SURF FAQ

Yes, we have an ever growing and updating performance, soft-top and body board inventory!

Please email [email protected] for our latest board stocktake.

Once you’ve chosen your shred stick – we’ll ask you to fill out the Surfboard Rental Agreement on site 🙂

Yes, you’re going to need a reservation.

Our surf sessions are usually booked about 2 months in advance, so showing up and hoping for the best is not something we recommend. At all.

Unfortunately, split Public Surf Sessions are no longer allowed for the surf lagoon. Safety is our number one priority and having guests exit and enter the water is a potential safety risk.

We recommend arriving at least  20 minutes before your scheduled session if you have visited us before, and at least 1 hour before your session if this is your first time. This gives us time to get you checked in at the front desk, check your waiver and hand you a wristband.

If you’re running late, please email us at [email protected] as soon as you can, and we will hold your session for you.

If you are going to be more than 10 minutes late to your session, and have not reached out to us, we reserve the right to cancel your session.

Please note : missed sessions are not eligible for refunds, credits or rebooks.

Glad you asked – great question! It changes dramatically, reflecting the air temperature the days before your session! Check the home page for daily water temp updates and recommended wetsuit set ups!

We usually release the public surf (also known as Space Available Sessions) 4-6 weeks out! Space available simply means it’s the surf spaces we have available after we book our Stay and Surf sessions and our private sessions.

If you want peace of mind, stay on site with us with at the Waco Surf Hotel and we can prebook your surf sessions as part of the Stay and Surf program.

Email [email protected] for pricing and availability.

*Stay and Surf session pre-booking is only available until Space Available is released, 4-6 weeks prior to the start of the month. Stay & Surf booked within the 4-6 week timeframe is subject to limited availability.

Whenever you please! We have bookings 24 hours up to 24 months in advance. The further in advance you book, the better selection of dates and times you have access to. You can email private bookings for all availability and pricing!

Absolutely not. Drones are not permitted in any area of the park – including cable park, surf lagoon, waterpark, accommodations or anywhere on our property. If you’d like drone footage (because it is dope), just ask to hire our on house photography team to capture the moment for you!

The Coaster
This small, gentle ground-swell wave provides for an easy rolling take-off. The ride is slow and consistent and allows for plenty of time to work on balance, foot placement, and to begin to understand how to turn your surfboard. The end section closest to the wall, speeds up just slightly, and gives you a chance to ride out on the open face.
This wave gives you two options; a gentle, rolling whitewash on the periphery of the bay, and a knee to thigh high wave on the peak that’s great for progressing from standing up in the whitewash, to starting to ride face waves.

*There are coaches in the water with you to help you shred! Soft-top board rental is included in the session price (excluding the optional insurance fee).

The Runner
Open, lined-up faces allow for high performance and high variety. Our three-wave set provides three different waves to play with; wave 1 has a slightly steeper take-off and initial section, allowing for multiple top turns and a full speed end-section; wave 2 provides a slightly longer line for a racier set up for a bigger finishing turn, and wave 3 has a softer take off, but more drained out end section for a little cover up, and wrapping top-turns.

*Board rental is not included in the session price.

The Peak
This wave gives you the variety and setups you need to push your surfing to the limit. Wave 1 is a steep runner, with a quick take-off and open face perfect for true top to bottom surfing; wave 2 stretches that face out a bit allowing for big wraps and end-section turns at full speed; wave 3 is a slopier take-off allowing you to pump into a steeper end-section for your biggest hacks; wave 4 provides the most stretched out sections for a punchy beach-break-like set up.

*Board rental is not included in the session price.

The Pro session is our new comp wave setting – featuring a few warm up Peak waves, before heading into The Ramp air section and The Wedge barrel section to really test your skills.

Short answer – all of them. Long answer – see below.

Advanced Private Wave Settings:

Freak Peak Wedge – 2 waves that collide from either end of the lagoon. Made for doing airs.

Waco Wedge – Slab barrel wave.

Sissy Sauce – Air wave with section to a barrel section.

3 set lowers – Similar to a wave at lowers/ soft lip able to do cutbacks and get barreled.

Peak Peel – Wedge slab barrel followed by a peeling roller with barrel section then floater section.

Peel Wave – Fast hollow running wave.

Closeout Air – Closeout wave made for doing airs.

