Before our family holiday to Greece, I had started looking for some balls that my husband and 11-year-old son could use in the swimming pool. They are both sporty, neither of them is particularly good at sitting still, and I knew that a simple game of catch would help to keep them entertained during long days around the pool.

Then we were introduced to Waboba, a brand I hadn’t previously heard of, and offered three of its water balls to take away with us:

• The Waboba SOL
• The Waboba Pro
• The Waboba 6-inch Water Football

At that point, I thought we were receiving some colourful, water-friendly balls that would be good for throwing and catching. What I didn’t appreciate was that two of them were designed to skim and bounce across the surface of the water.

Honestly, I didn’t even know a ball could do that.

We packed all three for Greece, where they quickly became some of the most-used things in our entire beach bag. My husband Al and our son Oscar played with them every day, usually for around an hour on and off, and even chose them for their final half-hour in the pool on our last day.

Considering the number of pool toys that provide ten minutes of excitement before being completely forgotten, that tells you quite a lot.

Our first experience of using the Waboba balls

The first time we tried them, they genuinely blew Oscar and Al’s minds.

My husband considers himself something of an expert pebble skimmer, while Oscar has recently started learning the technique from him. Al understood how to throw the balls almost immediately, although his first attempts were perhaps a little too successful. Within a few throws, he was in danger of taking out children on the other side of the pool.

Oscar picked it up after only a few attempts too. It took our nine-year-old daughter Alexa a little longer, but she was still able to enjoy throwing and catching the balls while she practised.

It isn’t a toy with a frustratingly long learning process. Even if you don’t master the skimming action straight away, you still have a perfectly good floating ball for a game of catch. Once you do achieve that first proper skip, however, it becomes extremely addictive.

How did we play with them?

We began with simple games of throwing and catching, but it didn’t take long for things to become more competitive.

Al and Oscar challenged one another to see who could skim the balls the furthest and fastest. They also attempted to play catch while skimming the balls between them, which they found hilarious because the balls would sometimes fly past at such speed that neither had a realistic chance of catching them.

Oscar is a cricketer and was especially keen to practise his catching and diving. A swimming pool provides a brilliantly forgiving place to practise dramatic catches because you can launch yourself after the ball without hitting the ground.

The Pro turned out to be particularly challenging catching practice. Al said he felt like a real winner whenever he managed to catch it, which gives you some indication of how quickly it travelled.

All four of us used the balls together too, although our family roles weren’t always entirely equal. Al and Oscar would throw or skim them to one another while Alexa and I became the designated ball girls, retrieving anything that flew past them.

I did attempt skimming, but nearly took a child’s head off and decided that throwing was probably more suited to my particular skill set. Aim and accuracy have never been my strengths.

Alexa and I were perfectly happy with our roles, though, and there were lots of occasions when the children played together without us. The balls worked equally well as a shared family activity and as something the children could enjoy independently.

What is the difference between the Waboba SOL, Pro and Water Football?

Although all three products are designed for water play and float on the surface, they offer quite different experiences.

Waboba SOL

The Waboba SOL was the larger pink, floral ball we tested. It has a soft foam core with a Lycra cover and is designed for closer-range games in pools, lakes or the sea.

This was the easiest of the three to throw, catch and control. It absorbed some water while we played, but we could squeeze the water back out, making it feel exceptionally light again.

We found that the SOL could be skimmed quite high into the air, rather than simply shooting forward at speed. It felt soft and comfortable to catch and would be our first choice for younger children or families learning how to skim a ball for the first time.

The SOL also has UV-activated details that change colour in sunlight, although we were so distracted by trying to skim it across the pool that this wasn’t the feature we paid the most attention to!

Of all three products, this was the most naturally suited to a family swimming pool.

Waboba Pro

The Waboba Pro is the small black-and-blue ball with a gel core and textured grip. It is designed for high-performance water play, offering more speed, distance, accuracy and control.

This was the overwhelming family favourite.

When thrown correctly, it travelled the furthest and fastest of all three products. Al and Oscar loved competing to see what they could make it do, and it added a genuine element of sporting skill to their games.

It was also almost impossible to catch at full speed, which Oscar saw as an exciting challenge rather than a disadvantage.

