Excellent communication, rate quoting and responsiveness. Helped me with available times, getting…read morethe lesson booked and getting the payment paid, all in a time-sensitive way since I arrived in Oahu on Monday, was staying the week, but hadn't made advance bookings. Emily made sure all my questions were answered, advising what to wear (I asked), and what to bring to the beach, versus leave up at the shop. Amazing!!
Some downsides: it's a BIG group! Even though we got semi-private lesson (1 instructor for the 2 of us), you're still taking the lesson amidst the rest of the "school"(...which for us, was 2 school buses filled with students. Maybe 25 people?)
You're then all having your lesson in the same area of water, so imagine 30 beginners all on surf boards confined to a limited area on the water.
I didn't love this part.
You're assigned an instructor (and each of course has his/her own personality). The instructors were all great: coaching you through the positions, picking the waves for you, pushing you off into them to gather speed, and calling out when to "paddle" then "up".
But each instructor inherently comes with a personality and if you get a less aggressive one, you might end up waiting for all the other students to get their turn before you get to go.
Then (this part was unexpected)...you have to win all the way across, to get out of the "surf lane" of all 25 beginner surfers, before you can win back out to get in line for your next try.
It was a lot of swimming for not a lot of surf trials which really tires you out. By 5 runs, I'd had enough.
I have had one lesson before (which I absolutely LOVED!!) but it wasn't as part of a big school, it was just me, and one other student, and the instructor. And there was no 25-50 ft "surf lane" that you had to swim across after each attempt to get out of the way of the other students. this extra swimming ate into a lot of surfing time I think.
Anyway, good experience, but I wouldn't do it again in this way.
Actually, I'm not even sure I'd do it again at all.
I ended up buying the photo footage because I'm so sure I'm off surfing now...so might as well buy the photos, as I'll probably never do it again.
That's not how I felt after my 1st experience a few years ago in a different format.