Texas Rowing Center Reviews

Great price on GroupOn and guidance to rent Kayaks, paddle boards, and canoes! Kayaks can be a little more updated ~ Overall great experience!

So much fun. Great prices and tons of boats and paddle boards. The water is perfect. Staff is great!!

Texas Rowing Central staffs are nice. They have lots of paddle boards and kayaks.

I had a great first kayaking experience. Prices were very reasonable, and it was at great location. One improvement is that they could provide more help. I feel that if I didn't know how to row from crew, I would have been super confused.

The cleaning measures that are declared on the website are not being taken, please don t be fooled if pandemic safety measures are important to you. I was disappointed to see that there was very little effort to keep their equipment clean and customers safe. Some of the safe wore masks and there were cones in the rental line marking 6 ft apart but it was not being enforced.

Great place. Staff is very friendly and they get you in and out of the water quickly so you can be on your way.

Beautiful view of the city on a leisurely canoe trip down Lady Bird lake.

I took rowing classes, something completely out of my element but something I enjoyed doing more than anything I've done in years. I love the water. Love the sport.

Nice people, good service and at a reasonable price

There are bunch of kayak rental places on Ladybird lake and I ve tried all of them but the service that you get form Texas Rowing Center is not comparable with other places. At Rowing Center staff are super friendly, equipments are better and well kept especially the life jackets.

Took my first go at stand-up paddleboarding a few weeks ago. Taking off and then docking are the scariest parts as you have to switch from your knees to standing but I didn't get wet! The guys there are helpful at explaining how everything works but you really are kind of on your own! The current in this area is a bit strong so make sure ang approximate your time appropriately.

Rude employees. Your business is only as good as the people working for it.

Best dock in Austin I ve been Paddle boarding Lady bird since 13 and Used to go to the Rowing Docks and they are okay but I LOVE THIS DOCK it s closest to downtown so taking the left side with your out of town friends only takes about 25-35 mins to get right in the middle of downtown on the lake.

Pricing is the best deal as well costs 35 for a full day (As opposed the the 45 for the day at the Rowing docks)

I visited for Memorial Day weekend. My family (from out of town) & I were blown away by their friendliness, professionalism & order of business. We also noticed the manager was incredibly motivating to his staff. I'll never forget this day. It rained as we kayaked in the lake. The experience will be memorable!

Great service!
I enjoyed it#

The Texas Rowing Center is a place not to miss while jogging or just walking to explore the beauty of Lady Bird Lake.

All equipment is constantly being cleaned and masks are required on the dock. You leave the dock on your knees on the board to prevent falling and hitting your head on the dock. You are required to wear a life jacket but we do remove ours and attach it to the net on the board, once we get out on the water. You can take what you want on the board like a small cooler or backpack. Obviously, glass is not a smart choice, but bevvies are allowed. Use your own judgement and be safe and respectful and this is a really fun activity. You pay by the hour but we have never been charged more for losing track of time and coming in later than our hour. Most people choose paddle boards but there are row boats and kayaks as well. The Rowing center does have a rowing summer day camp for kids. My son went at 14 and gained muscle by the time it was over. Team work is necessary. This is a cool opportunity. You do sign a waiver when you arrive at the rowing center and you can leave property securely in baskets behind the counter. There is more than plenty social distancing space on the water.

Awesome place to have fun on the water, with the most affordable prices. Vast availability of boards and kayaks so you get in the water real quick with little hassle.

We had the BEST day out on the river thanks to Texas rowing center. My family and I went down to Austin early Feb to escape the Northeast winter and we lucked out with some beautiful days. Our local friends brought us here to spend a Saturday on the river. I figured it would be super busy and a little too chaotic to enjoy but I was dead wrong. There were plenty of boats and paddle boards left for everybody in our group, very reasonably priced, and they were super friendly and efficient getting us all set up. We were pleasantly surprised by how easy everything was and this will be our go-to spot for a day on the river the next time we visit. Thank you!!

On lady bird lake...choice of sup.board, Kayak for one or two. They provide life jacket and bottle of water. Resonable price. Currently, no dogs allowed as their is a poison alge bloom that is in the lake and very toxic to dogs. It will b there until a freeze kills it off.

$20 for 1 Hour of Stan Up Paddle Boarding, so fun and easy, great way to spend a beautiful day in Austin

I love the Texas Rowing Center! The staff are always so helpful and friendly. I love spending my time on the Lake and they have multiple methods to enjoy the water, including canoes, kayaks, and stand up paddling. It's awesome!

