WaveRez decides what can be booked by checking three separate capacity limits at once: the capacity of the physical equipment, the Max Tickets allowed for a specific time slot, and the per-day Available count on the ticket. For any given time, the system enforces whichever of these limits is lowest. The most important rule to understand is that equipment capacity is the absolute ceiling. No setting anywhere in WaveRez can book more guests onto a piece of equipment than that equipment physically allows. This article explains each of the three limits, how equipment shared between two trips behaves, and why the availability number shown on the daily matrix can sometimes look higher than what the system will actually let you book.
Equipment Capacity: The Absolute Ceiling
Equipment capacity is the foundation of all availability in WaveRez. Every piece of equipment has a maximum capacity, called Max Places, set on the Equipment tab at Resources > Trips > (select your trip) > Equipment. Max Places is the largest number of guests that one piece of equipment can physically hold.
Equipment falls into two categories, and the difference matters for everything else in this article:
Single-capacity equipment holds one party or rental at a time. A jet ski, a private charter boat, or a parasail rig is single-capacity. Its Max Places is usually 1. Once it is booked for a time window, it is fully consumed for that window. Nothing can add a second order to it.
Multi-capacity equipment holds many guests at once. A public tour boat or a fishing boat is multi-capacity. Its Max Places might be 35, 50, or more. It can take multiple separate orders up to that number.
Equipment capacity is the absolute ceiling on availability. WaveRez will never allow more guests onto a piece of equipment than its Max Places value, no matter what other settings are configured. If a piece of single-capacity equipment is booked, it is gone for that time window. If a piece of multi-capacity equipment has Max Places of 35, then 35 is the hard limit, and no per-time or per-day setting can push a booking past it.
How Equipment Shared Between Two Trips Blocks Availability
A single piece of equipment can be assigned to more than one trip. For example, the same boat might be assigned to both a "Dolphin Watching Cruise" trip and a "Private Dolphin Charter" trip. This is common and fully supported.
When equipment is shared between two trips, the blocking rule is absolute: if that equipment is booked on one trip, it is blocked for the overlapping time on every other trip it is assigned to. There is no separate "linked" or "shared inventory" setting that has to be switched on. Equipment is shared simply by being the same equipment record assigned to both trips. If both trips point to the same equipment record, a booking on either trip consumes that equipment for both.
Here is how this works in practice. Suppose Trip A and Trip B both use the same three pieces of equipment: Equipment 1, Equipment 2, and Equipment 3. Before any bookings, both trips show 3 available at 9:00am. A customer books Trip A at 9:00am, and the system assigns that order to Equipment 1. Equipment 1 is now in use at 9:00am. The 9:00am availability count drops to 2 on Trip A, and it also drops to 2 on Trip B, because Equipment 1 is no longer available to either trip. The two trips are not tracked separately. They draw from the same pool of equipment.
The single most common reason partners report that a booking did not block across two trips is that the two trips are not actually assigned the same equipment record. Two equipment records with similar names, for example "Boat Tour" and "Boat Tour 1," are treated by WaveRez as two completely different boats, even if they represent the same physical vessel. A booking on "Boat Tour" will not block "Boat Tour 1," because to the system they are unrelated resources. For availability to block across two trips, both trips must be assigned the exact same equipment record, not two separately created records with similar names.
How Per-Time Availability Works: The Max Tickets Field
The second limit is per-time availability. Each scheduled time slot has its own Max Tickets value, set on the Schedules tab at Resources > Trips > (select your trip) > Schedules. Max Tickets is the number of tickets that can be sold for that one specific time slot.
By default, Max Tickets for a time slot is set to the combined capacity of all equipment assigned to the trip. If a trip has 3 pieces of single-capacity equipment, each with Max Places of 1, the default Max Tickets for each time slot is 3. If a trip has 2 tour boats, each with Max Places of 50, the default Max Tickets for each time slot is 100.
On the Daily (Matrix) view, the per-time availability for each slot displays as a count such as "5 Available." Each matrix time slot also has a pen icon, which lets you edit the Max Tickets for that one slot on the fly, raising or lowering it for that specific day and time without changing the trip's default. This on-the-fly adjustment is most useful for multi-capacity equipment. For example, a tour boat with Max Places of 35 might have Max Tickets set to 30 by default, because the operator prefers to run trips with 30 guests. If the operator decides to allow a few extra guests on one particular departure, the pen icon lets them raise that slot to 32 or 35 quickly.
There is a hard limit on what the pen icon and the Max Tickets field can do. They can adjust the per-time number only up to the equipment's physical capacity. Raising Max Tickets above the equipment's true Max Places does not increase real availability, and it never permits overbooking equipment that is already booked. If a tour boat's Max Places is 35, setting Max Tickets to 40 does not let 40 guests board. The booking still stops at 35. For single-capacity equipment such as a jet ski or private boat, the equipment ceiling is 1, so once it is booked, no Max Tickets value and no pen icon edit can place a second order on it.
How Per-Day Availability Works: The Tickets Tab Available Count
The third limit is per-day availability. Each ticket has an Available count, set on the Tickets tab at Resources > Trips > (select your trip) > Tickets. The Available count on the Tickets tab is the maximum number of that ticket that can be sold across the entire day, totaled across every time slot.
