Cancellation & Refund Policy

The rest of this document explains how to cancel, the situations the table does not cover, and how the money actually reaches you.

When you book, we set aside a vehicle and a driver for your day and turn away other work for it. A cancellation close to the start time cannot be filled, and the cost is already incurred. That is the whole reason for a charge, and it is why the charge falls away entirely when you give us enough notice to use the day differently.

We would rather move your date than keep your money. If your plans change, ask about clause 5 before you ask about clause 4.

1. 3.1Message or call +91 89764 23389, or write to contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com.
2. 3.2Quote your pass number — the MTD-XXX-0000-00 reference on your voucher and ticket — and the date of travel.
3. 3.3Wait for our acknowledgement. We will confirm the cancellation in writing and tell you the charge, if any, and what will be refunded.

If you have not had an acknowledgement from us within a few hours, assume your message did not arrive and call.

4.1 · More than 12 hours before pickup — no charge

Cancel with more than 12 hours to go and you pay nothing. Any amount you have already paid, including an advance, is refunded in full.

4.2 · Within 12 hours of pickup — 50%

Inside 12 hours, 50% of the total booking value is payable, and we refund the balance. By that point the vehicle and driver are committed to your morning and the day cannot be re-sold.

4.3 · No-show — no refund

If nobody is at the pickup point and we cannot reach you on the number you gave us, your driver will wait and keep trying for 45 minutes from the agreed pickup time. After that the booking is treated as a no-show and no refund is due.

This is avoidable and we would much rather avoid it. Give us a number that will be answered at 5 AM, and if you are running late, a single message keeps the booking alive.

4.4 · Bookings you cancel before we confirm

Nothing is payable. An enquiry is not a booking; if we have not sent you a confirmation and a pass number, there is nothing to cancel and nothing to pay.

Rescheduling is almost always the better answer, and usually free.

• More than 12 hours' notice: we will move your booking to another date once, at no charge, subject to a vehicle being available on the new date.
• A second change, or a change made inside 12 hours, is treated as a cancellation and a fresh booking, with clause 4 applying to the original.
• Festival dates. If you move onto a date where our rates are higher, you pay the difference. If you move off one onto an ordinary date, we refund the difference.
• Availability is real. Especially in festival season, the date you want may be full. We will offer you the nearest we can, and if nothing works you may cancel instead under clause 4 as though you were cancelling at the time you first asked to move.

A rescheduled booking keeps its pass number, and we reissue the voucher.

Fares are per person and assume four or more guests. If your headcount falls, tell us as soon as you know.

• Still four or more: you simply pay for the guests travelling. There is no charge for the ones who dropped out.
• Below four: the per-person fare no longer applies, because the vehicle and driver cost the same. We will re-quote, and you are free to accept the new figure, change the package, or cancel under clause 4.
• A drop announced at the pickup: we will travel and charge the confirmed total for that day, since there is no longer time to re-plan. Tell us the evening before and we will re-quote instead.

Nobody is charged for a guest who falls ill at the last moment on a booking of four or more. Just tell us.

We very rarely cancel, but it happens — a vehicle failure with no replacement available, a driver taken ill at short notice, a road or a route that has become unsafe.

Where we cancel, you choose:

1. 7.1A full refund of everything you have paid, with no deduction of any kind; or
2. 7.2an alternative date that suits you, at the price originally confirmed even if our rates have since changed.

Where we can, we will offer a substitute vehicle or a later start on the same day first, and it is entirely your choice whether to accept it.

Sometimes neither of us is at fault: a bandh or strike, a curfew or civil disturbance, an order from an authority, a public-health restriction, extreme monsoon rain or flooding, a cyclone, a highway closure, an accident blocking the route, or a fire or act of God.

We will not leave you out of pocket for a day we could not deliver. Equally, we cannot pay for losses beyond the tour fare itself, and we will not pretend an event was our fault when it was not.

Monsoon season deserves a specific word: we operate through it, and a wet morning is not a cancellation. Genuine flooding that makes the route unsafe is, and we will tell you the evening before wherever we can see it coming.

Temples are administered by their own trusts. They set their timings, they close for rituals, and they occasionally close or restrict entry with no notice at all. This is outside our control, and clause 5 of the Terms & Conditions explains why.

9.1 · A temple is closed or unreachable

We will substitute a comparable shrine, or extend the time you spend at the others, and your driver-guide will discuss it with you at the time. No refund arises from a single substitution: the vehicle, the driver and the day are unaffected, and you have not lost the thing you paid us for.

9.2 · The queue is long on the day

A long wait is not a service failure and is not a ground for a refund. We do not sell queue priority, we cannot shorten a queue, and we tell you before you book what your chosen date is likely to be like — Tuesdays at Siddhivinayak, Angarki Chaturthi, Ganesh Chaturthi and Navratri are busy from before dawn, and we say so.

What you may fairly hold us to is the planning: an early start, a sensible sequence, the vehicle waiting between shrines, and honest advice beforehand. If we got that wrong, say so and we will look at it properly.

