Intex 68309EP Excursion Pro K2 Inflatable Kayak Set: Includes Deluxe 86in Kayak Paddles and High-Output Pump – SuperTough PVC – Adjustable Bucket Seat – 2-Person – 400lb Weight Capacity

I was looking for an inflatable kayak because I don’t have a suitable vehicle to transport a rigid kayak and I didn’t want to give up a lot of basement or garage space to store one. I had researched a few and was hesitant because the cost on some that were well reviewed in articles was a bit more than I wanted to spend, plus I wasn’t convinced that I would fit comfortably in the one I was researching. There is a small lake near me that I planned to use it on primarily. One day I saw some people in one while I was hiking around the lake and I asked how they liked it. They gave it rave reviews and it turned out that it was this model: Intex ExcursionIt was much more affordable than others I had been looking at and it can handle 2 riders (or one) so that gives me ample room for traveling solo and can still stow some stuff in front and back. The people I talked to that raved about theirs were traveling with 2 in kayak and doing so comfortably, so if I want to carry a passenger I thing there is enough room. But I always think it’s more fun to go with someone who is in their own kayak and travel side by side. The other thing that won me over was that this particular model comes with 2 paddles, pump, and pressure gauge. So for one price I was getting pretty much everything I needed and the price was better than others I was looking at that didn’t come with those things.I never had an inflatable kayak before so I wasn’t expecting it to handle well compared to rigid kayaks that I’ve been in. That is part of why I had been looking at more expensive models… I figured that if I cheaper out too much that it would not be a very useful boat. So I was a little bit skeptical. I have to say though that when I got this one it really won me over on the first outing. I had intensions of trying to find adaptor for a powered tire pump that I have (even though instructions say not to use a compressor) but I figured that on first outing I would just try the hand pump that it comes with and see how hard or easy it was to pump that way. I was pleasantly surprised: it was very quick and easy to pump it up. Even on the first try, I had the kayak fully inflated in just over 5 minutes. It requires just a little effort, not too much at all. Consider it a little mini warmup before you go paddling. In subsequent trips, now that I know what I’m doing, I’ve gotten a little faster with it maybe 3 to 5 minutes on average and I’m pumped up and ready to put kayak into water. When you are done, you deflate boat with same pump, switching hose to other side to make it a vacuum. This is pretty quick and easy process as well. When I got into the water, I was pleased that it didn’t feel droopy or saggy like a pool raft, this feels like a real kayak- pretty rigid and stable. When I started paddling I was pleasantly surprised, it is a fast kayak and you can get it going well without a lot of resistance. Much faster than I was expecting and the tracking is pretty good at least as good as any rigid plastic kayak that I’ve ever rented anywhere. Probably better because you can put in a removable keel rudder fin on bottom. There are two sizes provided. I’ve just been using the small one so that I don’t scrape it in shallow parts of lake on rocks or branches near shore or in coves. The small one works just fine … bigger one might be better if you were going to be in deeper water… like at a beach. The paddles that come with it break down into several section so they are easy to transport and store. They work pretty well. You get two, so you have one for each if you go with two people on board, but I’m just looking at it as a backup set if I lose or break the first paddle. It seems pretty sturdy and comfortable enough for basic use. If you got a little more serious, you might want to upgrade to a better paddle that is lighter or stronger or more comfortable but these aren’t too bad to get you started. I am sort of a cheapskate, so I most likely will just stick with these paddles unless or until anything goes wrong with them, they work just fine. There is maybe a slight bit of play in them that I can feel where the sections snap together, but this is very minor so I am not too concerned.The only negative thing I can really come up with does not affect me too much where I go because I can park very near to the put in point. The weight for everything is a bit heavy if you had to go hiking very far. They provide a nice backpack to put everything in. But good luck ever getting the boat and the seats and the pump and paddles all in there. If you did, the kayak itself is about 35 lbs. With the other items from the kit I guess you’d be about 40 lbs, not including any other gear you might want to take out. It would be feasible but not very easy to go hiking and take all of this with you, but it’s much better if you can park near water and not attempt to carry it all far. Once you inflate kayak, you can drag it easily over grass and that is simple way to get it a short distance into water. If you have to go further you can team carry it or balance on head or shoulder solo and that is not bad for a short distance when it is inflated. Obviously it weighs nearly the same when inflated but it is a lot easier to move around. You can attempt to store it all in the backpack and then hike with it like they show in promotional video— but good luck doing that!For the lake I’ve been going to it is perfect. There is another lake with a large creek that feeds it, I went exploring that creek more recently. Current isn’t very strong and most of the creek is deep enough so I went back in around 2-1/2 miles and just had to avoid some shallower parts where I was running aground. That was very successful as well. This thing is pretty rugged, however I would be a bit more cautious if I were taking it somewhere with rapids or sharp rocks or underwater branches. That might be enough to puncture or tear it. Overall though, I am very enthusiastic about this purchase and enjoying it quite a bit this Summer.

