Terms of service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between Travis Wake Charters LLC (“Travis Wake Charters,” “TWC,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) and the person who completes a booking (“you,” “Guest,” or “customer”), on behalf of yourself and every guest in your party. If you book on behalf of a group, you’re confirming you’re authorized to agree to these Terms for everyone in it.

Every trip we offer is a captained charter. A TWC captain operates the vessel at all times, on every trip, under every package, regardless of what a listing is called. You and your guests board as passengers: you don’t take command, custody, or control of the boat, and you may not operate its helm, throttle, engine, or wake-shaping controls at any time. We don’t hand over the keys to a boat for anyone to drive themselves, under any package.

Reserving a trip requires a deposit. The total trip price and the deposit are shown to you on the booking page before any card is charged, or told to you and agreed on the call when a trip is booked by phone. Nothing is added after the fact without telling you. The remaining balance is charged automatically to the payment card you have on file the day before your scheduled trip, using the same authorization you give when you book. If that charge fails, we’ll try to reach you to collect the balance before you board; an unresolved balance can put your trip at risk.

Before a season’s dates open, the booking page may offer a place in line for a date instead of a booking. A place in line is not a reservation and creates no obligation on either side: no deposit, no card and no money. The price shown while you wait is the current rate and may change for the new season. The first person in line for a date receives a private booking link that is valid for 72 hours before the date is opened to everyone; a booking made through that link is a normal booking under these Terms from the moment the deposit is paid.

A package is prepaid credit for one or more trips, sold at /packages and redeemed by entering its code at checkout. The code is a bearer instrument: whoever presents it can redeem it, one package covers one household, and we cannot reissue a code that has been shared and used. Each credit covers one trip of the service and length named in the package; add-ons and a Saturday difference are charged separately. Credits expire at the end of the validity period printed on the package, counted from purchase. Unused credits are refundable on request within that period at the per-session price paid, less any sessions used at the normal rate; after it, they are not. Each trip booked on a package is subject to these Terms and to the cancellation policy.

The person who books (the organiser) may invite others to pay a share of the balance by a private link. Each share paid reduces the organiser’s balance by that amount. Share links close 48 hours before the trip, and whatever remains unpaid at that point is charged to the organiser’s card on file with the balance. The organiser remains the customer under these Terms and remains responsible for the whole trip price; paying a share does not make a friend a party to the booking. Refunds on a split booking are made in proportion, to the card each person paid with.

Our full cancellation and weather policy lives at /cancellation and is part of these Terms. That page controls, and this paragraph is a summary, not a substitute for it. In short, for a weekday trip: cancel more than 48 hours before your trip and you get a full refund of everything you’ve paid; cancel more than 24 but 48 hours or less before your trip and your deposit isn’t refunded, though anything paid above it comes back; cancel 24 hours or less before your trip and nothing is refunded. For a Saturday or holiday-weekend trip: cancel more than 7 days out for a full refund; 7 days to 48 hours out, half of everything you’ve paid comes back; inside 48 hours the weekday rules apply. If we cancel your trip because of unsafe weather, you get a full refund or a free reschedule, your choice. If the terms at /cancellation are ever updated, the version posted there is the one that applies.

The payment method you provide stays on file through your trip. Beyond the deposit and balance, that same card is also authorized to be charged for damage caused by you or your party, or for excessive cleaning if the boat is returned in an unsanitary condition (for example, spills, trash, or bodily fluids beyond ordinary use). This authorization has no preset dollar limit and survives after your trip ends. This is a summary. The full terms, including exactly what counts as guest-caused damage and what doesn’t, are in the liability waiver every guest signs before boarding, at /waiver.

The captain is in command of the vessel and the trip at all times, its route, speed, and duration included. You and your guests agree to follow the captain’s instructions immediately, including where to sit, when to enter or exit the water, and wearing a life vest when asked. The captain may shorten, modify, or end a trip early, without refund, if a guest’s behavior is unsafe, unruly, intoxicated to the point of risk, or otherwise puts the crew, other guests, or the vessel at risk. See our full guest policies at /policies for more on alcohol, safety, and what to bring.

We may photograph or record your trip and use that material for marketing (on our website, in ads, and on social media) without compensation to you. If you’d rather not appear in that material, tell your captain before departure and we’ll honor that request.

Boating and watersports carry real risk. Before boarding, every guest (or a parent or legal guardian, for guests under 18) must read and sign our liability waiver at /waiver, which contains the full release of liability, assumption of risk, and related terms, including the limits on what Travis Wake Charters LLC, its captains, and its crew are liable for.

Guests under 18 are welcome with a parent or legal guardian, who books on their behalf, signs the waiver for them, and stays responsible for their conduct and for anything covered under “Card on file: damage and cleaning” above that’s caused by that minor.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas. Travis County, Texas is the exclusive venue for any dispute arising from these Terms or your trip that isn’t subject to the arbitration agreement in the liability waiver you sign (see /waiver for that clause in full).

Booking a trip, signing the waiver and registering a camper all involve giving us personal information, including a signature, a date of birth, an emergency contact and, for a camper, medical details. What we collect, who we share it with, how long we keep it and how to get a copy or have it deleted is set out in our privacy policy. Your card number is entered on our payment processor’s own page and never reaches our servers.

The chat at /chat (the XRise AI concierge) is there to help you plan. It answers from our live prices and calendar, and it can start a waitlist entry, a call-back request or a custom enquiry for you. It does not make a booking: a trip is booked only when the checkout confirms it and the deposit is paid, and the figures on that page are the ones that apply. If the assistant and the booking page ever disagree, the booking page is right. Its answers are information, not a contract, and it may make mistakes; call us if anything it says matters to your decision.

This website, the online booking, payments, digital waivers and the booking assistant run on the XRise Tech platform, which is owned by a separate company of the same owner as TWC. Your contract for any trip is with Travis Wake Charters LLC alone; XRise Tech is the software provider and is not a party to your booking. Payments are processed by the processors named in our privacy policy and never by XRise Tech itself.

We may update these Terms from time to time; the version posted here at the time of your booking is the one that applies to that trip. We’ll post the current version at this address, so check back before you book if it’s been a while.