TRC is where I learned to row, and seems like the best place to train with great rowing athletes. They also have awesome youth and adaptive programs. I think they also won a masters national championship a couple of years ago...

Great place to rent a kayak or canoe or paddle board

Always pass through this place while running LBL. Friendly staff and convenient places to park.

The Texas Rowing Center is wonderful! It's easy to rent, great location, and parking is fairly easy. I've rented single kayaks, double kayaks, paddle boards and canoes, they have all been great. The prices are reasonable and they have discounted weekly prices. It's also not so busy during the week. It's a great daytime activity!

I have rented kayaks here before and it is one of my favorites. They have hourly slots but will price you per minute after so you dont have to rush back and pay a full hour if you are late.

Check groupon for a better price! Great service and good location!

everything is perfect except the rental kayaks! they are old and rusty!!

I have been going to Texas Rowing Center for over 15 years. The outfit and staff are wonderful, and time on the water is one of my favorite Austin pastimes. I highly recommend anyone visiting Austin gets a chance to try this place out, and I highly recommend locals making this a regular activity.

Awesome people , straight forward stuff. Had a good time.

These people have treated us kindly and respectfully. My boyfriend and I rented a two-person kayak from the Texas Rowing Center. Just because they noticed my boyfriend was a big muscular guy, they gave us the bigger three-person kayak at no additional cost. They seem to care more about your safety than just taking your money. This type of old school customer service hardly exists these days, so we're very grateful for restoring our faith in good ol' customer service. We've enjoyed the water tremendously, so we're definitely going back. I wish they'd rent out boats too. I'd go for that option if/when available.

Love this place! Friendly staff, quick access into any watercraft of your picking and Amazon/ living social deals galore for a a great deal on double kayaks!

I like this place just fine... Except how they are not practicing social distancing. Most employees kept their bandanas around their necks when speaking to customers. I was really surprised when the guy on the docks walked up (from behind me) to speak to me very closely, well within 6 feet, probably more like 3. They also didn't require customers to.wear masks. The last place I used (near Congress) was very strict, this made me feel much more comfortable.

Fine rowing place, but too laid back for my comfort during these weird times.

Awesome experience canoeing and kayaking on the river. Check out Groupon as they often have deals for this place.

This place can get packed if you don't get there early enough. The only complaint I have about this place is the price. I feel they are a little over priced for the hour. I know there is a high demand but it makes you think twice about just purchasing your own kayak or paddle board for the price you pay per hour. They have really good quality equipment so that's a plus. I would recommend this place if you have never been but i'd also keep on the look out when they have Groupon or Living Social deals.

I loved it. They are a bit expensive but then convenient.

Can't go wrong with this place. It's a must do when you have guests and visitors in town. Sometimes they have Groupon deals. Nice and professional staff. If it's your first time I recommend you paddle over to the Barton springs outlet.

I love this place. There so easy going and have plenty of boards and kayaks.

We went during sxsw weekend on a Sunday afternoon(2 pm) and thought we would have trouble. but nope there was a little line and signing of waivers that needed to be done but other than that it was easy peazy.

A great experience breaking in spring and the warmer weather to come.

#paddleboard #outdoor #austin

This is a great way to experience Austin from a different perspective. Get exercise in a fun way weather sculling or stand up paddle boarding.

Great place and I love that they re open early. Have been coming here for years. The least touristy of the kayak rental businesses on Town Lake, and one of the oldest.

I do wish there was a heads up on their kayak rental page reminding customers that their kayaks are the type with small holes in the bottom that water will automatically come through into your seat so prepared to get wet and plan ahead with a change of clothes!

They were very helpful and the kayaks were great. Town Lake (Lady Bird Lake for newcomers to Austin) is beautiful this time of year.

They oversell the rentals even though I called before hand to see if any rentals were available. Then they have you wait in the sun for hours until someone returns their rental. It would have been nice to know this information when I called. Definitely will not come back.

Always amazing to find wheelchair accessible spots. Especially on the water. Thanks to Lonestar paralysis foundation for providing the kayaks and TRC an accessible dock!

Stop by Texas Rowing Center and try one of Austin's most fun activities - kayaking or paddle boarding on Town Lake. You can park by Austin High and walk down easily, grab a kayak for not very much money and paddle around the lake for one of the best arm workouts you'll ever have.

Get there at 5:30pm they tell me they are closed. Online they say open until 8pm.

