairns experience. We explained to Chantel that we came all the way from the UK looking forward to Skydiving over Cairns, why did she not split the group up to allow 3 planes to go up if there policy is min 3 people to fly?? Chantel was highly unhelpful and simply kept repeating "Sorry minimum 3 people to fly", it was as though I was talking to a brick wall. After much arguing we finally managed to go up on a plane to Skydive, but by then our mood was already dampened due to the increased stress and frustration caused by the Skydive Cairns team.

Upon returning to the UK we emailed Melanie Warrilow, who is the manager of Skydive Cairns, who responded with "I have spoken to both Chantel and Alicia who were both on that day and as can be expected their version of events is quite different to yours"! Pretty much accusing our version of events to be fictional?? We replied back asking her to clarify this point to explain how the version of events differ? To which she responded with "I have no desire to argue with you".

Overall I have found the service levels within this company appalling and I would not recommend anybody to use this company again! My last Skydive experience prior to this was in Dubai over the Palm, comparing the two is not even possible, Skydive Cairns does not even come close to the high levels of service...

Booked last minute last night on their available time slot for 10:30am. I woke up early to check pickup arrangements at 8am only to see they tried to move me to 6AM!! Apparently if no one else books they won't take you skydiving. They act like they don't make enough money or something. Not only this, I called immediately when I saw that and the girl on the phone said "if you're ready in the next 20 our driver will be there to pick you up." I said I could get my own uber too. I change and stand outside in the hot sun only for no one to show up. I call back and she said the driver can't make it to me. Like girl, I said I could get my own ride and she should have checked before letting me jump up and get ready in an outfit I would not even be wearing for the day otherwise. What a waste of my time. Not only that it's going to take up to 14 days to get my refund. I have the money to do other things in the meantime but other people might not so it's extremely unprofessional. I read their booking page before writing this to see if they say they might change it like this on you and they don't. When I realized no one was coming for me I called her and she said "well we have the right to change it up to 4 hours in advance." If it would have said that I would have been up 4 hours in advance no problem but it doesn't say that. They need to add that online bc that's not cool. So disappointing! I could have booked another thing for today but now it's too late. Like this is...

Booked into Skydive Cairns and the day before we get a call saying they need to move our session from the afternoon to the morning.

I had already booked another event in the morning so couldn’t change my booking so I said we would just have to cancel. When I said this, they said I couldn’t get a refund because it was less than 24hr notice. So they call me to reschedule to a time I wasn’t available and I lose my money?!?!?

The reason they gave us was that it was going to be too windy in the afternoon but I checked the weather report and the wind was actually going to be less windy in the afternoon than the morning. Since I knew my rights, I threaten to make a complaint to the office of fair trading and suddenly they backed off. Told me it was ok and I could keep my afternoon appointment.

We went in the afternoon and upon arrival found out another group was forced to move their booking to the afternoon “due to wind”. Basically they didn’t want to do two flights in a day for two small groups and wanted to combine the groups to save money. That’s not a problem but don’t be dodgy and threaten to take my money cause you want to increase your profit margin. I can only imagine how many tourists they ripped off because they didn’t know their rights.

The experience and instructors were great but the ownership and management use dodgy practices to...