Shark Wake Park 843 — Attraction in North Myrtle Beach

We visited the park while we were on vacation and honestly it was the biggest waste of money and our time. I never write reviews, but this experience was so awful that I had to get the word out. I took my fiance for his birthday thinking it would be great since he is awesome at wakeboarding, but i was wrong. We have a nice wake boat at home and he has been wakeboarding for several years, but here he felt like a total beginner. The staff was TERRIBLE!!! The staff inside before you even went out to the dock was very rude and acted like we were bothering them by being there. All of the staff looked to be ages 16-28 and definitely had no work ethic. They were rolling their eyes and huffing at us for asking questions and not being familiar with the facility or how/where to get our equipment. I also paid for two people but I opted out of riding due to the type of board they offered me which would not have been safe for me after having 3 ankle surgeries. At that point she would not refund my money and she said I could not upgrade to the board with boots. So i paid for two people and only one of us went and no refund or compensation was offered. Her exact words were "well that's too bad you have already paid you should've decided before you paid." WE HAD NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE AND WERE UNAWARE OF THE EQUIPMENT BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT HELP US! Also my fiance needed the boots on his board turned and the staff literally threw him a screwdriver and said "righty tighty lefty loosey". Like what kind of customer service is that? He works construction so obviously working a screwdriver is not an issue, but how rude is that! What if he didn't and messed up the board or didn't get it right or left it too loose and then got hurt? RIDICULOUS!!!! Now onto the staff outside at the dock where the wakeboarding took place. First off, they did not offer any help whatsoever to him or the other young kids that were new to the park. He is not a beginner, but he was new to the park and was not given any type of instruction. All they wanted to do was party, talk to their girlfriends who were there hanging out, dance to rap music, and eat pizza. They were not at all concerned with safety, and half the time did not even press the button for the next rider to be pulled. The other major problem that I had with the park was that the off-duty park employees were there wakeboarding and taking up the line and the time of vacationers that were paying to do this. They were also very cocky and were making rude remarks to even children when they were unable to stand on the board. We were at the park for 3 hours and he only was able to attempt to ride SIX times!!! just six in 3 hours. The off duty employes would jump in line, or they would ride forever so that no one else could. It was not what we expected at all. We were not the only frustrated customers that day. Another couple pulled their child out of line and left after seeing how the employees were acting. This is not safe at all. Also the girlfriends that were hanging out, on the deck of the line in the way of the boarders mind you, jumped in and were swimming around in the area that was for the wakeboarders. I tried to speak to the manager but he acted like he did not have time for me and did not offer any help he just walked away. He was more of their buddy anyways and was actually at one point playing right along with the employees that were acting out. I am very very disappointed and would never recommend this park to anyone. Word of mouth gets around, and so does social media. The owner of this facility needs to get it in check before there is a serious accident. It was a total waste of time and money, and i was more disappointed since it was a trip for a birthday. Please if you are the owner and reading this I would LOVE to chat with you about this experience. I would like to talk about all of the rules (which i took a picture of) and check off all that were broken since I am sure that you are unaware of what is really taking place at your facility in North...

Coulda been / shoulda been a great time, but NOT a chance.  Typically 20 folks standing in line on the dock hoping for someone to fall so they had a a couple or so 30-second attempts to try to get up on a board, while good boarders made seemingly infinite laps with no intervention by the staff, except 1 ego called in after at least 7 laps before I stopped counting.  Took 4 teens who were excited about trying this, but who got only about 2 attempts each in 2 hours there, and spent the other 115 minutes standing on the dock watching mostly.  Even worse, the state covid-mask rule was totally ignored in the confined office to register and pay, by customers AND by staff.  More and more unmasked folks kept cramming in, almost shoulder-to-shoulder in the line to pay at times.  Then told we HAD to watch a mandatory video right by this large crowd, only to be told after it was done that our older teens did NOT really need to watch it anyway.   Here’s the numbers, which are interesting.

At 1.5 minutes per lap with 7 ropes, means 560 laps in 2 hours, and yet our 4 teens got less than 10 attempts in well over 500 times rope passes, or about 3 minutes total rope time for all 4 in 2 hours.  I’ve complained online probably 4 times in 15 years, but just had to since this was so bad both for our fun, and particularly for our family’s health, as well as the community and the staff stuck there.  The staff needs guidance and training badly, and some horsepower behind them for the crowds, if that's the problem.  Follow the rules you post or at least warn folks before it's too late for them to protect themselves...

My son, “D” & his friend, “B”, visited the wake park. When we returned to the car after their session, they were acting a little off. When I questioned them, they shared that the wake boarding attendant wasn’t very kind to “B”, treating him much differently than all of the other guests, including my son - that he was helpful and offered guidance to every guests except “B”. Observing, I noticed that he was very hands on with the other wake boarders and basically stood back when it was “B”’s turn to try. After several failed attempts at wakeboarding, “B” asked the attendant “what did I do wrong?”, so he could correct his errors. The attendant replied “Everything.” and stepped back without offering any help like he did with my son and the others. I hope that race wasn’t a factor, but “B” was the only black guest. Not to pull the race card, but that is exactly how it felt to “B” :( I contacted the company directly before leaving a poor review in an effort to give management a chance to address the unfairness of the attendant. I never received a response. I did offer 2 stars - other than the treatment of the one employee, the other employees were friendly and facility was beautiful and well maintained.

*Received a follow up call from DOO after review. Apologies were given and she explained situation was handled with the employee. We are thankful for the response and hopeful this review helped...