Jamie O’Brien School of Surf Waikiki — Local services in Honolulu

If you find yourself on Oahu and have ever thought about taking a surf lesson, heck even if you haven’t, you absolutely must check out the Jamie O’Brien Surf Experience. Whether you are on the North Shore or staying in Waikiki, they’ve got you covered with two locations and it is 100% worth it. My 7 year old son has had his heart set on surf lessons for a long time. This kid did yard work for the neighbors in 100 degree heat, made/sold lemonade, sold limes during his sister’s softball practices, collected and recycled cans and finally earned enough money. There are a million surf schools here in CA that he could have gone to but the only one he wanted to go to was Jamie’s. From the start booking was a breeze. The staff was polite, provided all the details necessary to make a confident decision to book. Because I was booking a few weeks in advance they even let us know that if plans changed we could cancel or move our reservation within 24 hrs if needed at no extra cost. The day of the lesson we arrived at the Turtle Bay location and were given the warmest greeting I could have ever imagined. The entire team was so excited to have him there and made him feel so confident about his first time surfing. When I booked the session I had mentioned how he had saved his money for the lesson and they remembered. Once they got him geared up they did a land review of all the basics before jumping into the water. The instructor that was with him was incredibly patient, took the time to explain things, made sure he understood and answered any questions he had (even if they weren’t surfing related). The waves were a little flat that day but he did his best to make sure my son caught every wave that came in…and he did!!!! After the lesson the undivided attention of the staff continued, ensuring we had the best experience possible. We had opted to purchase the additional photo package and if you are on the fence, just do it! We were able to review the photos immediately after the lesson and the link with over 150 images was in my email in less than an hour. These are professional images that are way better than anything you could ever take with your phone. Spend the extra money, get the photos. Before we left the staff let us know that Jamie would be by that afternoon and said they would send us a text so my son could meet him. We got the text as promised and headed back to meet Jamie. He had just flown in that morning from Indonesia, was wrapping on filming right as we walked up and was probably exhausted. Regardless of what his day may have looked like or how tired he may have been he was so kind. Instead of saying a quick hello and jetting off to the much more important things he had to do, he stopped everything and took the time not just to say hi and pose for a picture but sit down and talk with my son, answer his questions and encourage him to keep surfing. Thank you Jamie O’Brien and the entire Surf Experience team for lighting the fire and creating a memory for our son that will stay with him as his love for surfing...

I have mixed feelings on this one.

On one hand, the surfing was really fun, and that is primarily what you are there for. The equipment rental makes stuff easy, it's just turn up and go. Price seems reasonable. Lots of others have left good reviews, so our very mid experience seems to be the outlier.

On the other hand, parts of this were missold:

-We were told there would be a photographer, who'd go out and take pictures which you could buy. We were really psyched about this. The photographer even went to the beach with us with the camera. Then at some point just... Left with zero pictures taken. To be fair, the school did hold its hands up and admit that this was super unprofessional of them, but they didn't do anything to make it up either, like a partial refund or offer for a short lesson some other time to get some pictures. They did say it was a contractor, but ultimately it's the school who chooses who they contract with. (they offer sale of the photos ahead of time, so absolutely don't do that, there's no advantage of it anyway). -On sale I explained to the sales clerk i had minor injuries on the right side of the body, nothing awful, just a few bruises and a pulled rib muscle. He said if i could stand, that would be fine (I can, no problems there). I asked the instructor on the day and he was like 'yeh, no it's an extreme sport, shouldn't be doing it with injuries', so felt a bit mislead to be told differently AFTER sales. Regardless, went ahead mostly fine, but i wish they would have been upfront and honest about this.

Other mild gripes: -I didn't feel like there was any real understanding we were total begineers, we did explain that at sale and before the lesson, but i feel like the expectation was that you had mild previous experience, making it not really suitable for a complete beginner in my opinion. At one point the instructor did note that we weren't surfers, which, 'yeh, we mentioned that'. But that's more of a gripe than the previous 2 things (which is what down rated the review) -The lesson started 30 mins later, but we were asked if we were fine with this (we were), but we probably would've said no if this contributed to the photographer not being around (we don't know, no reason was given, we kind of got 'yeh she went to go do something else')

Other general feedback: -I would like if the intro had mentioned a bit more about turning the boards most effectively whilst paddling. One line in the safety brief would do it. -Some people seem to do the brief in the shallows, we had ours out the front of the shop, which we were told would be the case, but i do think the shallows option would be preferable.

I would very much welcome a response from the owner to the review, to let them add...

I have booked this surf experience several times.This time was more than disappointing.The instructor was to say the least not fair to all participating.People were cutting in front of others leading to everyone not getting a fair experience.Another problem was that 2 people were 10 mins late leading to less time on the water. That same individual decided she wanted to go in early. It's also led to less time in the water due to them having to escort her back to shore. This is not a cheap service, and I felt that it was not fair. to the kids at all. My thirteen year old granddaughter wiped out, and apparently I am the only one who saw it and her sister have to go help her, no one seemed to notice that she was struggling!! To be there, they did discount me on the photo package. However, my pictures from the shore fully outweighed what the photographer took. I've had a photo package before and the photos were amazing.These were very poor quality. Not sure where the service and quality has gone down but I will be looking for a different surf school, the next time I visit the north shore!! For me paying $500 for an experience. I'm not getting that experience, is money wasted? I am not wealthy and I saved for a long time so that we can have these amazing experiences. However, this time was unamazing,...