No an apology is when you go "I am sorry, I screwed up. What can I do to make it right?" Over the years I gave away a lot of free dry cleaning for example, but it paid for itself in customers who forgave us for being late with their clothes even if we had a valid reason. (Power outages, FIRE! etc... We once had a fire in the store next to us which made us have to shut down. Everyone whose clothes were due that day got thier dry cleaning free as an apology for the delay. Was it our fault? No, we didn't set the fire. However, all we said was we are sorry we are late it's on us.)
Not, my kids were sick, my dog was sick etc... Those are reasons. They may be VERY valid, but they really aren't the customers concern and in truth should not be shared with the customer. Chances are they don't really care LOL!