The best Lidl Paddleboards alternatives are
- Bluefin Cruise 10’8
- Goosehill Sailor
- Aqua Marina Fusion
- MOAI Allround 11′
The Lidl Paddleboard is a beginners paddle board, which you can get at the German discount supermarket Lidl. The price for this quality is very attractive.
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Why Are There Alternatives to the Lidl Paddleboard?
But there are some huge disadvantages too, however, which might cause problems for everyone who bought one of these boards.
1) First, there are not many reviews available online, which makes it very hard for beginners to decide if they should get this one or not. You can’t really tell what the quality is like until you see a lot of reviews. Every year, Lidl varies up the board slightly and sells their boards within a couple of weeks to 1-2 months, making it impossible to find any reviews of long-term users.
2) The quality issue was also an issue in the past. Apparently there have been major issues with the glueing, stitching and having the deck pad or other board features come off. We’ve covered this in a post about the durability and longevity of the Lidl paddleboards.
3) Next, the included paddle is way too heavy. This causes a lot of problems for doing longer paddle tours. When paddling for some time, you’ll lift the paddle thousands of times. Each 100 gram in difference of the paddle’s weight adds up to hundreds of kilogram or even tons, you have to lift more or less. That’s why, nowadays, most brands ships their board with a lightweight paddle.
4) The Lidl Paddleboard’s shape is catered too much towards beginners. It’s super stable, as when you’re starting out, this is what you want. However, when you, eventually, move on to doing longer tours you’ll come to see that this is not what you need. As boards for touring need to be narrower and have less volume too. Boards like the one from Lidl ride like you’re having your hand shifts on.
The Best Lidl Paddle Board Alternatives
For our blog, we’ve reviewed hundreds of boards and found quite a number of boards which are great Lidl paddleboard alternatives. All these boards have their own sets of pros and cons, but overall, we think the following boards are the best choices.
#1 Bluefin Cruise 10’8
Bluefin is one of the best-known paddleboard brands, they’ve been around for a long time and have quite a number of boards that are up to par with big name all star paddleboard brands. The Bluefin Cruise 10’8″ is definitely their best board from what we’ve seen.
This board comes with great features, a very comprehensive set of included gear (even including a lightweight paddle), is one of the most robust and stiffest boards out there.
The Bluefin Cruise is one of the best SUP boards on the market. What convinces me most about the Cruise SUPs is the high-quality workmanship of the boards and accessories. Clearly, no quality has been spared here. Last but not least, the Bluefin Cruise comes with an incredible five-year warranty.
Of course, this comes at a price, and the Bluefin Cruise costs almost double of what Lidl is charging. However, we still think it’s a better alternative, as you can also use the board for twice the time (or way longer than that).
With the stable, but still slimmer shape, the Bluefin Cruise tracks great in the water and allows you to build up way more speed than you can with the Lidl Paddleboard.
You can check out the Bluefin Cruise in-depth here in our review (including a video).
Here, you can find our post comparing the Bluefin Cruise and Lidl’s SUP.
#2 Goosehill Sailor
The Goosehill Sailor is a great paddleboard. Especially, for beginners, this board is an interesting choice.
The board is both stable in the water and provides good tracking.
It’s a light-weight board which just weighs 9.3 kg (20.5 lbs). However, even with the light weight, the board is very stiff.
In our review, we found the workmanship to be great.
The Goosehill Sailor (as well as the similar built model Goosehill Rainbow) are classic all-around boards that are well suited for beginners. There is some exaggeration when it comes to load capacity, but overall the board seems to be stiff and received many positive reviews. Given the affordable price, both paddleboards are great boards to start with.
The package of included gear is definitely not the best one out there. However, for beginners it offers enough to get started with.
Also, there are no D-Rings on the board. So, you can’t attach a kayak seat to the Goosehill Sailor.
The Goosehill Sailor received great reviews online. This results in a good price/performance ratio.
You can read more about the Goosehill Sailor here.
#3 Aqua Marina Fusion
Another great alternative to the Lidl Paddleboard is Aqua Marina’s Fusion. The Fusion is one of the most popular boards out there, and it’s a good performer for a very affordable price.
The Aqua Marina Fusion comes with a paddle and a pump, which are both high-quality and will serve well for many seasons of paddling!
The Aqua Marina Fusion is one of the most popular beginner paddleboards and is sold around the globe. Over the years, this paddleboard collected thousands of positive reviews. The Aqua Marina Fusion is built quality is proven, is neither cheap nor expensive and got a universally popular design.
Compared to the Lidl board, Aqua Marina’s Fusion offering isn’t as wide. It’s slightly longer, and it is slightly more narrow than the Paddleboard from Lidl. This makes it better suited for touring purposes (as the nose won’t turn that fast, and you can build up more speed).
With its slimmer shape, the Aqua Marina Fusion is best suited for solo tours on the board and paddlers weighing up to 100 to 110 kilograms (the wider Lidl paddleboard can carry a bit more weight).
Check out our full in-depth review (including a video) here
You can find our comparison of the Aqua Marian Fusion vs the Lidl SUP here.
#4 MOAI Allround 11′
The MOAI Allround 11′ is a great paddleboard. It’s an interesting mix of an all-rounder and a touring board.
The shape and features are well-chosen and combine advantages of both types of boards.
In our review, we really liked the built-quality and also the included accessories. Especially, the backpack and the fiberglass paddle received great reviews.
The MOAI Allround 11' closes the gap between all-rounders and touring boards. The paddleboard of the Dutch brand combines many advantages of both board types. The MOAI Allround 11' is very well-built and comes with a whole accessory package (including a very high-quality backpack and a lightweight fiberglass paddle).
The MOAI Allround 11′ offers a high load capacity, which makes this board also good for more heavy paddlers.
On a side note, you can’t mount a kayak seat on this board.
With the fusion build, the board is significantly lighter than comparable boards, with a weight of just 9 kg (20 lbs).
You can check out the MOAI Allround 11′ here.
Final Words
The Lidl Paddleboard is a great option if you’re just getting to grips with paddleboarding. It’s very affordable, which makes it perfect for beginners.
However, the board isn’t the most durable out there. Recent reviews suggest that quality control has improved in recent years, though, so you might be lucky and get one of the higher-quality boards.
If you’re looking for an alternative and want to get a board which is just as good, we recommend taking a look at the Bluefin Cruise (if you’ve got some more budget) or the Decathlon Itiwit X100 10′ (if you just want a decent paddle board which is affordable).
Both of these boards will serve you well on the water and offer high-quality gear which you can use for many seasons.
The Aqua Marina Fusion is another very similar alternative with the same level of quality, but the board shape is a bit better suited for doing paddle tours.
And, if money is no issue at all, we recommend going with the premium Cala Kanaloa board.
