Two tours, one boat: the part generic software gets wrong

Here is the shape of the problem. You run a sunset cruise at 18:30 and a snorkel trip at 09:00, both on the same twelve-seat boat. You also charter the whole thing privately in the afternoon. Three products, one hull.

Sell a private charter from 12:00 to 16:00 and the boat is gone until 16:00 — plus the time it takes to come back, refuel and hose the deck. If your snorkel trip is scheduled at 15:00, it cannot run, and no amount of seat counting will notice that, because the seats were never the constraint.

Capacity is not one number

It is the smallest of three:

• What the tour allows. Twelve seats on the licence.
• What that departure allows. The smaller boat is out that morning, so eight.
• What your equipment and staff allow. Three guides at one per six divers is eighteen — unless one of them is on a course that day, and then it is twelve.

The third is the one nobody types in, because it is not a number you know. It is a consequence of what else is happening that morning.

What a turnaround costs you

Two departures scheduled back to back look fine on a calendar and are impossible on a dock. The boat needs to return, unload, take on fuel and load again. If your software has no concept of that gap, you will schedule it, sell it, and find out at 15:55.

The equipment version of the same problem

Quads make it obvious. A driver and a passenger are two people, two prices and two names on the waiver — but one machine. Eight quads is sixteen people or eight, depending entirely on who books. A system that counts seats will happily sell you sixteen riders and eight machines.

What to ask a vendor

One question sorts it: “If I sell my private charter, does my afternoon snorkel trip close by itself?” If the answer involves you blocking a calendar manually, the answer is no — and the day you forget is the day two groups arrive for one boat.