Unfortunately, what was a pleasant enough kayaking experience has been spoiled by the overall value for money here. First of all, the kayaking itself wasn’t bad. You will be placed in a tandem with another member of your group unless you are a solo traveller. There’s a very quick, slightly rushed, induction and then you’re off. If the seas are choppy, it’s actually quite challenging and physical, and you need to make sure you work with your partner to move forward and avoid capsizing. It was a workout! We had four in our group in two kayaks. We did pay for a fifth person but they were unfortunately ill on the day. This was short notice so we didn’t expect a refund for that person.
The kayaking lasts for over an hour. I wouldn’t categorise this as a guided tour - it’s really more of a kayak down the coast, going through some small caves, before turning around and going back. The leader is in a dingy boat and tried to share some info at one or two points, but it can be difficult to hear unless you’re close by. The guides themselves were really pleasant and smiley, and encouraging. Overall, the experience on the water was decent value - it’s not cheap, but the caves were cool and you got plenty of paddling time. It was an experience.
After returning to shore, you are handed a small business card with a website, ShootBeat, and a code to access the photographs taken by the guide on the tour. I’ve seen previous reviews praise the “free photos” in previous years, so I assume the vendors have taken a decision to monetise this, which I can understand, but it feels like paying well over 30 euros per person already should cover some free snaps. After returning home, we went online and could see that ShootBeat was a fairly rudimentary website, but the access code worked and we found several photos containing our group of 4 in action. Like many photo-commerce sites, the pictures were only lo-res previews and included a ShootBeat watermark (obviously to prevent people just saving pictures for free). Standard practice. I was taken aback by the price per picture of 5 euros. However, you received a discount for purchasing multiple. I thought this still represented poor value and seemed like a bit of a cash grab, but the family/friends in my group were really keen to have some photos of the day. Eventually, we agreed to buy 11 photos on the site for a discounted sum of 42 euros, which is of course still very expensive. I paid on the site and was redirected to a zip folder to download containing my photos.
To my horror, the photos I paid for were the same low-resolution preview images from the initial page. The watermarks had been removed but the extremely compressed images were the same. I’ve purchased pictures online before and it is common to use low-resolution images for previews before rightly delivering a high quality image once paid for. Not the case here.
ShootBeat itself has no customer service portal so I reached out to the people at SurfsUp/Watersmile (confusingly, it’s difficult to know if these are the same people as both email addresses are provided) to try and find a resolution (no pun intended). I explained the situation and asked if the original photographs - which must exist - could be emailed to me (offering my proof of purchase from ShootBeat). I have received no response, so unfortunately I have to leave this review to warn others not to engage with the photo service and to perhaps consider alternative kayaking vendors. If you do go with this company, do consider taking a waterproof camera with personal attachment if you want some pictures.
I would never ordinarily leave reviews like this but to have paid 42 euros for what are essentially thumbnail pictures - completely unusable with faces almost blurred due to the resolution - is sadly unacceptable.