Menehune Surf & Oceangirl Surf Schools

We had a great time and had great instruction from Fonzi. He helped us all feel successful.

We have been coming to Menehune the last 10 years… I always stay at the camp (I mean come on, why wouldn’t you stay a week at La Jolla
shores!?!) and I’ve watched all the other surf schools lined up along side and there is no comparison to Menehune! They have the best instructors who are great with kids, teens, and adults alike. We have had Mark Heinze for multiple years who is just an amazing surf instructor and teacher who has a love for the ocean, makes things fun, and super knowledgable. The past two years we moved on from surfing to Ocean Adventure camp, which gives you surfing every day plus a fun activity like paddle-​boarding and kayaking. Nat coached my daughter and her 4 friends and he topped the charts! So much fun, relevant, and so good with the kids. You can tell the owners Dave and Angela care about their school and want to ensure the best experience for all. Don’t settle for just any surf school… Go with someone who excels at all levels. As always, we’ll be back again next year!

Mahalo Menehune Ocean Adventure & Surf Camp for making my daughter’s week-​long camp experience «gnarly.» She had an action-​packed week of surfing, snorkeling, paddle boarding, body surfing, kayaking, boogie boarding, etc. (I’m sure I’m leaving alot out.) She now wants to take US out paddle boarding!
Parents always worry & wonder if their kids will be ok in the ocean with an instructor but Nat eased my anxiety right away. My daughter was thrilled to «step into liquid» along side her classmates & instructor who was attentive throughout the day.
NAT — you were instrumental in getting my daughter stoked on surfing! Hope to see you there again next year!

My husband and I had Fonzi as our private instructor for two days in a row and he was awesome. He helped us with technique, had a great attitude and gave us really good feedback. Highly recommend Fonzi! We’ve surfed a few days before but we’re still beginners and with Fonzi’s help, we were the only beginners outside the break and riding waves all the way in. We’ll be back for sure and will be asking for Fonzi again. He’s legit!

Good instructors! Good times!
Good for kids and adults.

Took a lesson today with Fonzi and had a blast! He was a great teacher and had some really helpful tips… it was my first time surfing but by the end he helped me catch a wave by myself! Highly recommend when visiting SD :)

My siblings and I had a great time at the La Jolla beach with Fonzi, our instructor. We had a 2-​hour private lesson for the 4 of us and we all felt like we got personal attention and feedback from Fonzi. Each of us stood up at least once. I would definitely go back to Menehune for another lesson!

Had a great lesson this morning with Fonzie! He was my instructor back in September too. He taught me how to really carve lefts and rights. Definitely will book again when I’m back next year.

I had an amazing time surfing. The waves were just perfect and my instructor gave me lots of good advice and added and some extra time. He also took some super cool surf pics and videos of me. I will definitely come back here and use the same surf school.

OkAn update now that I’m not in the moment and way less upset. I called them and they helped me out. Turns out the instructor and I just missed each other on the beach. Dave was really apologetic and has rescheduled me lessons. I really appreciate them working with me to reschedule and now I’m looking forward to trying out surfing

Absolutely love this little outfit. Since I am new to the sport, I had a two-​hour Individual Private Lesson with Fonzi, a wonderful Portuguese surfer. The first hour was enough to learn and practice the basic mechanics of getting up on the board and balancing, and the second hour was spent actually standing and getting guidance from Fonzi, who was in the water with me the whole time.
I’d recommend this place to anyone looking to learn for the first time, or even an experienced surfer looking to fine-​tune their mechanics.

Great experience here. Energetic surf instructors with a true willingness to teach as well as educate. It is a smaller store on the block and it is nice to support the little guys.

My 8 yr old daughter really enjoyed the half day surf camp. The instructors were very kind to her and very patient.
My 5 yr old son did a couple of private lesson with Fonzie and he was amazing! I highly recommend him for private lessons.