Although the Pro was our favourite, it is important to choose the right place to use it. Waboba recommends its gel-core balls primarily for open water, such as oceans and lakes, where there is plenty of space. It can be great fun in a swimming pool, as we discovered, but it needs a large, quiet area and sensible players.

At full speed, there was often a 50/50 chance of catching it. If you missed, it didn’t politely stop beside you — it carried on travelling towards whichever unsuspecting holidaymaker happened to be beyond you.

This is not the Waboba ball I would bring out in a packed hotel pool!

Waboba 6-inch Water Football

The Water Football is the largest of the three and has the familiar rugby or American-football shape.

Unlike the SOL and Pro, this one isn’t designed to skip across the surface. We used it for conventional games of throwing and catching, and its shape made it particularly good for practising longer-distance throws.

It was a little heavier than the SOL and Pro but still comfortable to use in the water. It also remained compact enough to carry in our beach bag without any difficulty.

We enjoyed using it, but it scored slightly lower than the other two simply because it didn’t have the same exciting skimming action. If your family loves rugby, American football or straightforward games of catch, it is a good water-friendly option. For our family, though, the novelty and skill of skimming the round balls made those the stars of the show.

Waboba SOL vs Pro: which is best?

The right choice depends on the age of the players and where you plan to use it.

Feature	Waboba SOL	Waboba Pro
Core	Soft foam	High-performance gel
Best for	Close-range pool play	Distance and speed in open water
Ease of catching	Easiest	Most challenging
Speed	Moderate	Very fast
Skimming style	Can bounce higher	Travels further and faster
Our suggested players	Families and younger children	Older children, teenagers and adults
Our family score	4.5/5	4.5/5

The SOL would be our recommendation for most families buying their first Waboba ball. It is soft, light, easier to control and far more manageable in a typical swimming pool.

The Pro is the one we would choose for sporty older children and adults who want greater speed, distance and challenge. It was our family favourite, but it needs significantly more space.

We can also understand why a family might want both. The SOL was better for relaxed family games involving everyone, while the Pro came into its own when Al and Oscar wanted something faster and more competitive.

Are Waboba balls easy for children to use?

All four of us learned to use the balls quickly, although there were differences between the children.

Oscar, aged 11, picked up the skimming action after only a few throws. His existing experience of learning to skim pebbles probably helped, as did the fact that he regularly plays cricket.

Alexa, aged nine, needed a little longer to master the angle but could still throw, catch and retrieve the balls while learning.

Based on our experience, the SOL is a good all-round choice for children. It is softer, slower and easier to catch, so children can have fun with it even before they can make it skim properly.

The Water Football would suit children from around seven or eight who are comfortable throwing a slightly larger ball.

We would reserve the full skimming potential of the Pro for confident older children and adults. A younger child could still throw it as a normal ball, but may struggle to generate and control the speed needed to skim it successfully.

Of course, children should always be supervised around water, regardless of the toy they are using.

Do Waboba balls float?

Yes. All three of the products we tested floated and were easy to retrieve from the surface of the swimming pool.

This sounds like a small detail, but it made a big difference to the flow of the games. Nobody had to keep diving to the bottom of the pool, and when a throw went astray, we could spot and collect the ball easily.

It also made them more enjoyable for Alexa and me in our important roles as chief ball retrievers!

Do Waboba balls hurt when you catch them?

None of the three balls hurt our hands when caught, and none felt excessively heavy.

The SOL was the softest and easiest to catch. Once we squeezed out the water it had absorbed, it became especially light.

The Pro could travel extremely quickly, so catching it required confidence and good reactions. Despite its speed, we didn’t find it painful to catch. The bigger concern was where it might go if someone missed it, particularly in a shared pool.

We would recommend leaving plenty of distance from other swimmers, avoiding throws towards faces and choosing a quieter area before attempting high-speed skims.

Can you use Waboba balls in a hotel swimming pool?

We used ours in a hotel pool every day and had a fantastic experience, but the type of ball and the amount of available space matter.

The SOL is particularly well suited to swimming pools because its foam core produces a more moderate bounce and makes it easier to control at close range.

