Every surf camp makes the same two promises: waves and coaching. The second one is easy to keep. The first is a gamble — on swell, on wind, on tide, on how many strangers show up at the same break. A camp at a private wave pool keeps both promises before anyone gets on a plane. At the PerfectSwell® pool at Riyue Bay — the world's only wave pool on a tropical island — the waves are guaranteed, the water is warm year-round, and in a private session the pool runs for your group only.
This guide is written for coaches, clubs and group organisers running a coached block. If you are a crew of friends who simply want the pool to yourselves for an hour, start with our private wave pool sessions guide instead.
Repetition is the whole secret
Surfing is brutally hard to practise because the ocean never serves the same wave twice. You get one attempt at a takeoff, then paddle back out and wait for a different wave to try a different lesson on. Coaches call it the feedback-loop problem: by the time the next comparable wave arrives, the last ride is a memory.
A wave pool deletes the problem. The machine produces the same wave, on demand — so a drill gets dozens of attempts in a single session, each one starting from an identical takeoff in an identical spot. Miss the section? The same section comes back in the next set. Your coach stands metres away, sees every ride from start to finish, and the correction lands while the wave is still fresh. That loop — attempt, feedback, identical retry — is what a camp is buying, and no ocean on earth can sell it.
One settings board, every level in your camp
The pool has around 20 wave settings, from soft, crumbling rollers up to barreling waves with sections built for airs — we've broken the full menu down in our PerfectSwell explainer. For a camp, the settings board is a curriculum. Beginners spend the morning on gentle waves until pop-ups are automatic; improvers step up a notch to work on trim and turns; the sharpest surfers in the group finish on the settings that barrel.
Because the setting can change from one set to the next, a mixed-ability camp doesn't have to split up or compromise. Nobody is out of their depth and nobody is bored — the wave meets each surfer where they are, then moves the goalposts on schedule.
Camps that work in this format
Progression camps
The classic learn-faster trip: a group of surfers, a coaching team, and a block of private sessions programmed around specific goals — first green waves, first cutback, first barrel. Wave-count maths does the heavy lifting: sessions here deliver more rides per hour than most surfers log in weeks of ocean surfing.
How a camp block is built
A camp is a run of private hours. Each hour takes up to 20 surfers, the machine serves one surfer per wave, and coaching is booked per person per hour on top — so the smaller the group in the water, the more rides each surfer logs. Boards come from the resort’s rental quiver (shortboards through longboards) or you bring your own; every ride can be filmed from the pool’s edge for the review between sessions.
Teams and clubs
For boardriders clubs and junior squads, a repeatable wave is a training tool the ocean can't match — the same section, every attempt, until the manoeuvre sticks. Program the settings, run the drills, film everything from the pool's edge.
What a camp day looks like
Pool hours come in blocks with a video review in between, and the settings step up as the group does. When the season delivers swell, Riyue Bay's ocean breaks are the real-world exam of what the pool taught; the rest of the island — golf, food, where the group sleeps — is covered in our where to stay guide.
A camp training day, at a glance
Group logistics
One arrival airport, one van, one resort. The whole camp lands at Haikou (HAK) or Sanya (SYX), our driver collects the group in a private van, and rooms sit steps from the pool, so nobody is coordinating taxis between sessions. Most passports enter Hainan visa-free for 30 days, routes are in the getting here guide, and the pool runs year-round — pick dates by what you want around the sessions and by which holiday weeks to avoid.
Build your camp
Tell us your group size, your dates and what the camp is chasing — first waves or first barrels — and we'll program the settings, book the coaches and build the week around it. Browse the trip packages, check the surf calendar, or keep reading on the journal. Reach us at hello@surfchina.co or WhatsApp +8613893402173.
