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 money is already spent. That is the whole reason for a charge, and it is why the charge disappears completely 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 us to reply. We will confirm the cancellation in writing and tell you the charge, if any, and what will be refunded.

If you have not heard back 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 rest. By that point the vehicle and driver are tied up with your morning and the day cannot be sold to anyone else.

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.

Moving the date 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, as long as a vehicle is free on the new date.
• A second change, or a change made inside 12 hours, counts 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.
• Dates really do fill up. 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 — counted from the time you first asked to move, not from when we ran out of dates.

A booking moved to a new date keeps its pass number, and we send you a fresh voucher.

Fares are per person and assume four or more guests. If the number of guests drops, 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 give you a fresh price, and you are free to accept it, change the package, or cancel under clause 4.
• A drop you tell us about 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 give you a fresh price 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 first offer another vehicle or a later start on the same day, and it is entirely your choice whether to accept it.

Sometimes neither of us is at fault: a bandh or strike, a curfew or public unrest, an order from an authority, a public-health rule, 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 give you. Equally, we cannot pay for losses beyond the tour fare itself, and we will not pretend something was our fault when it was not.

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

Temples are run by their own trusts. They set their timings, they close for rituals, and they sometimes close or limit 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 cannot be reached

We will put a similar shrine in its place, or give you longer at the others, and your driver-guide will talk it through with you at the time. One such change does not lead to a refund: the vehicle, the driver and the day are all still yours, 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 failure of service and is not a reason 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 sunrise, and we say so.

What you may fairly hold us to is the planning: an early start, a sensible order of stops, 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 website 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 that never came to us.

• 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 is due for it. The tour does not run longer 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 your choice, and does not reduce the fare.
• We end the tour because of behaviour that breaks the law, or is abusive, threatening or unsafe, as clause 11 of the Terms & Conditions allows. No refund is due, and we will explain the decision in writing if you ask.

Temples have their own dress codes and their own rules, 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 how someone behaves inside the shrine.

That decision is the temple's, not ours, and no refund is due because of it. We tell you the dress code before you travel exactly 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 a little more can go wrong on them.

• Cancellation charges are the same as for any other booking — clause 4 applies just the same.
• A highway closure or blockage found before we set off is handled under clause 8: a new date or a full refund.
• If we have to turn back halfway because the road is blocked, we refund a fair share of the fare, or put it towards another date.
• Return times are estimates. Shirdi is 14 to 16 hours door to door and Pune around 12; getting back later than we estimated does not lead to a refund. 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 we cannot refund any of them.

• Where: back to wherever the payment came from. A UPI payment returns to the same UPI ID; a bank transfer to the same account. Cash cannot sensibly be sent back by post, so a cash payment is refunded by UPI or bank transfer to details you give us.
• When: we start the refund within 3 working days of confirming the cancellation, and it should reach you within 7 working days. How long the bank then takes is out of our hands, and we will give you the transaction reference so you can track 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 send a refund to anyone else without written confirmation from the person who paid.

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, which come back only on that trust's terms;
• hotel bookings made at your request, which come back only on that hotel's terms — and we will tell you those terms before booking;
• somebody else's charges for anything you asked us to arrange, where they have already spent the money;
• payment-app or bank charges on your original payment, where your provider charges one.

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

The only things we may take off a refund are:

• the cancellation charge properly due under clause 4;
• the actual cost of repairing damage done to a vehicle on purpose or through carelessness, or of professional cleaning where it has been left dirtier than normal use would leave it — at cost, with the bill shown to you;
• a fine we had to pay 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 settled the same day on WhatsApp, and we would far rather fix a problem than argue about one.

How to raise a complaint

1. 16.1Message or call +91 89764 23389, or email contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com, with the word "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 confirm within 48 hours that we have received your complaint, and give you a reference number for it.
4. 16.4We will look into it and give you our decision, in writing if you ask for it, within 30 days of receiving the complaint.

If you are not happy with our answer

You are free to take it further. Nothing in our policies takes away your right to go to a consumer forum under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, including the online portal of the National Consumer Helpline. For a complaint about how we have handled your personal data, you may take it 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

Where we operate

Mumbai · Thane · Navi Mumbai — and outstation to Shirdi and Pune

We are a small operator and we work from the road rather than a booking office, so there is no counter to visit — everything is arranged on WhatsApp, by telephone or by email. Anything formal you want to send us, including a notice under these documents, should go to contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com.