Most surf trips are planned around a forecast. This one is planned around a timetable. The PerfectSwell® wave pool at Riyue Bay in Wanning, Hainan — the world’s only wave pool on a tropical island — has been closed since 25 August for a scheduled experience upgrade, and it reopens on Thursday 24 September 2026 with a session-by-session calendar published through 31 October. Every hour on that board has a named wave setting attached to it, which means you can pick your travel dates around the exact wave you want to surf. This guide explains what the codes mean, how the hours shift between Golden Week, weekends and weekdays, and how to turn the calendar into a trip.
Why the pool was closed, and what reopens
The closure runs from 25 August to 23 September 2026 and covers a scheduled upgrade to the pool experience. Nothing else in Wanning stops: ocean surfing at Riyue Bay, golf at The Dunes and Mission Hills, the hotel and the coast all carry on as normal, and plenty of guests have used the window as a pure ocean-surf trip. From 24 September the pool is back on a published schedule, and the autumn that follows is the first full season on the upgraded pool.
The timing is good. Late September and October sit at the turn of Hainan’s year — the heat easing, the ocean swell window approaching — which our season-by-season guide covers in detail. It also contains China’s National Day holiday, which changes the shape of the calendar for two and a half weeks.
Six settings on the calendar, three more on request
The pool runs around twenty wave settings in total, but the public schedule uses six of them, each tagged with a code on the calendar. Think of them as six different waves, not six volumes of the same one — different shape, different speed, and often a different board under your feet. Our PerfectSwell® explainer goes deeper on the technology; here is what the codes mean in the water.
Beginner: B2 Shmee and B4 Malibu
B2 Shmee is the softest wave in the pool and the one nearly everybody starts on. It peels both left and right off the peak, so there is room to stand up, fall off and go again without anything coming at you fast. Longboard. B4 Malibu is the step up once you can stand and trim: still friendly, but with a real shoulder to ride along instead of white water — the setting where most people catch their first proper wave. If you are starting from zero, our beginner’s guide walks through the first two days.
Intermediate: I1 Nose Rider and I2 Jetty
I1 Nose Rider is a long, mellow wall built for longboarding — cross-stepping, hang fives, hang tens. If you came to log, this is your hour. I2 Jetty is the shortboard equivalent: clean, makeable walls you can actually draw a line on, and the best setting in the pool for stringing turns together. Most intermediate surfers will want one of each in a day.
Advanced: A1 Stock Stack and A2 Lowers
A1 Stock Stack is where the calendar gets serious — a faster, more demanding wall that rewards commitment off the bottom, and works on either a log or a shortboard. A2 Lowers is punchier again, with more sections to work through in a single ride. It is named after the wave every shortboarder wants to surf, and it earns the name.
Private only: A3 MGO, Highball and Drainer
Three settings never appear on the public board. A3 MGO is a further advanced wave held back from the schedule. Highball is the air setting — a quick take-off, an open face to build speed and a clean ramp to finish on. Drainer is the barrel, and nothing on the public calendar comes close. All three run only when a group takes the pool privately and chooses the setting; our guide to private wave pool sessions explains how that works.
How the hours change: Golden Week, weekends and weekdays
Session slots start on the half hour, from 8:30 AM to 8:30 PM at the fullest, and which slots run depends on the kind of day.
24 September – 11 October: the full board
The reopening run and the National Day holiday (1–7 October) get the complete schedule every day: thirteen slots from 8:30 AM through to 10 PM. The two advanced settings take the first two slots of the morning — A1 Stock Stack at 8:30, A2 Lowers at 9:30 — and from 10:30 the day rotates through Shmee, Nose Rider, Malibu and Jetty, finishing with beginner settings under the lights at 7:30 and 8:30 PM. Golden Week is China’s domestic travel peak and the island is at its busiest; if you want a particular wave in that window, book it early.
From 12 October: Fridays and Saturdays
Weekends keep the early start. Advanced surfers still get Stock Stack at 8:30 and Lowers at 9:30, the beginner and intermediate rotation runs through the day, and the last session is at 6:30 PM.
From 12 October: Sunday to Thursday
Weekdays flip the pattern. The pool opens later, with the first session at 10:30 AM, and the advanced settings are held back to the end of the night — Stock Stack at 7:30 PM and Lowers at 8:30 PM, under lights, after the beginners have gone to dinner. For anyone who wants uncrowded advanced waves, a weekday evening in mid-October is the quietest hour on the whole board.
The autumn 2026 calendar at a glance
What a session actually looks like
The slot on the calendar is 60 minutes, but the experience around it is 120. Arrive at least 45 minutes before your slot — tickets, changing, wetsuit and board pick-up all happen before the clock starts. Then a 30-minute land warm-up with your coach, who sets the plan for the wave that is running; the hour at the pool, roughly 25 minutes of surfing inside it with short changeovers between rotations; and 30 minutes poolside to cool down, watch the next rotation and talk through what worked. Boards for every setting — longboards for Shmee and Nose Rider, shortboards for Jetty and Lowers — are in the rental quiver steps from the water.
Most guests who come to progress surf twice a day, typically a beginner or intermediate setting during the day and a harder one in the evening. The calendar is built for that: on almost every day a Shmee or Malibu slot sits a few hours from a Jetty or an advanced one. Two things to know before you build a trip around a single hour. The pool is outdoors, so the operator can adjust or cancel sessions for lightning, typhoon conditions or extreme heat — we confirm every booked session before you travel and again on the day. And guests staying at the surf hotel inside the pool grounds get their own booking window on each session, so if one particular wave matters to you, staying on site is the simplest way to get on it.
Turning the calendar into a trip
Start with the wave, not the date. If you want Jetty and Lowers, a Friday-to-Monday in mid-October gives you dawn advanced sessions on the weekend and late-night ones on the Sunday and Monday, with Nose Rider and Jetty filling the afternoons. If you are bringing a family or a mixed crew, the Golden Week board has a beginner setting almost every other hour, so kids and parents can surf the same day at their own level — our family surf trip guide shows how that fits. Golfers can pair a morning session with an afternoon at The Dunes at Shenzhou Peninsula, the best links course in China, thirty minutes from the pool. And when the ocean is running, the calendar’s later opening on weekdays leaves the dawn free for the beach break down the sand.
Getting here is simple: Hainan offers 30-day visa-free entry for passport holders from the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Canada and many other countries, with direct flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Haikou (HAK) and one-stop connections through Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or Seoul into Haikou or Sanya (SYX). The getting here guide covers airports and the coastal transfer to the bay.
We’ll read the board for you
You do not need to work the calendar alone. Open the live surf calendar to see every session from 24 September to 31 October, then send us your dates and your level and we will map them onto it — which sessions to take, how many a day, and when a private hour is the better call. Browse the trip packages, keep reading the journal, or get in touch: hello@surfchina.co or WhatsApp +8613893402173.
