Skydive Temple

Best experience ever. The entire team — front desk to the skydiving instructor that you jump with are all so helpful, personal, intentional and fun to hang with. They do an incredible job of explaining the entire process as well as explaining how every safety component works. I’ve never felt safer! Not only that, you get to have the best time, hear awesome stories and enjoy an incredible experience with some of the coolest people ever. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience and wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else!

TLDR: I went to Skydive Temple last Saturday. It was an awesome experience. I’m probably going back for my AFF after the great experience.
*Edit* Started my AFF today. Another great experience!
I would recommend this place to a friend.

I jumped tandem with Aaron at Skydive Temple last weekend and had the time of my life! The entire staff was friendly and knowledgeable from the moment we walked through the door. I felt safe and comfortable throughout the entire process, we had an easy landing and the video and pictures were top notch! My friends loved seeing what I did. I am so thankful for a great first jump experience and now highly recommend Skydive Temple!

I learned about Sky Dive Temple by driving past a billboard. So right away I scheduled an appt because I’ve always wanted to go. So first things first. I went online to the website Sky​Di​veTem​ple​.Com. The website was very user friendly and self explanatory. I scheduled everything for March 18^th. Thursday, because they have a deal for jumping on Thursday’s. I scheduled myself and my boyfriend for a tandem skydive.
So the day arrives and its verrry cloudy. I gave them a call like the website suggested to do on cloudy and the lady informed me that it was too cloudy to jump today due to safety concerns, and that they would keep an eye out on the weather and give me a call back if it clears up. The appt was for 11am. By 3pm she called me back telling me that the clouds have subsided and its a perfect day to jump. So me Andy boyfriend jumped in the car went straight there.
After arriving, and checking in. We were greated by our instructors Aaron and Shelby. They were both AWESOME!!! They made me feel completely comfortable. They were both very knowledgeable on the ins and outs of sky diving. After a short interview for our videos we were headed outside and into the aircraft. We were introduced to everyone and felt like family. They both did an awesome job filming with the go pros and both my boyfriend and I videos and pictures came out amazing!!!
Everyone there was nice, friendly, and welcoming! We got free beer after the jump and were able to sit and watch our videos before we left.
This place was top notch from A to Z!

Do you want to skydive with world record holders?
Do you want to hang out on a patio and drink free beer when you are done?
Do you want to eat at the best snack bar ever to exist on a dropzone in the history of snack bars?
Of course you do, so go to Salado and jump out of an airplane.

Great experience. Walked in and was ready to take off after signing in. Great staff

I had a great experience with them from booking to jumping to the thank you email the day after.
I had bought coupons through Gilt City, and to make a long story short, Skydive Temple still allowed me to use them after their expiration date due to having to reschedule twice because of bad weather.
We waited maybe 45 minutes for our turn. Got a few snacks from their snack bar. Then we got suited up. And were walked out to the plane where we met our instructors. We got the quick run down on the instructions on our way up in the plane. Which was fine with us. We had seen some people getting instructions down on the ground. But there wasn’t really much to it!
All three of our instructors made us feel at ease, assured us that they wanted this to be as enjoyable as possible and safely brought us back to Earth!
I wanted to go again as soon as we got down! But we’ll save that for another time.
We winded down our adrenaline rush with some free beer!

Hands down THE BEST experience that I have had. Granted, I don’t have a lot to compare it to, since this is the first skydiving experience I’ve ever had, but I will absolutely go again if it’s with these guys.
I was doing the jump for my 26^th birthday, and was sort of nervous about it. All of the staff are friendly, professional, and are the kind of people who keep you at ease.
I dove with tandem with Phil, who was an amazingly sweet guy. He told me all of the info before we got on the plane, while we were in the plane, and then once we had the parachute out. Besides the few seconds of terror when I was looking out of the plane, everything else was gold.
The icing on the cake was that I ordered a video package for the whole experience, and because it was my birthday, they presented me with a photo as a way of saying happy birthday! I didn’t think it could get any better, but it did.
My mother wants to go skydiving in the future, and I’m ready to go back to Skydive Temple and jump with her!

