Rock Out Climbing Gym — Local services in Destin

I came to Rock Out Climbing with pretty high expectations based on the great reviews so I wanted to post my experience as well. I visited during vacation in a group of 3. We had 2 beginners and 2 intermediate climbers. I am basing my scores on gyms I've been to in the Atlanta, GA and Brooklyn, NY area.

Staff (5/5) - Staff were extremely friendly and supportive. When I was there they were even cheering on some of the climbers.

Facility (3/5) - Overall a bit smaller than some of the climbing gyms I've been to. You can feel the age on some of the holds. Some of the holds felt like they had way less texture. All of us were slipping on some of the footholds and it made it difficult to trust our feet. The training area doesn't have much in terms of climbing accessories (no kilterboard/moonboard or hangboard training). They do have a campus board. Not having the training area isn't a huge deal but the holds felt bad for sure.

Route setting (2/5) - As some people mentioned in their reviews, the grades are overall a bit harder at this gym. Expect to climb a level lower than you are used to. Beginner climbers may struggle to find routes to climb. One of the beginner climbers can climb some V2-V4 routes at other gyms, but struggled with V1 here. I felt like the route setting was also not as creative as I hoped for. Every climb ends at the top of the wall and multiple routes seemed like they were thrown together with not much thought put into them. I want to downgrade this a bit more, but this may have been an off week/cycle for the route setters.

Price (4/5) - Competitive pricing. They have some merch available. I didn't buy anything but the shirts felt like they were good quality. No one complained about the price.

Would I visit again?

I always travel with shoes and chalk nowadays so I think I would give it another shot. If the route setting was better I would definitely change my overall...

Great little gym. Giving it five stars because small climbing gyms are hard to maintain, manager and continue, I work at a climbing gym - so I get aspects of it…

Climbed here on vacation. People were friendly. Building was clean. Was kinda hot in the gym… which I guess Floridians are use to haha - grading was way off imo - I am not super driven by grades personally but many are and I do think they’re helpful - we grade for outside climbing in our gym too, and this little gym was intensely hard haha- a v4 felt like a v6-v8 - so was hard to figure out where to climb at here since it was so off from what I’m use to.

But over all good gym, if I lived in Destin I’d join. I would encourage less ladder beginner climbs - easy doesn’t have to be that plain and more intermediate. Seems like a lot of wasted space with juggy ladders when they could make it a bit more creative on the easiest sets. Just a suggestion. Again enjoyed it - wish y’all...

Chill little climbing gym that I visited while on family vacation. I'm an avid climber and this is one of the best setup gyms for beginner climbers that still has some fun problems for the more experienced. Hard to make a judgement call on the setting since I didn't have my normal gear with me but the grading at least in rentals seemed pretty realistic compared to outdoors, I was worried it would be super soft. I do think there could be some improvement with setting with a bit more technical finesse but it is better than I expected considering the location.

It could be nice to see a system board find it's easy into the facility for the more experienced considering the grades seem to top out at V7 and there weren't loads over V5 though space is limited so something would likely have to give to be able to put a moonboard or similar in.

Stoked to come back on the annual vacation and will bring my proper...