The Pro is officially better suited to oceans and lakes. It can be enormous fun in a pool, but only when you have a large, clear area. It shouldn’t be used at full power in a busy pool or close to small children, people relaxing, hard pool edges or anything else you wouldn’t want to hit.

Our basic rule would be:

• Busy or smaller pool: choose the SOL and keep throws controlled
• Large, quiet pool: the Pro can work with care
• Beach or lake with plenty of open space: unleash the Pro properly

Being considerate of other swimmers is essential. They may not be as impressed by your record-breaking skim as you are when it comes flying towards their sun lounger.

Are they easy to pack for a holiday?

Yes — this is one of their biggest advantages as holiday toys.

The Pro is especially small and compact, taking up barely any room. The SOL is larger but still easy to fit into a beach bag, while the six-inch Water Football was the biggest of the three without becoming awkward to carry.

They don’t require batteries, charging, complicated instructions or multiple pieces that can be lost. We simply put them in our large pool bag each morning and took them out whenever somebody wanted to play.

For the amount of entertainment they provided, they earned their suitcase space many times over.

How durable are Waboba balls?

After daily use in strong sun and chlorinated water, all three balls remained fully usable and came home with us ready for their next swimming trip.

We noticed a small amount of peeling on one of the printed logos, but it was cosmetic and didn’t affect the performance of the ball in any way.

The balls retained their shape, continued to float and worked just as well at the end of the holiday as they had at the beginning.

With a foam ball such as the SOL, it is sensible to squeeze out excess water after use and allow it to dry properly before putting it away.

Are Waboba balls worth the money?

Absolutely.

At around £10–£12 per ball, some parents may initially wonder whether they are paying too much for what appears to be a small pool toy. I might have wondered the same before taking them away.

However, these weren’t toys that were used once and abandoned at the bottom of the beach bag. Al and Oscar played with them every day for around an hour on and off. When we had our final half-hour in the pool before leaving, these were what they wanted to use until the bitter end.

They encouraged the children to be active, gave Oscar an opportunity to practise his catching, created games the children could play together and gave us something genuinely enjoyable to do as a family.

They also survived the entire holiday and have now become firm staples of our swimming bag wherever we go.

When I compare that with the money we have spent on larger holiday toys that received far less attention, I think the Waboba balls offer excellent value.

Was there anything we didn’t like?

There were only two small negatives.

The first was the slight peeling we noticed on one of the logos after repeated use, although this didn’t affect the ball itself.

The second isn’t really a fault with the product, but an important consideration when choosing one: the Pro can travel an astonishing distance at speed. That is precisely what makes it so much fun, but it also means it isn’t suitable for every pool environment.

We wouldn’t use the Pro at full force in a crowded swimming pool. For that situation, we would choose the softer and more controllable SOL.

The Water Football was also used less than the other two, but only because it faced some very exciting competition. It performed well as a water-friendly throwing ball; it simply couldn’t match the novelty of watching the SOL and Pro skim across the surface.

Our final Waboba review

The Waboba balls were one of the biggest surprises of our family holiday.

I had been looking for something Al and Oscar could use for an ordinary game of catch. What we actually found was an activity that became part of our daily routine, inspired competitions, supported Oscar’s cricket practice and created plenty of hilarious family moments.

Oscar says the reason he and Al kept choosing them was that they are both sporty people and the balls gave them something energetic to do during long days beside the pool. I think that sums up their appeal perfectly.

They are simple enough to pick up and enjoy immediately, but there is also enough technique involved to make you want to keep improving. Every throw is slightly different, every successful catch feels like an achievement and there is always the possibility that your next attempt will be your best skim yet.

Our family scores were:

• Waboba Pro: 4.5/5
• Waboba SOL: 4.5/5
• Waboba Water Football: 3.5/5

The Pro was our overall favourite because of its incredible speed and distance, while the SOL was the best all-round family option and the one we would recommend for younger children or busier swimming pools.

Would we buy them ourselves? Definitely.

Would we pack them for another holiday? Without question.

In fact, they are no longer simply holiday toys. All three now live permanently in our swim bag, ready for whichever pool, beach or water adventure comes next.

 

We were gifted three Waboba products for the purpose of this review. As always, all experiences and opinions are our own.