This was me and my bf’s first parasail experience and we were the last flight of the day. It started out great, but near the end of our flight, the boat operators lowered us down to the water while still driving fairly fast. He then unexpectedly dragged us waist deep across the water for a good 10 secs as we twisted around violently and had water gushing in our faces and it felt like we both were drowning. When he finally pulled us up both of our shorts (not loose fitting) were completely pulled down to fully expose our butts and almost our fronts. My boyfriend was also pulled very far out of the harness.
To make things worse, I signaled with my hands down to the operators to lower us back down. Instead of lowering us, the operator pulled out his personal phone and started taking photos.
After landing us back on the boat, the operator made a joke to my boyfriend, whose pants were almost completely off, that they usually “try to get girls that good.”
Saw a bunch of other TripAdvisor reviews claiming a similar experience, and the response from the company seems to always be that “the weather can be unpredictable and even the most experienced boat riders can have difficulty reeling people in without dipping them in the water.” That I can understand, but what happened to us was clearly intentional, unsafe, and down right humiliating.
Response from Host
Nov 2021
Aloha Lena,
Thank you for your comment, I take these kind of comments very seriously. All customers have the option of dry ride or wet dipping ride. If the customers do not exercise that option and leave it up to the captain he may or may not dip you in the water. If a customer requests a dry ride they most certainly will stay dry, the captain can easily accomplish that, mush more easily than trying to dip people in the water which requires a skill. If there is a steady wind the boat does not require speed to make the parachute fly but if there is low wind or no wind the boat must create its own wind by moving forward at a steady rate of speed to prevent the chute from going into the water. I think when you were being dipped in the water the boat had to be going forward at a moderate rate to keep the parachute in the air so when you entered the water you were already moving forward creating a current and splashes into your face and a feeling like you were being dragged but it was mostly the current caused by the forward action of the boat. The comments I agree were uncalled for, I think maybe they were trying to make light of the pants falling down which cannot be helped if they are loose fitting in that kind of situation. Sorry if that event soured your experience.