9.3 · Temple fees and official passes

Temple entry fees, special darshan fees, official passes such as the Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust's darshan and aarti tickets, and pooja bookings made on a temple's own portal are not ours to refund. They are bought from the trust, on the trust's terms. We will help you approach the trust, but we cannot return money we never received.

• You start late. A late start shortens the day. We will do what we can, but a stop may have to be dropped and no refund arises for it. The tour does not extend to make up time lost at the beginning.
• You decide to end early. If you choose to finish before the itinerary does — you are tired, you have somewhere to be — we will happily take you home, and no refund is due for the part you chose not to use.
• You skip a stop. Deciding on the day not to visit one of the shrines is entirely yours to make, and does not reduce the fare.
• We end the tour because of conduct that is unlawful, abusive, threatening or unsafe, as clause 11 of the Terms & Conditions permits. No refund is due, and we will explain the decision in writing if you ask.

Temples enforce their own dress codes and their own restrictions, and their staff decide who comes in. Entry may be refused for uncovered shoulders or knees, for footwear, for a bag or a camera, or for conduct inside the shrine.

That decision is the temple's, not ours, and no refund arises from it. We tell you the dress code before you travel precisely so that it does not happen: modest clothing covering shoulders and knees, and footwear you can slip off easily.

Where a guest is refused entry we will wait, help where we can, and carry on with the rest of your day.

These are long days, 240 km each way to Shirdi and 150 km to Pune, and they carry a little more risk of disruption.

• Cancellation charges are the same as for any other booking — clause 4 applies unchanged.
• A highway closure or blockage discovered before departure is handled under clause 8: reschedule or full refund.
• If we have to turn back partway because the route has become impassable, we refund a fair proportion of the fare, or credit it against another date.
• Return times are estimates. Shirdi is 14 to 16 hours door to door and Pune around 12; arriving later than estimated is not a refundable event. Do not book a flight or a train for the same night.
• Lunch, personal expenses, prasad, donations and the optional Sansthan darshan or aarti passes are not included, and nothing about them is refundable by us.

• Where: back to the source of the payment. A UPI payment returns to the same UPI identity; a bank transfer to the same account. Because cash cannot sensibly be returned by post, a cash payment is refunded by UPI or bank transfer to details you give us.
• When: we initiate the refund within 3 working days of confirming the cancellation, and it should reach you within 7 working days. Bank timelines are then out of our hands, and we will give you the transaction reference so you can trace it.
• Who pays the charges: we do. Any transfer fee comes out of our side, not out of your refund. You receive the full amount due.
• To whom: the person who paid, and nobody else. We will not redirect a refund to a third party without written confirmation from the payer.

Some money never reaches us, and we cannot return what we did not receive:

• official temple fees, darshan passes, aarti tickets and pooja bookings paid to a temple trust, refundable only on that trust's terms;
• hotel bookings made at your request, refundable only on that hotel's terms — which we will tell you before booking;
• a third party's charges for anything you asked us to arrange, where that provider has already incurred them;
• payment-app or bank charges on your original payment, where your provider levies one.

We will always tell you what part of a total falls into this category before you commit to it, and we will help you ask the provider directly.

We may set off against a refund only:

• the cancellation charge properly due under clause 4;
• the actual cost of repairing deliberate or reckless damage to a vehicle, or of professional cleaning where it has been soiled beyond ordinary use — at cost, with the invoice shown to you;
• a fine or penalty incurred because of something a guest did.

Nothing else. We do not charge administration fees, processing fees or handling charges on a refund.

Tell us within 14 days of the tour or the cancellation, while everyone still remembers the detail. Send your pass number, what you think should have happened, and anything supporting it.

If something has gone wrong, tell us first and give us a chance to put it right. Most complaints are resolved the same day on WhatsApp, and we would far rather fix a problem than defend one.

How to raise a complaint

1. 16.1Message or call +91 89764 23389, or email contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com, with the words "Complaint" or "Grievance" in your message.
2. 16.2Tell us your pass number (printed on your darshan ticket, in the form MTD-XXX-0000-00), the date of travel, and what went wrong.
3. 16.3We will acknowledge your complaint within 48 hours and give you a reference for it.
4. 16.4We will investigate and give you our decision, in writing if you ask for it, within 30 days of receiving the complaint.

If you are not satisfied with our response

You are free to escalate. Nothing in our policies takes away your right to approach a consumer forum under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, including the online portal of the National Consumer Helpline. For a complaint specifically about how we have handled your personal data, you may escalate to the Data Protection Board of India after first raising it with us, as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 requires.

Whichever of these documents your question is about, the fastest route to an answer is WhatsApp. We answer messages every day of the week, and usually within minutes.

Bookings and WhatsApp

+91 89764 23389

Tours and support

+91 79001 77209 · +91 90041 04537

Email

contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com

Website

mumbaitempledarshan.com

Hours

Tours daily 5:00 AM – 9:00 PM · WhatsApp answered every day

Operating base

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Our full registered address is available on request — ask on WhatsApp or by email and we will send it to you. If you need to serve a formal notice, please request it in writing at contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com so that we can confirm the correct address for service.