Pre-pandemic I would give this place 5/5 stars. But of any place that makes promises on their website regarding COVID and then not live up to them is not a place I want to go. They require masks on the dock when about maybe 5-10% of people were wearing them. They also mentioned that they spray down life jackets and wipe down paddles in between *every* use, but in reality I was just given the life jacket off of someone's back as they handed me the paddles they just used - no cleaning involved. And as for physical distancing, that's not even a thing here.

We rented a double kayak, had a great time. $40 all day.

Learn to row or just do some stand up padlle board, great place with a great staff

We were lucky that we got here since other places were extremely busy and had to wait in long lines, but here even in busy hours, it took only 10 minutes

Great experience, wonderful workout and very professional employees. Well worth every penny.

You have have to take a canoe, kayak or paddle board out on Ladybird at least once. It's fantastic. It's super easy to get in here and have a great time with your friends. Highly recommend!

What an awesome and inexpensive activity! The staff was very helpful and friendly. My husband and I rented a two person kayak for 1 hour which was $15. We went early in the morning and were rewarded with some outstanding views. A good little workout too! I would highly recommend this business for anyone looking for some fun in the Austin area.

I love to paddle board. My wife likes to kayak. This place has both, and within a matter of minutes you can go from your car to being on the water! Plus the location is great!

Fun day to watch the rowers on the lake! Every Saturday morning my son and I take a stroll on the lake watching the rowers get in a work out before the hot sun comes up!

Our kids have so much fun paddling on the river, lots of activity to do for us biking and walking the trails

It is not easy to find a place that will rent you kayak before sunrise,however, I found a Texas Rowing Center which opened at 6AM! While the sunrise occurred an hour after, I got at least 30 mins of paddling in darkness.
However, pay an attention - though you receive a headlight be careful of rowing botas - it is better to go to southern shore.

Hopefully it will help somebody - it took me quite a lot of time to find an appropriate place.

Kayaked here for the first time and absolutely loved it! It was super busy on Memorial weekend so I proud wouldn't ever go on a holiday again. So many people on the water made it difficult to relax trying not to hit anyone with our kayak. The biggest drawback is there is no one to demonstrate kayaking or anything for first timers however we learned on our own quickly- just watch a few YouTube videos before you go. The scene was beautiful and I would certainly go again!

If you tow towards right, you can have wonderful hill view and towards left you will have downtown view.

Been here both during the not so busy weekdays and busy weekends! Great for all abilities. Highly recommend.

Went here over the long July Fourth weekend. Was $25 for an hour rental for a canoe (would have been $20 during the week). Great place to experience downtown Austin in a more natural setting. We rowed up to the Barton Springs swimming pool and back. I'm also including their rates and their availability for boat rentals to see 4th Fireworks! Hopefully it helps someone.

Sorry, this will be a long review so I can describe the whole Introduction to Rowing process. I rowed in an 8 in college (13 years ago) but really wanted to get back out on the water and learn sculling. So, my girlfriend got me a gift certificate for my birthday...the classes aren't cheap.

I called the boathouse on a Saturday to schedule the 3 "private lessons" instead of the group classes. First call, I was put on hold for 10 minutes (not actually on hold, they just put the phone down). Second call, they answered and said lessons were early Thursday mornings, then put me "on hold" again while the guy talked about his yogurt in the fridge, I eventually hung up... Finally called a third time the next day and spoke with someone who convinced me to just do the group class instead of the private lessons. As apparently the private lessons aren't really private... or lessons.

Each group lesson is an hour and a half with two instructors (assuming they weren't running late). First lesson was spent with 10+ other people watching a video from the early 90s, listening to the coach tell you about how to carry the oars, and sitting on an erg.

The second lesson was spent watching the other 10+ people, one by one, sit in the dock trainer while they figured out how to row. This by itself isn't terrible, except once you get past an hour of standing around watching the same thing over and over, while being eaten by mosquitoes, I really just wanted to leave. We also sat in a boat during the second lesson, for no more than 4 minutes, and we never left the dock.

After the second lesson I called and let them know this isn't what I wanted, and they agreed to let me do 3 "private" lessons instead. Great! So 7:00AM on Saturday I show up, the coach I'm working with had no idea I was coming. He is also running the front desk, handing out equipment and helping the other 10 boats going out. Suffice it to say, there was relatively little actual instruction during the hour and a half, luckily he did let me go out on the water in a short circle near the boathouse. Of course, this was after he cleaned the dust and spiderwebs off the boat.

The second private lesson included another 20-30 minute video from the 90's on technique, then a 5 minute pep talk and I was sent out on my own. At least being on the water that time of day is amazing, and I was able to practice and coach myself a little.