Air Section Plus – Air section with a bit more ramp to the section.

3 Set Close – All peeling waves in a 3 wave set. Fast hollow waves.

3 Set Gap – Peeling waves with a 10 second gap between each wave.

Spit – Long fast peeling wave that spits midway to the end.

Intermediate Private Wave Settings:

Air section right and left – Softer smaller air section with close out.

3 set Jetty – A smaller version of the lowers wave. Good for perfecting turns and barrels.

3 set plus – Intermediate version of a peeling wave.

Peel – Fast hollow peeling wave. Good for single longboard wave.

For sure! They can buy a Surfer Companion Beach pass and swim in the lagoon while you boost airs!

Yep! His name is Rob Henson and he’s the man. You can email our sales department at [email protected] to book him in! He offers video, photography and drone footage, and can deliver it either edited or unedited. If you’re after quick turn around unedited video of yourself to improve between sessions (a popular request), please make sure to bring a hard drive with you so we can upload all content straight onto your hard drive after the session has ended. 

Yes, we try and photograph all public sessions but there is no guarantee we can capture your session or your group. All public photography is uploaded ASAP onto this site – ready for your viewing, purchasing and downloading pleasure.

The best way to guarantee footage or images of you/our group is to book a private photographer.

Although we don’t have an age restriction for the surf sessions – we do require that all surfers be proficient swimmers and their parents supervise them either out of the water or close by in the water (but not in the way of other surfers).

For sure! Go to the ‘Surfing’ tab on our Things to do drop down menu and scroll on down!

*Please note – BYOB is not permitted on the surf lagoon/beach side of the park.*

Beach Club Cabanas come with 6 Beach Club Passes, additional passes can be purchased on site.

The maximum number of people allowed per cabana is 10.

We strongly recommend boards no longer than 8ft in the intermediate and advanced sessions as the pool does get pretty shallow pretty quickly and we’ve seen all too many custom single fins hit the concrete bottom (brutal to watch).

Only soft tops are allowed in the beginner session for safety reasons. Short boards, long boards and anything else that’s not squishy is not permitted and you will be asked to leave the water if you have anything other than a soft top/foam board.

Absolutely not. State law requires everyone in our surf lagoon to have a flotation device that can support your weight.

This means no body surfing, hand planes, wompers or just general frolicking and swimming.

If you are accompanying a guest in a private surf session (i.e. filming) you will need a coast certified life jacket. We have some on site you can borrow!

We have several umbrellas on site that you can rent from us – don’t worry about lugging your around umbrella, we got you!

You may bring your umbrella or tent for the surf lagoon beach, but do NOT put any poles or rods directly into the sand as it will rip the liner underneath the sand. Please only use bases or weights to secure the tent or umbrella.

For all 2023 Waco Surf cancellation policies – please see link below:

2023 Waco Surf cancellation policies

That’s going to be a no from us…

You can bring:

• Coolers full of all the delicious non-alcoholic drinks you can think of.
• Life jackets for kids under the age of 12 years old.
• Umbrellas and tents – please do not dig poles into the sand. Only use bases or weight to secure umbrellas and tents.
• Reusable water bottles to refill from our Flowater stations across the property.
• Your own surfboard or body board for your surf session.

You cannot bring:

• Your own alcohol (we have 2 bars located on the lagoon you can purchase any liquid courage from).
• Anything made from glass.
• Pets of any kind (service dogs are allowed with correct marked badges, but they are not allowed on the beach or in the water).
• Grills or BBQs of any kind
• Skateboards, rollerblades, roller skates, bikes etc.
• A bad attitude

Please make sure you’ve read our cancellation policy as we follow this pretty closely!

2023 Waco Surf cancellation policies

You can email us at [email protected] to rebook or cancel your session and we’ll help you according to the policy 🙂

The water is filtered through a three-phase, state-of-the-art system that includes disk filtration, media filtration, and the addition of ozone and chlorine.

There’s a dude in the corner of the lagoon with a bodyboard pushing it up and down. His name’s Reef. And if that’s not the actual answer, it’s probably proprietary…

Right now! We can book your private sessions for any available times in 2024 now, and we can book your Stay and Surf sessions about 3-8 months in advance with a booking in the Waco Surf Hotel.

Space available sessions are hands off for us – so head online and you can book these yourself anywhere from a few hours before a session, up to 6 weeks before a session!