Strong rubbery outside. Comes with a repair patch which we had to use on one of our kayaks. The repair kit worked. Larger and stronger than the lighter green kayaks we previously had. Gives you more room inside for anything you want to take along without crowding your feet, along with the required life jacket for many lakes. Paddles are easy to figure out and quickly assembled correctly. Fast to blow up in the three places to put air, and also to deflate at the end of your day. They fit fine (2 of them) deflated in our smaller SUV. We bought detachable back supports elsewhere to make these super comfortable, although it comes with blow up ones that were not as strong and high on our shoulder blades as ones we easily bought online.

Compared to a good hard kayak, inflatables are generally terrible, including this one ‒ but that's not the point: Inflatables are the only option for air-travel, and even in local use their quick availability is attractive.This kayak can, with modifications, perform decently as a solo or tandem inflatable. It seems well made and is a good value, although a substantial number of other buyers have experienced leaks. I'm happy with the Excursion Pro's valves, spaciousness and construction quality. It has good air valves (except in the stock seats and in the supplement seat pad), and has rod holders, foot-rests, interchangeable short and long skegs, and mounts for electronics. It also has a lot of well-placed D-rings, useful for attaching many things, including aftermarket seats.The Excursion Pro has a proprietary hull material that Intex claims is extremely tough. Unfortunately, Intex gains a price advantage by skimping on warranty expenses. It limits its warranty to only manufacturing defects that are claimed within 90 days. To solidify its lack of responsibility, a warning in the Owners Manual says Type IIIB, inflatable kayaks [are] intended [only] for beach use [and] short distance and short time cruising. Intex claims no whitewater capability at all for its kayaks.In stock form the Excursion Pro is so dangerously slow that it is virtually unusable when paddling solo into mild wind combined with mild current. It requires the power of two paddlers.The short paddles, often criticized, would be fine for short paddlers in a hard-shell kayak. They are quite rigid, especially considering that they consist of five short pieces clicked together, and the nicely cupped blades are adjustable in angle with respect to each other, though they are a bit small.Unfortunately, for an inflatable kayak's wide beam, the supplied paddles are terrible because they're too short. On a car trip (rather than one by airplane), one should bring longer paddles.Intex could easily offer longer paddles by making the 11.5" center section much longer, but Intex doesn't, and I couldn't find a longer center section on the aftermarket. I then thought of fabricating a new center tube for the Intex paddle, but I was unable to obtain aluminum tubing of the proper specifications (26mm OD; 22mm ID). I purchased from China for $29 a 500mm carbon-fiber tube of that specification, and fabricated a longer center section for one of the Intex paddles, increasing the overall length by 7". I should have bought a longer tube, but that paddle is now adequate. The carbon tube was slightly scant in outer diameter, so I snugged it up with a bit of heavy black tape. I will replace the tape with a thin layer of fiberglass.That was a bit spendy, and I had to wait a long time for the rather short carbon fiber tube from China. I later found that 3/4" pvc conduit pipe is a perfect fit into the metal pole sections, but additional machining is necessary, and it is probably beyond the ability of many buyers.I cut the conduit to 22.5", making it 11" longer than the factory 11.5" center pipe. The interior ends of the conduit must be smoothly hogged out a bit, to a depth of 1", to fit the button snap devices from the stock paddle center sections. After trying a number of other tools with poor results, I found that a flat drill bit for wood did the job. The button snap devices that I pirated from the stock Intex center pole sections still wouldn't work in the conduit ‒ the wall was too thick. I used a rotary moto tool and an appropriate small bit (inserting the shaft first through the end of the conduit and then through a hole that I had drilled for the pin/button) to grind the bottom of the button hole closer to the surface of the conduit.PVC conduit is more flexible than ideal, but some fiberglass wrapping of the exposed part of the conduit adds strength and greatly lessens the flexibility. (Additionally, a fiberglass wrap is harder, more scratch resistant, and less prone to have its paint scratched and rubbed off.)I did that to two poles and they worked well.That, however, is not enough to make the Excursion Pro K2 usable. Its atrocious seats must be replaced ‒ under ideal