What leaving a reservation early in San Diego costs, and whose terms decide it

Nothing is charged at this end, either way

There is no fee to book and none to cancel, no charge for paperwork, no charge at any stage and none in either direction. Money only comes this way once you are back, and it comes from the firm that ran your week rather than from you. So nothing of yours is held here to be returned or withheld, and when you and that firm settle up between you, no part of it is taken by this office.

Your confirmation carries the terms that bind you

Each week on the catalogue belongs to an operating firm that writes its own terms, and you will find them set out on the confirmation that firm sends you. Those terms are far from uniform: six nights at a small family guesthouse and eight nights with guides on the ground carry different exposure, so the clauses are drafted differently too. Rather than trust a general rule, work from the document in your own hands, and put any clause you cannot follow to this office.

A poor week is not a cancellation

Should the week turn up in its worse form, then what arrived is what was reserved, and none of the operating firms in this catalogue treats weather or wildlife as grounds for a refund; their written terms say so.

When the firm on the ground pulls out

Whatever its terms promise, it owes, and this office will set the case out in writing and keep after it until an answer arrives. Should the firm put alternative dates on the table, that decision is yours; nobody here accepts them for you. And if a firm declines to honour what it wrote itself, you will be told so in plain words, with no pretence that this office has leverage it does not have.