Semi-Private Surf Lesson at Ka'anapali Beach

This was a complete waste of time - I was so excited to try this surfing lesson, but it was a lousy experience overall and frankly felt unsafe. To start, the instructions to meet the instructor were wrong: after struggling to find parking in a crowded shopping center, I wandered up and down the beach looking for the umbrella they said in their instructions. It was nowhere to be found, and I had to ask several people if they knew where it was. Finally, I found the instructor who was sitting in an obscure spot on the corner, clearly not looking for anyone. It seems like he was hoping I couldn’t find him and maybe forfeit the lesson. He pulled a wet rash guard out of a backpack and said to put it on. This was pretty gross and unsanitary. We spent all of 5 minutes on the beach “learning” and went out to pretty deep water. I expressed that it didn’t feel safe as this was my first time trying to surf, and he’d said this was a rocky/coral area. However, the instructor (Reid) kept saying to go out further. I went with it and tried to call him to ask for instruct Ion but he ignored me and kept going. When I was knocked off my board by a pretty big choppy wave (again, I had no idea how to even balance while paddling out), the instructor didn’t look out for me at all. I tried to ask for help and instruction on how to balance/ride with the waves, but he didn’t give me any info. He just kept going and seemed amused when I’d inhaled salt water after taking a big tumble. I struggled to get back on my board without any guidance, and again without instruction at all. I feel like a YouTube video would have provided me with more info. As I told him, I’m sure all of this was easy for him, but as I was there for a beginner lesson, I wanted to actually learn something while being safe. I felt very unsafe and said I wanted to go back to the shore to recompose. After heading back, I asked again if we could go to try some small waves, and I didn’t need to even get up onto a wave if it was too high. He said we’d need to go out further than last time towards some pretty big waves (probably about 4 feet). I asked again how to manage when large waves come, and basically was told to go with it. We went out again but I didn’t feel safe going out as far as he wanted - it looked like experienced surfers were in that spot with big waves, and without much instruction and feeling like the instructor wouldn’t really help if something went wrong (as he already had not), I asked that we not go further. After a few minutes, I said let’s call it a wrap early. This was a complete waste of time, and did not make me feel safe at all. Unfortunately, I would not recommend this experience to anyone.

Awesome experience and instructor. My kids and I had blast. We really felt that our instructor wanted to spread his love for surfing.

Awesome experience and staff! My wife never surfed before and they got her up and surfing. She was extremely hesitant. They took there time, made her feel comfortable, and she had an absolute blast. We definitely recommend!

Reef was great with our kids! Patient, fun, and they had a blast! My daughter now wants her own surfboard. This was definitely a highlight moment of our vacation!

Fantastic experience, coach was very good with my Daughter (7). She was surfing waves and says it was her favorite part of the trip.