Under Blue Waters

★★★★★Lisa Cohen

What a find!! My kids are having the greatest time. The counselors are engaging, fun, kind, flexible, patient, and responsible. The staff to camper ratio is excellent. Campers can pick activities based on their interest so they have the best experience possible. I'm so grateful we have this camp in our "backyard!" Our family will definitely be returning!

★★★★★Joshua Borthwick

My kids (ages 6 & 8) have done two different surf camps in the last two years and their experience at Under Blue Waters was clearly the better of the two. Every day the boys had stories to share and lots of information about fishing, marine life, surfing, and ocean safety. They were directly engaged in recreation and learning experiences for two weeks and my oldest is already asking about being a camp counselor some day. The counselors were awesome and super-friendly, while still being responsible and clearly maintaining a line between themselves and the children. I can’t say enough good things!

★★Sabah Rashid

Unfortunately the week that we signed up at Boca Inlet Park for the Ocean Adventure Camp there was no instruction offered on kayaking, skim boarding, surfing or snorkelling. On Day 1, children sat around waiting for an hour on the first day with neither counsellor engagement, nor ice breaker activities with other kids at the camp. An hour later, a child was hurt trying skim boarding. It was probably due to the lack of instruction. Then, the child was left to sit by themselves unsupervised until a parent arrived. When the parent arrived to collect the child, there were random visitors to the park smoking near the unsupervised, injured child. Because of the injury, the camp organizer allowed us to substitute another child the following day. Unfortunately for Day 2, again there was no instruction and the disinterested counsellors shared openly with me that they lie to the children saying “there are sharks in the water to discourage the children from entering the water” because the counsellors do not want to be in the water. Finally on Day 3 none of the children were allowed in the water because of “bacteria”. No alternate activities were facilitated or provided for the children who were left to entertain themselves. Meanwhile another camp taking place in the same park continued. 3 strikes. We selected to discontinue partaking in this unsafe, poorly planned and neglectful camp. I informed the organizer in writing. I followed up with the organizer in writing. No response. They did respond to another family who threatened a negative review. I don’t pay to teach this camp how to be a camp. The 2 stars are for allowing me to substitute my other child when the first one was hurt. I am deeply disappointed in the lasting negative impression about camps this experience has left on my children. Why not introduce kids to each other so they might find friendships? Why not demonstrate and guide kids about skim boarding, paddle boarding and snorkelling? Why not have games ready? Why not supervise the children who are injured? Why not respond to complaints offering feedback? I hope that by reading this review other parents and children are protected. There were other parents who noticed the ignorance and commented on it to me. I’m not sure who bothered reporting it. See something, say something.

★★★★★Stephanie Denisov

My 6 year old went to the surf camp for two weeks and he had a blast of fun. The coach Ben has a super cool vibe and makes sure everyone is having fun while making sure everyone is safe, the team is very helpful communicating to the parents if your child needs to get in touch with you. I will definitely sign him up again for next year.

★★★★★William Brown

My children, ages 12 and 10 years old, had a GREAT time on the "Island Adventure" week long camp. What my wife particularly liked about the camp was the use of an actual science teacher to lead discovery sessions each day for the kids on different topics of water and seashore ecology, environmentally aware issues that are important to us, but which would never have the time or the capability to explore with our kids directly ourselves. In addition, the kids got to do amazing water activities, like extensively snorkeling, kayaking, and even beginner scuba. All that in one week! Everyone was also very polite and nice. While this is a 5 star-camp, I might knock it down 1/2 a star just for the cost ... even if there was a sibling discount (and I'm not certain there was), aftercare is not included, and for 2 kids, I believe I was charged $40/hour, which is just excessive and is priced to penalize the working parent (and I was racing back to Palm Beach from a "quick" 3 hours -- if even -- in Miami after drop-off, plus back and forth traffic, almost an impossible task). For a day camp, this is among the most expensive we've ever paid, but I guess the flip side of that is that it keeps attendance lower than it might otherwise be, as the curriculum and staff are really great. Definitely far-and-away the best day camp program in Palm Beach County, either that we've attended ourselves or we've had described to us by people we trust.