Some sketchy AF drama going on out there in the desert.
About a week and a half ago, just a few days after being open, word was spreading that the Palm Springs Surf Club was shutting down. People were also starting to post online that their reservations were being cancelled. Other people started posting about how they bought sessions and were told the (advenced) wave sessions they bought were not working and switched them to different type wave sessions.
Whoever was running their social media accounts was keeping quiet on the situation, as several people were posting comments about it.
Local press heard of the complaints and reported the facility "had been shuttered indefinitely because of ‘technical challenges.’” The Palm Springs Surf Club's website and all their social media accounts kept quiet about it.
After several days of reports and bad publicity going around, the Palms Springs Surf Club was finally forced to make an official annoucment, sidestepping the issue, they told the press they are not shutting down indefinitely, they are open and are remaining open.
"We paused surf for the time being but our restaurant and bar Amala is open + accepting reservations." Because they still have the restaurant, bar, and lazy river runnig, they can still they are still open, even though the wave pool is their main feature. It's like a movie theater with a broken projector claiming they are still open because you still buy the overpriced popcorn and to sit in the theater's chairs.
Soon after, their website completely stopped taking reservations for all upcoming dates. But there is no information on the current status of the wave pool, or anything about having any issues.
A spokesperson for the Surf Club did finally speak up blaming lightning for the shut down. In a reply to surf tabloid Beach Grit, the spokesperson wrote, "legitimately I can blame a ‘lightning strike’." But local meteorologist Jerry Steffen, who did some research and says there have been no lightning strikes in Palm Springs since the beginning of the year.
In response to the question about when will they reopen, they stated, “We don’t have a timeframe yet to reopen the wave pool.”
Those who already had reservations recieved this email:
"To our valued customers:
It has been a tough decision to make but based on the current state of some technical issues with our wave machine, we will be cancelling the remainder of sessions scheduled for January; effective tonight, 1/10/24.
In recent days, we have been experiencing technical challenges. We have been working through them but our goal here at The Palm Springs Surf Club is to consistently deliver epic waves. In order to maintain the quality we have worked so hard to achieve within our wave settings, we need to take the whole system down to make it strong again. As a team that has been dedicated to the stoke, it saddens us to make this call but we can confidently say we will be back again with the product you all have seen and hoped to experience.
At this time, we do not have a reopening date. We will make sure to update everyone as we get closer to nailing down a timeframe.
All cancelled January public session bookings will be receiving a gift card via email to use at a future date. Along with this gift card, you will be placed on a priority list for the new booking window. This priority list will be given first rights to booking into new dates before any of the general public.
Should you chose a refund instead of the gift card, please email and we will make sure to process a full refund promptly. Please note: the priority booking list will be created using only the contact information of those who accepted the gift card.
We want to express our sincere gratitude to all of the unbelievable support you all have shown. It’s truly been mind-blowing. You all are the reason we are going to work hard to get this done. It’s been an incredible few weeks and we can’t wait to get back up and running!"
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