Wavehuggers — Attraction in Huntington Beach

We used this company for my daughter's 3rd birthday and unfortunately had a very poor experience. I communicated at length with the owner about the ages and logistics of the party prior to booking. I was thankful she was accommodating of the ages of the surfers and the layout of the party.

In hindsight, I wish we hadn't booked.

I mentioned to the owner that we'd like to have them meet at the house close to the boardwalk. Upon arrival the instructors texted they were by the water and ready whenever even though they saw the party ahead. I felt that was weird but maybe a miscommunication.

During the party my daughter who is brave and loves the water was flung off the board. The instructor who was on the other side of the board did nothing to intervene. I had to jump in fully clothed and grab her since she was fully submerged with her legs in the air. When I picked her up she was choking back water. He apologized and said that was his fault. Unfortunately, she wouldn't participate for the rest of the event.

I thought okay fine, maybe that was an isolated incident and it is part of learning process so we moved on with the party.

Later, I heard another child left crying from her experience, another boy got back to the house and puked because of the amount of water he swallowed and still another's Mom was left very concerned about the amount of time her son (who goes surfing quite often with his dad) was caught under the board.

Overall the instructors didn't really provide much instruction or encourage participation either. For an hour or so they sat on their boards by the party and talked.

I decided to communicate with the owner given the amount of negative feedback to help prevent this from happening in the future. She said she'd get back to me that day and to please send the video I got of the incident which I did. I never heard back and so I followed up instead of her saying she needed additional time.

Some of the responses I received were.. "To be completely honest, he mentioned that he did tell her to hold on to the board before she got on it, and he also said that you jumped in so fast and got her before he did and it was extremely shallow right there"

"it wouldn’t really be possible to push the board out at the tail (back of the board) because it’s too shallow still at that time the video was taken, I think you can see that the fins of the board are still dragging in the sand. Logan mentioned that he didn’t want to put her on the board quite yet because of that, but he felt that he wasn’t going to be able to get her to walk any further out into the water."

Overall safety with kids needs to be priority the other issues weren't that big of a deal. The response from the owner felt like she was blaming the child, the parent or the situation versus taking accountability.

You can't control the ocean but there should be safeguards in place to keep young kids safe and having fun. I personally don't think this company is...

I used Wave Huggers two year ago when my sisters family was visiting and it was a 10 out of 10 experience. However, this 2nd experience was not the best. I had 3 kids with me who have never surfed and the instructors didn't give us a lesson but rather just told us to just get on the board in the water. I had an 8 ,9 and 13 year old eith me.

We also finished early and I didn't feel like we got the full 2 hours we paid for.

In my first experience I had a 2nd instructor that would play with the kids on the surf board in the water when they wanted a break. This time however the 2nd surfer stood on the sand and waited for the kids to come to him and they didn't know. More lost time.

Instructors were nice and very knowledgeable however I'm not sure I recieved the value for how...

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Our experience with Wave Huggers was nothing short of fantastic! Booking a private lesson with Logan was a breeze, and his expertise in teaching our two teens was evident from the get-go. Helina’s assistance in arranging the lesson and providing local recommendations made our trip from Palm Springs to Newport Beach seamless and enjoyable. We couldn't have asked for a better introduction to surfing in such a beautiful setting. Wave Huggers truly exceeded our expectations, and we can't wait to come back for more lessons! Highly recommended for anyone looking for a top-notch...