For the third and final lesson I was relatively excited to hear they would let me join their "new crew" team for a practice on the water (with a coach!) at 6:30pm on Friday. I showed up early and talked to two staff members, no-one knew what I was talking about. Eventually, the coach came around and let me know we wouldn't be going out on the water, it was land practice on the ergs. The ergs are in horrible shape, squeaky, poorly lit, and they weren't able to find a computer for me with a working battery. I was pretty pissed at this point, but shut my mouth got a little bit of a workout and the coach offered to have me come back another day.

4th and final, (final) lesson was at 6:30am on a Sunday. There was one coach and a supporting coxswain for 15 people. They were able to let me take out a single, there was also a 4, and an 8. While this was the closest thing to what I had been hoping for all along. It is really tough for 1 coach to work with 5 different boats though.

Long story short, if you have a pulse, care about how you spend your time and money, don't like waking up at 5:30AM to go to your lesson, or in general value your time, there's a brand new boathouse on the other side of town that couldn't do an Introduction to Rowing any worse.

What an incredible facility. Arvin and his staff are truly top notch in caring for customers and giving personalized attention. We took the paddleboards out it's only $15 an hour or $200 for a 6 month membership!

Will definitely come back to the Texas Rowing Center when I am in Texas!

great place to rent from. staff very friendly. very easy to find. very good prices. can rent by the hour or for all day. will be going back real soon. lost of fun.

This is my go to place for renting a kayak on a hot day. The staff is efficient and you can get through pretty quickly even with a line. Prices are reasonable, even better when using a Groupon or LivingSocial deal. It's easy to get to and I haven't had a problem finding parking along the road or under the Mopac bridge. Very convenient that the water is right there.

I usually go to another kayaking place, but decided to mix it up this time since this place appeared to be cheaper. The check in/check out process is a mess here. You line up and pay for an hour or unlimited, then they take your items and put them in a box and you write the number on your hand with a Sharpie. After the long check in line and the cashier lady being unable to subtract and make the correct change without our help, we hopped in and went out. We paid for an hour, but it s pretty hard to keep track of that so we ended up staying out for two hours. So, when we got back we had to pay for an extra hour, so we had to get back in line and wait to pay. When we got up there, the price was double for two hours, which sort of makes sense, except that 2 hours comes out to be the same price as unlimited for the whole day. So, for one paddle board and one single kayak, we spent $70 for two hours. The whole setup is just poorly done. Most places, you give them your ID, they write down the time, then you pay at the end. Instead, this system made the place crowded and confusing and at the end you just felt like you spent a lot of money for a little bit of time. I definitely will be returning to my previous spot instead in the future.

This is my favorite place to go through to rent a SUP. The pricing is super reasonable. Unlike most places that charge by the hour, if you're out for more than 2 hours they have a standard all day rental price of $35-40, and you can come and go off the water as you please. They provide a life jacket for humans, and allow you to take your fur buddy. There's only street parking, that'll you'll have to pay for, but that isn't priced ridiculously either.

if you are looking for a place to run a paddle board or other water activity this is a good place to go. right on the lady bird hike and bike trail

We've gone to ARC for years and have rented kayaks and SUPs from them. The last two summers my boys have attended their Rowing Camp. Whether it be rentals or camp we have always had the best service, friendly staff, awesome fun-filled activities, and safe equipment. I only recommend this place to everyone who visits. It's right on the downtown trail which is perfect to bike or walk to if you can't drive. This is must-do experience in Austin!!

Great spot to get together with friends for a safe time on the lake kayaking or paddle boarding. Friendly people, sanitizer available and masks required on the dock.

I ve rented from here a few times and it s always been a great experience. It s an easy in and out a good amount of workers help sign you in, get you on a board and out onto the river. Affordable & great staple to anyone looking to experience something uniquely Austin.

Awesome place our first time there . Staff was super helpful specially moving people along definitely going back

It's pretty awesome that you can rent canoes and paddle boards right on Town Lake (Lady Bird Lake) and it's not that expensive. You get to float on the water and run into turtles. If you are lucky enough on Friday's you can catch a band playing on the water.

This is a decent place to rent kayaks or SUPs. I ve been to most of the rental places in Austin and this one is a little more pricey than some of the others. Other than that its fine and there is usually plenty of street parking by the high school.

Great rowing center. Good prices on weekdays and they are lenient on time. Kayaks and paddleboards are both high quality. I have not had trouble with any equipment used from this center!

I always go here to rent kayaks when I'm in town. It's one of the best parts of my trip each time!