Advanced surfers are the hardest guests for a wave pool to impress. You already surf well; what you are short of is not waves but the right waves — a section that stands up where you want it, a lip that arrives on time, a tube that does not close out on the third one. At home that is a handful of days a year. The PerfectSwell® wave pool at Riyue Bay, Hainan runs two advanced settings on its public calendar, and three more — including the barrel and the air ramp — for groups who book the pool privately. This is the guide to what those waves are, when they run, and how to build a trip around them.
The two advanced settings on the public calendar
The pool runs 23 wave settings, and each public session runs one of them with a capped lineup and one surfer per wave. Two are advanced. Stock Stack (A1) is where the calendar gets serious: a faster, more demanding wall that rewards commitment off the bottom, and unusually for an advanced wave it works on either a log or a shortboard — a heavy-footed longboarder who wants a wall with real push will find it here. Lowers (A2) 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.
Both are chest-to-head-high, with a quick take-off into a long, open face that gives you room to draw a full line: big wrapping turns, a barrel section when the wave stands up, and an air if you time the end section right. Guests who know both compare it to a great day on the Gold Coast, except that it arrives on schedule, every set, with nobody on your inside. Each setting runs in one direction and the pool alternates lefts and rights day by day, so a stay of a few days gives you both your forehand and your backhand at full speed.
When they run
Advanced sessions sit at the edges of the day, and Stock Stack and Lowers run back to back. On the published calendar, Fridays and Saturdays, the extended-hours days from the 24 September reopening and the whole National Day board put them first thing in the morning — the first two sessions of the day, while the beginner settings fill the middle. From Sunday to Thursday once the peak is over they move to the last two sessions of the night, under lights. Either way, the pattern suits an advanced trip: surf the pool at dawn or after dark, and give the daylight to the ocean, the golf or the recovery suite. Our autumn calendar guide walks through the reopening patterns date by date.
What a private booking unlocks: MGO, Highball and the Drainer
The public calendar is the tip of the menu. When a group takes the pool privately, the full wave list opens up, and three of those settings are the reason advanced crews book it. MGO (A3) is a third advanced shortboard setting, held back from the public schedule. Highball is the air wave: a quick take-off, an open face to build speed and a clean ramp to finish on — the same ramp, in the same place, every wave, which is the closest thing surfing has to a skate park for working an air game. And the Drainer is the barrel setting: a quick, steep take-off into a large, hollow, makeable tube. Nothing on the public calendar comes close, and it only runs for a private group.
In the ocean, tube time is rationed by luck. Here it is rationed by the clock. A private hour can mix settings, so a crew of six might warm up on Lowers, switch to the Drainer for the middle of the session and finish on Highball, with a coach in the water on positioning and every wave filmed. Our private sessions guide explains how a booking works, and Design Your Buyout prices the hours for your group before you ask.
What an advanced session actually looks like
Arrive at least 45 minutes early: tickets, changing and board pick-up all happen before the clock starts. The published slot is an hour — a briefing on land about what the wave is doing today and where the section is, then roughly 25 minutes in the water with a short changeover between rotations, then time poolside to watch the next rotation go. Take-offs are angled and safe, one surfer per wave, with minimal waiting between rides and a surf guide in the water for the small calls on positioning and timing that turn a good session into a great one.
The pool's own requirements for these settings are the honest test of whether you belong in them: you know your etiquette, you paddle with strength and catch your own waves, you surf the face of an advanced wave, you handle steep and fast drop-ins, you control the board through turns, and you are confident frontside and backside. They are not suitable for beginner or intermediate surfers. If you link turns but the lip still feels optional, our intermediate surfer’s guide covers the stage just below this one, and an hour on Jetty first is the faster route up, not a step back.
A four-day advanced plan
Most advanced guests surf two sessions a day; a third is possible on the private days. The shape that works is public settings on the edges of the day, a private block in the middle of the trip for the settings you cannot get anywhere else, and the ocean whenever it is on.
An advanced week at Riyue Bay
Boards for the advanced settings
High-performance boards for a high-performance wave. Grovellers and fun-boards are a blast on Stock Stack; logs will feel sluggish on Lowers and anything private. Bring your own quiver if you like — the transfer van is sized for board bags — or pull from the rental racks beside the pool, which carry real advanced shortboards: the Cabianca DFK 2.0, Gabriel Medina’s pro model, tuned for quality waves and as happy above the lip as on it, from 5’10” to 6’4”; and the Chilli HK II, a step-down swallow-tail with quick rail-to-rail transitions and speed over flat sections, from 5’6” to 6’4”. Tell us your height, weight and what you ride at home when you enquire and the board is on the rack when you arrive.
Then take it to the ocean
No other wave pool can offer this part. Riyue Bay is the home of Chinese surfing, and its ocean lineup is a short walk from the pool deck. In the cooler months, roughly October to March, seasonal swell wraps into the bay and produces the long, organised walls it is known for — warm water, an uncrowded lineup, and a wave that moves to test the speed you built in the pool. Advanced session at dawn, ocean at sunset, same day, no driving. Our Riyue Bay surf guide covers the breaks, the season and the boards.
Bring the crew
An advanced trip works alone on the public calendar, but the barrel and the air ramp need a group, and that is usually the better trip anyway. A private booking hands the whole pool to your crew and lets you mix settings inside the same hour, so a partner or a mate who is still on the intermediate walls gets Jetty while you get the Drainer. Our surf camp guide shows how coaches build a training block around it, and the surf hotel sits inside the pool grounds, so a dawn session and a night session never mean a drive.
Ready to surf it?
Browse the trip packages, keep reading the journal, or send your dates, your crew size and what you want to work on to hello@surfchina.co (WhatsApp +8613893402173) through the booking page. We’ll line up Stock Stack and Lowers around the direction you need, build the private block around the barrel and the ramp, and have your sessions confirmed before you land.
