My 15 year old daughter and I signed up for a small group lesson. We were told to arrive 30 minutes early to check in. We arrived a little earlier and were told to feel free to wander around the area since we only needed to arrive about 10-15 minutes before. We met with Peter, our instructor, and another young boy who joined our lesson. The vibe that Peter gave off was that he didn’t want to be doing the job. He seemed annoyed from the beginning but made an effort to engage each of us and give us the necessary instruction. My big concern about the area is that the water isn’t too deep and below the surface is rock and coral. So, there were a number of warnings about how best to fall off your board to avoid getting hurt by the ocean’s floor. After the 30 minutes of instruction, I wasn’t sure that it was actually safe to surf! However, we went ahead with the actual surfing. The water was busy with surfers from another surf school and it was easy to float into the other group’s session. My daughter did well with her experience and really enjoyed it. I had a harder time but was glad that I tried. Our lesson ended 30 minutes early and while I was secretly glad to be done, my daughter was really disappointed that she didn’t get to surf more. My husband had just arrived to take some pictures only to discover that we were already out of the water. Fortunately, a professional photographer captured the entire experience and the pictures were excellent. Worth buying!
So ... maybe Peter was having an off day or just was annoyed that a forty-something year old couldn’t follow instructions well ... not sure. But he definitely made us feel unsettled and that we were an annoyance. Hence, perhaps, the early end of the session.
I would like to share that I communicated with our hotel’s management and expressed my disappointment in our experience. The hotel refers many people to this surf school and they appreciated the feedback. They even contacted the surf school, expressed my concerns, and the response from the school was very gracious. So, this is a school that values their customers and wants to make things right. Ultimately, we all want to have that great positive experience the first time around but if it doesn’t work out that way, don’t be afraid to speak up. If the school doesn’t know that there is an issue, they cannot fix it.