This is different from the Max Tickets value on the Schedules tab. Max Tickets limits a single time slot. The Tickets tab Available count limits the whole day. For example, if a ticket's daily Available count is 40, then no more than 40 of that ticket can be sold that day, even if the individual time slots would otherwise allow more when added together.
When deciding whether a booking can go through, WaveRez checks all three limits, the equipment capacity, the per-time Max Tickets, and the per-day Available count, and enforces whichever is lowest. If equipment allows 50 but the per-day Available count is 30, only 30 can be sold that day. If the per-day count allows 100 but a piece of equipment is already booked at the requested time, that equipment is still unavailable. The lowest applicable limit always wins, and equipment capacity is the firmest of the three because it reflects physical reality.
Why the Matrix Availability Count Can Look Higher Than What You Can Book
The availability count shown on the Daily (Matrix) view is accurate for the time slot where an order starts, but it does not always reflect overlapping orders that run into a slot from an earlier departure time. This is important to understand, because the number can appear higher than what the system will actually allow.
WaveRez availability is calculated to the minute, and an order occupies its equipment for the full duration of the trip, not just the departure minute. When an order runs longer than the gap between time slots, it overlaps later slots on the matrix. The matrix shows the true span of an overlapping order as a red block stretching across the affected slots.
Here is the behavior to watch for. When an order is placed, WaveRez reduces the displayed availability count only at the order's departure time slot. It does not reduce the displayed count on the later slots that the order overlaps, even though the equipment is genuinely in use during those later slots. For example, a jet ski trip has 5 jet skis and a 1-hour duration. A customer books one jet ski at 9:30am. The 9:30am slot count drops from 5 to 4. That jet ski is in use from 9:30am to 10:30am, so it also overlaps the 10:00am and 10:30am slots. However, the matrix still displays "5 Available" at 10:00am and 10:30am, because the displayed count only decremented at the 9:30am departure slot.
The displayed count at those overlapped slots is misleading, but the system itself is not. WaveRez still hard-blocks the overlap. If a staff member or customer tries to book that fifth jet ski at 10:00am, the booking is stopped, because one jet ski is still out on the 9:30am order. The matrix number says 5, but the real bookable number is 4.
To read true availability correctly, rely on the red duration block, not the count. The red block on the matrix shows the actual span of equipment use. Any slot that visually overlaps a red block has less real availability than its number claims. The customer-facing booking portal also shows true availability correctly. In the jet ski example above, the booking portal correctly displays "4 Left" at 9:30am, 10:00am, and 10:30am, then returns to "5 Left" at 11:00am once the 1-hour order has cleared.
⚠️ Important: Trust the red block and the booking portal, not the matrix count. On the Daily (Matrix) view, the availability count shown for a time slot only decreases at the departure time of an order. It does not decrease on later slots that an order overlaps, even though the equipment is in use during those slots. A slot can display "5 Available" while the system will only allow 4 bookings, because an earlier order is still in progress. The red duration block shows the true span of equipment use, and the customer-facing booking portal always shows the correct remaining count. WaveRez hard-blocks any booking that would overlap equipment already in use, regardless of what number the matrix displays.
Troubleshooting Common Availability Questions
A customer can still book one trip at a time when the shared equipment should already be taken by another trip.
Symptom: Two trips are believed to share equipment, but a booking on one trip does not reduce availability on the other. For example, a private tour still shows 4:30pm as available even though a non-private tour using the same boat is already booked at 4:30pm.
Cause: In almost every case, the two trips are not actually assigned the same equipment record. WaveRez only blocks availability across trips when both trips are assigned the exact same equipment record. Two records with similar names, such as "Boat Tour" and "Boat Tour 1," are treated as two separate boats, even if they represent the same physical vessel.
Resolution: Open each trip and check its assigned equipment at Resources > Trips > (select the trip) > Equipment. Compare the equipment record names on both trips. If the two trips list different equipment records, that is why the booking did not block across them. The trips must be assigned the identical equipment record for availability to block correctly between them.
The daily matrix shows a time slot as available, but the booking is rejected.
Symptom: The Daily (Matrix) view displays a positive availability count for a time slot, such as "5 Available," but attempting to book that slot fails or shows a lower number.
Cause: An earlier order is still in progress and overlaps the requested slot. The matrix only reduces the displayed availability count at an order's departure time, not on the later slots the order overlaps. The equipment is genuinely in use during the overlapped slots, so WaveRez hard-blocks the booking even though the displayed count looks open.
Resolution: Look for a red duration block on the matrix that stretches into the slot in question. The red block shows the true span of equipment use. A slot overlapping a red block has less real availability than its number shows. To confirm the true remaining count, check the customer-facing booking portal, which always displays the correct number.
Raising Max Tickets on a slot did not increase how many guests could book.
Symptom: The Max Tickets value for a time slot was raised, either on the Schedules tab or with the pen icon on the matrix, but the number of guests that can actually book did not go up.
Cause: Max Tickets can only raise per-time availability up to the equipment's physical capacity, called Max Places. Equipment capacity is the absolute ceiling. If Max Tickets is raised above the combined Max Places of the assigned equipment, the extra capacity is not real, and the booking still stops at the equipment limit.
Resolution: Check the Max Places value of the equipment assigned to the trip at Resources > Trips > (select your trip) > Equipment. The true per-time ceiling is the combined Max Places of the available equipment. To genuinely allow more guests, the equipment's Max Places must be increased, or more equipment must be assigned to the trip.