conditions they offer little back support, and every time I tried to use them they soon lost air and became useless, providing no back support at all. They have a single air valve for the bottom and the backrest. If a the bottom section loses air under the pressure of sitting on it the whole seat goes limp, and it's very difficult to reinflate or reposition the seat while sitting on it out on the water. The stock seats soon reduce me to kneeing on the kayak's unstable floor and paddling it like a canoe (resulting in severe thigh strains, because (unlike a canoe) the floor flexes with every movement and there are no cross bars or seats to lean on, to stabilize one's body). After returning from my third and final attempt to use a stock seat, carrying the kayak back to my hotel, I gave the seat away to a homeless person. I was never going to use one again.One absolutely must replace both stock Excursion Pro seats. Good gray and black stiff foam seats of a certain type, with straps fore and aft for attachment to D-rings, give excellent back support and can be found on ebay for less than $30 each, or on Amazon for somewhat more. There are several "brands" and unbranded ones, all essentially identical.I also purchased a Sea Eagle 370 Pro (at the time $395 on Amazon, but now only $304). It's white, rubbery, plain, homely, has no D-rings (for attaching things) or other amenities, and is heavier and bulkier, but in stock condition it is functionally superior to the Excursion Pro K2, and its seats are comfortable and reliable (though I have on occasion had to blow one up again, out on the water). Though the 370 lacks any handles, footrests, electronics mounts, fishing amenities, etc., it has the advantages of being comfortable in stock condition, not phenomenally slow, and rated for Class III whitewater.If the 370 is capsized, it is possible for the seats to spill out and drift away, as they cannot be fastened to the kayak. Illustratively, if a seat is placed at the beam, for use by a solo paddler, it is squeezed less tightly by the side pontoons than if it were in the bow or stern, and it will readily fall out if the kayak is carried (dangled) by a single pontoon.A big problem with the Sea Eagle 370 Pro is that it doesn't have a large removable skeg. (Such skegs, like those that come with the Excursion Pro, are usually made of durable hard plastic, and click into a sturdy socket on the bottom of the kayak.) The 370 instead has two short rubbery skegs that are permanently attached to the kayak. When the kayak is folded or rolled for storage, they get bent and stay bent, making it difficult to paddle in a straight line. (They can be straightened in a 20 minute session with a hair dryer, but if the kayak is then packed up they will again emerge bent the next time the 370 is used.)The Sea Eagle 370, updated in recent years, now has five relatively large floor tubes, instead of the seven smaller floor tubes of its prior iteration. The new version is claimed to be more rigid and much faster than the old one. The pathetically slow Intex Excursion Pro K2 (in stock configuration), like the old and slow version of the Sea Eagle, has seven smallish floor tubes, instead of five larger ones.I have found no relatively inexpensive inflatable kayak other than Sea Eagle 370 that is (in stock configuration) suitable in speed, comfort and safety for both solo and tandem kayaking, and is readily available in the US. Even the Sea Eagle 370 Pro and the Excursion Pro K2, which are both only about 12.5' long, are very poor for tandem use if both occupants are heavy and one is a weak paddler.The Excursion Pro K2 has adequate room for two adults, and it allows a solo kayaker to sit in the center of the kayak (at the "beam").In tandem use, I recently brought my Excursion Pro K2 (outfitted with longer paddles and good aftermarket seats) out through ocean surf and (after paddling for two hours to some sea caves and back) brought it in again through the surf. Throughout, it was very stable and comfortable. The bow wanted to bend upward as we charged out through the modest surf, but my brother pressed it down adequately, and we had a blast. The kayak was very stable in the ocean swells. When we came back in through the surf, however, it suddenly went sideways near the beach, and waves completely swamped us, filling the kayak to the gunwales, though we did not capsize.The possibility of bringing one's own kayak by airliner to a distant destination is for me one of the great draws of this and other inflatable kayaks. I enjoy paddling without guides or groups, causally and without time limits, schedules, transportation issues, or limitations on where I can go. Avoiding rental fees for every outing is also a giant plus. In many of the secluded off season places I tend to go to, rental isn't even a option, even if I were there during normal business hours, which is often not the case.