Faith Surf School Hawaii — Local services in Honolulu

We came to HNL recently for my work trip and decided to take surfing lessons. My wife and I are 50 years old and my niece is a senior in college; we had never been on a surfboard before. Early in our trip we took our first lesson at another school on the island and were satisfied. But in talking with locals they kept recommending this school called Faith Surf.

Later in the week I found myself with a couple hours free in Waikiki and decided to take another lesson to reinforce what I had learned in my first lesson. I called Faith in the morning and had pleasant conversations with Tammy who was able to squeeze me into a group lesson later in the afternoon. When I showed up I learned that our instructor was none other than the legendary Tony Moniz.

Tony gave a very thorough safety briefing on the beach. He also gave some insightful coaching on how to handle ourselves in the crowded Canoes area where we would be surfing. In addition, he taught a pop up technique in detail that seemed easier for me to execute. We then headed out to paddle to the surf. Once there, Tony set me up on several waves that were just sweet; all I had to do was pop up and I was surfing. I also noticed my fellow students were consistently standing up and surfing with Tony's coaching and positioning.

I was able to chat with Tony while we sat on our boards waiting for the next set. Tony was friendly, pleasant and very humble. He never mentioned his many accomplishments as a pro surfer. He just said he was born and raised in the area and had been surfing all his life. Tony personifies the Aloha spirit for which Hawaii is famous, and has a big generous heart as well.

I'm so grateful the locals pointed me towards Faith Surf School. There's no better place to take your first surfing lessons in...

I took the canoe surfing tour, and it was almost amazing. I have been waiting 8 years to come back to Waikiki and do this tour.

The good: First off, they were the only tour i could find that will let you book less than 3 people min. And it was cheaper than the competitors. The overall experience with the guides was very good.

The bad: They split up me and my GF as I was the 1st person paddling, a random group of 3 in between us, and she was the last paddler. I immediately thought this was weird. I'm sure it has to do with weight or something, but we weren't even in earshot. I guess I should have just done this alone bc that's what it felt like.

The ugly: I figured us being split up wasn't a big deal since there wasn't any mention of pictures or buying pictures. WRONG! They had a private photographer just for our tour. I noticed her taking pictures but had no idea if she was just a random person, until right before the end of the tour they told us we will have a chance to purchase pictures and she was the photographer. So the picture were decent, but I definitely was interested until they mentioned the price was $50 for pics and $50 for videos, or $80 for both. These prices were kinda ridiculous since the tour price was by far less than that. I also personally feel this is a money grab, and there are multiple business models that could make their business better and make the customers happy, but this ain't it. Unfortunately, the tour wasn't as good as it could have been. Hopefully, they can use this constructive criticism to fix their business model and be more successful while making the customer happy. Maybe next...

Haven't used them & wouldn't recommend or consider using them because of their business practices. One of their 20-something students dinged my board because she didn't jump off early enough, so her board rolled over mine. I didn't think to check for damage until after I made sure she was ok (even though I was the one hit by her board) and she swam away. She had a worried look on her face & never said anything like , "I'm fine!", "Sorry!" or even "Go to hell you old creep!" There probably isn't enough room here to explain the whole story, but basically the employees said at first that they were not responsible and wouldn't get involved. But when I politely approached the young woman & her boyfriend later on the beach at Faith and asked if they'd be willing to either pay for or even split the $50 worth of damages, the employees quickly came to her defense and basically shamed and intimidated me out of considering that option. Moral of the story, avoid this place & their students.

I attempted to contact the owner by phone a few times but they never returned my call.

To the company, If you say you're not responsible & won't get involved, don't. Don't interfere with my attempts to resolve a situation that I was in most ways not responsible for. Since you decided to get involved, I decided to write...