Waikiki Beach Activities — Local services in Honolulu

Staying at a neighboring property and, since there is exactly zero other options, we had to use Waikiki Beach Activities (WBA). My review is broken into two categories: a) the company and b) the staff.

A) The Company WBA seems to be the only gig in the beach. Consequently, you pay what they ask or, you do without. The process for renting an umbrella and two chairs requires that you first get in line to choose your rental package. This line, at 8:30am only took about 30 minutes to get through. After dropping $100 on the rental, we moved to line #2. In this oine, you stand in the sun waiting for one of the employees to look at your receipt and drag your required hardware to the beach (around 15-100’ depending on your choice .. assuming they actually ask where you’d like to be set up. Look, the process is trash .. at best. Why they don’t already have multiple umbrellas and chairs already set up and allow the guest to pick the location is beyond me. Just a little prior planning would go miles to increasing the guest experience AND reducing the required physical output for the obviously stressed staff. Three hours later and the line was still packed with nearly 60 people. This number of folks waiting in line probably indicates another 200 people waiting for their representative in line.

TLDR - Poorly planned policies and procedures means you get to spend a large portion of your beach time standing in a line waiting for the inevitable sunburn.

B) The Staff Look, these guys work hard. No doubt, at the end of the day, they’re cooked and tired of carrying chairs and hand digging holes for umbrellas in the sand. That said, their situation lends itself to earning a solid pile of tips. Lucky me .. I got Patrick. He walked up to check my receipt and pull my order and I greeted him with “Man, you’ve got the best, worst job on the beach”. He looked me in the face and said nothing. He took my receipt .. said nothing. Looked at my receipt .. said nothing. Handed me back my receipt .. said nothing .. then walked away. When he returned he, while others had asked which side of the beach they’d like to be on, chose to walk to the right side of the beach. I said “if you could, our towels and stuff are already set up over here (pointing to the left side) .. but I’m good with whatever”. Now, roughly 4 minutes into our rental relationship, Patrick looks at me, says nothing and marches to a spot roughly 30’ away from my waving wife (vigorously pointing out where we are already set up). He drops the chairs and umbrella and begins digging. Not unaware of his exerted effort, I say, “Sorry Patrick, can we get the umbrella where all of our stuff is .. right there?” Patrick looks me in the face, twists his eyes and mouth into a scowl and .. says nothing. He picks up the stuff .. again .. and, while spinning around carrying his two beach chairs, metal shovel and 8’ long umbrella (almost blasting a pregnant woman carrying an infant in her arms in the face with the 4’ of wooden umbrella pole) he unapologetically stomps the 30’ to where my wife and kids stand next to a pile of the day’s beach supplies. He, again, tosses the stuff in the sand and begins digging the hole. When he’s done, I thank him .. a lot .. and hand him five bucks. Seemed like too much but .. it’s Easter. He .. says “you have them til 5. If you leave, put a towel on them” and walks away. I say “Have a great Easter”. He, without looking back, waves the $5 bill over his shoulder at me. Maybe it was just a bad day for Patrick. Regardless, don’t be such a toolbag. Say thank you and be personable. You’ll earn more for your endeavors.

TLDR - Patrick does his job and doesn’t care what you think about it or him. That’s probably been working out for him for a while I’d guess. Good luck with...

We booked this due to a recommendation from a friend. What a mistake. We initially booked a 9 am, where told to come at 8.45 am. At 8.55 finally someone arrives and tells us that is up to us if we want to go out but it is very dangerous and boys would get hurt due to low tide. When asked why they didn’t let us know when we booked the day before head instructor just said the girls in the office just want to make the sell and don’t care. He recommended to come back at 1 pm or 3 pm. Asked if we should take private lesson as originally planned he said not necessary as it would be the same as group lesson and that there wouldn’t be that much people and they would have 3 instructors. Came back at 3 pm ( 1 hour travel time return each time). Now 15 (!) people here. 2 instructors. Spend 40 mins on beach because he has to go and get extra boards and leashes. And they had to go over the safety and rules even though we had already been surfing and know the rules and how to surf. They paddle out and he lines them up along a rop and takes them out one by one. It is now 75 mins after lesson started and boys had all of two runs. Sitting for 15 mins like ducks in a row and wait for their turn. The boys only got in 3 turns in 2 hours.Totally ridiculous. Called office and complained and they promised full refund. Appreciate that, but it is still a total waste of our time. Was supposed to be the final highlight of our trip to Waikiki. What a disappointment. If you want to surf,...

I dont even know where to begin. I learned how to surf because of the surf instructors at Waikiki Beach Activities. It was a dream of mine to learn how to surf and they made it possible for me. Ive been to Hawaii a total of 4 times throughout the last 7 years. Ive taken surfing lessons with them around 7 times and I will continue to surf with them every time I visit Hawaii. Ive taken lessons with my siblings, and later on with my husband and hopefully one day, my kids get to experience the same thing I did. Thank you so much for the memories, for the fun, for teaching me how to surf, for making me love to surf, and for all your hard work. Thank to all the instructors that have taught me how to surf including Alex, Kai, Hunter, and one other instructor that I forgot his name (my apologies). A special thank you goes out to instructor Derrik. He've taught me how to surf since 2016 and I will forever be grateful. Cant wait to go back to Hawaii and surf with them again! Highly recommend learning how to...