My 11 yr old daughter was in Ocean Adventure Camp & Surf Camp last summer in La Jolla. It was her first time learning to surf and ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT that she asked to be signed up for upcoming summers. She spoke very highly how awesome the counselors were making students feel confident and having fun. She’ll be there again this summer.

My daughter has been going to the Ocean Adventures Surf Camp at La Jolla Shores for over five years and she absolutely loves it! The counselors are knowledgeable, qualified and most of all fun!
This is the ONE camp she requests every year!

I have read the other reviews. All I can do is tell you about our experience with Menehune, which is vast. My daughters have done the half day surf camp in Del Mar four times (and I am about to sign them up for their fifth). I have one daughter who is rather adventurous and another who is not. Although the instructors want to encourage the kids to try new things and improve upon their skills, they have always been patient and understanding with my less adventurous daughter. As a result, she is willing to keep going back and has been improving at her own pace. While we have loved all of our Menehune instructors, last year’s took things to a new level (so much so that I even wrote a letter to the company letting them know how much my girls enjoyed them). I am so pleased that we live in San Diego and have access to such a wonderful program.

My son has been going to the Delmar location the past 2 summers. He’s had a great experience!!!
Fun instructors. We’ll be doing it again this summer.

My son did 2 Menehune camps with buddies last summer and loved it. His instructor was so awesome, a teacher during the year, he really made all the difference. He was really patient and developed in our son confidence, a love of surfing and of the ocean. We will definitely be returning this summer.

STAY AWAY. I saw some of the good reviews and thought I would give it a shot, but this company doesn’t give a CRAP about it’s customers. Purchased the Groupon that said it would expire in Dec, called in early October to book a semi-​private group lesson and basically they said that unless they have 3 other people signed up for a group lesson, you can’t book it… and by the way, they’re last group lesson was around Labor day since it’s now off peak — so there’s basically no chance I would get to use it unless I called every weekend and got lucky where 3 other suckers decided to book with them. The guy really didn’t care and he basically said, «I’m not going to lose money on this just because you bought a Groupon that you can’t use.»
I told him, «You know, sometimes it’s better to lose money than your reputation… it’s easy to make more money, but very hard to repair your reputation.» It’s clear which path he preferred and he actually had the balls to laugh at me in response. If this is the kind of business you want to support, go ahead, but I would stay clear away.
So if you got stuck with a worthless Groupon like I did, here’s what you do, let Groupon know and see if they can help refund your money. If not, you call your credit card company and tell them what happened and ask for a chargeback. My credit card company was GREAT and credited my card. (Chase) And then post about your experience on Unilocal and every other review site.

Go somewhere that values your business bc this place truely does not. I purchased a living social deal for a group surfing lesson with a friend so we could try out surfing for when she came into town. I called before making the purchase asking if we could do a lesson on a Thurs or Fri and they said it would be fine. I called to make an appt a month later and was told it could only be on a weekend day and was told we could upgrade to a private surf lesson and pay the difference in order to get our lesson in on a week day. We scheduled for 11:00 the next day. A few hours later I got a call from who I think was an owner or manager and told me we had to cancel bc there wasn’t anyone available. That was fine, scheduled for 2:00. No apology for the time switch, and admitted that the people in the office weren’t trained. The day of the lesson we had just finished parking and got a call from them saying it had to be cancelled all together bc an instructor got injured. Yes, that’s terrible but an apology would have been nice and then an offer to reschedule would have been great too. I told the guy all of the trouble we had been through just to try and get a 1.5hr lesson and said it felt like we were being dicked around when all we wanted was to have a chance at getting a lesson. The guy on the other line started screaming at us and freaked out saying he didn’t appreciate being sworn at… didn’t realize using the term «being dicked around» was now a profanity… And then he hung up on us. I called the manager back and told him we would try to get a refund through living social and he said he wouldn’t fight it. Again, no apology out of him either. We haven’t tried to get a refund yet but hopefully it works bc I would never want to go to a place with such horrible customer service and with employees who simply don’t care.