A departure is one dated occurrence of an experience that travelers book onto. It has a start and end time, a capacity, and a status. Samba works out seats and status for you as bookings come in.
Two ways to take bookings
Mode | What travelers do |
Fixed departures | Book a date you have published. |
On-request departures | Propose a date. When you accept the booking request, Samba creates a private departure for that booking, with a capacity equal to the party size. |
You can switch on either mode, or both. See Set your booking cutoff and default departure times.
You publish fixed dates in two ways: one at a time, or from a recurring schedule that keeps adding dates for you.
How seats are counted
Seats remaining = capacity − seats on Confirmed bookings − seats being held in checkout.
Pending, canceled and refunded bookings take no seats.
On a day tour, participant types marked "Doesn't take a seat", such as lap infants, are not counted.
When a traveler reaches the payment step of checkout, their seats are held for 15 minutes. If they do not pay in time, the seats are released and the traveler is asked to check availability again. A GetYourGuide reservation holds seats for 60 minutes.
Example. A departure has a capacity of 16. Two confirmed bookings take 6 seats, and a traveler with a party of 2 is on the payment step. Other travelers see 8 seats left. A pending booking for 4 people changes nothing until it is confirmed.
What the status badge means
Badge | Meaning |
Scheduled | Open for booking. |
Sold out | No seats left. |
Running | The departure has started and not yet ended. |
Completed | The end time has passed. |
Canceled | You called the departure off. This is permanent. |
The status follows the seats. The booking that takes the last seat turns the departure Sold out. A cancellation, refund or change that frees a seat turns it back to Scheduled. You can also close a departure by hand.
When travelers can book a departure
A departure can be booked only when all three are true:
Its status is Scheduled.
It still has seats.
The experience's booking cutoff has not passed. With a cutoff of 2 hours, a 09:00 departure closes at 07:00.
If a date looks bookable to you and is not, see Why can't travelers book a departure?
Dates and times show in your workspace timezone everywhere: the app, your trip page, checkout and widgets.