I am absolutely in love with everything about this place! This was my first time jumping and they made it so easy and comfortable. The jump instructor I jumped with was very professional, down to earth and super safe in everything we did. The jump was from 12 000 feet, I got a cool certificate to show I did it. The area is nice with a patio and keg so you can drink (21 and up of course) after you jump. I will for sure be doing this again.

got the bf a gift certificate for Christmas. He had an amazing time and got to cross an item off his bucket list.
I went skydiving 2 years ago at another facility. While the experience of skydiving itself cannot be … explained? …put into words? The service you receive at the facility is a different story. The place i went added extra fees, was hours behind schedule without explanation and had a decrepit facility and plane. Skydive Temple had an updated facility AND Plane! No hidden fees and friendly employees. The boy was jumping within the hour we arrived. They had a keg of beer on the patio for me while i waited and to celebrate once the man landed.
not gonna lie. the whole process of buying the gift certificate online then redeeming it was NOT GOOD. And we had a couple of calls with the manager that were Not pleasant working it all out. But in the end, it did work out and he was great in person.
Basically, i got to give my awesome bf one of the best days of his life and it was a good experience all around. High 5 Skydive Temple!

I got my boyfriend and myself a Groupon deal as part of his Christmas gift last year so we could mark skydiving off of our respective bucket lists. We did try once to use them in April 2012, but due to no fault of Skydive Temple, the weather turned bad as we were on our way down there and they had to cancel all jumps that day for our safety. We got a great weekend in Austin out of it anyways, so no complaints here.
Fast forward to late October of the same year — I called the Thursday before we were wanting to go and made an appointment for that Saturday. I believe I spoke to Mark, the owner, who originally didn’t have any available times the upcoming Saturday. I think he sensed my panic a little (my Groupon expired in mid-​December and I’m really bad about overcommitting myself to activities and honestly had no other free weekends up until the expiration date) and managed to squeeze us in even though I was using a Groupon! The lady we dealt with at the desk upon arrival that Saturday (I want to say Casey or something similar) was SO, so super friendly and nice even though I didn’t have my Groupon documentation printed out and I somehow was not technologically savvy enough to get a printable version in email format to send to her. I’m definitely too reliant on my groupon app during the few and far between instances that I purchase them. Once we got that squared away, we only had a short wait until it was time to get fitted and briefed for instructions.
My tandem instructor was Sam and he could not have been more friendly, relaxed and perfect for a super excitable yet mildly freaking out first-​timer (or any timer!) like myself. I felt completely safe and informed of each and every step during the entire duration of the pre-​jump. The only part that was really scary at all was due to myself going last out of our plane group of 3, and watching my boyfriend and his instructor jump out in a spin move fashion that made it appear like they were getting sucked out of the plane. Even the freefall portion of the jump doesn’t feel like you’re falling/​give you that rollercoaster feeling in the pit of your stomach. Once the parachute was pulled and we were smoothly sailing directly beneath the clouds, Sam even let me «drive’.
Overall, I completely and fully understand how people say skydiving is addicting. I could not say enough good things about the experience had with the staff and the skydiving in general at Skydive Temple. You even get a certificate for a free wine tasting and the most adorable town of Salado down the road. If you’ve ever wanted to skydive, don’t hesitate. Go now, do it here, and take me with you!

My first ever skydive took place here and the experience was awesome. The staff was very friendly and helpful. I will definitely be coming back for another jump. Highly recommend!

Before we arrived at the location in Salado I had gone through several emotions with this place.
I went skydiving a year earlier in Australia and it was probably the best experience I could have possibly had. When I heard my dad say he’s «always wanted to skydive» I knew I had to take him once I got back in the states and had the money! ;)
Being safe was very important to him. He had a friend break both her legs several years ago, (that was back when you could jump alone) so I wanted to make sure the landing was as smooth as possible.
I was very impressed with Skydive Temple when I e-​mailed them expressing my concern. They promptly responded explaining that the landing is perfectly safe and nearly all the work is done by the person strapped to you.
I made a phone call to reserve a spot on Thursdays (they give a discount on Thursdays– $ 190 a jump). I knew they went up in pretty small planes, so I asked if it would just be me and my dad. She said «Well, there’s no guarantee that you’ll actually be with him.» … Um… ok? Why not? She just kept saying «I’m sorry… we just can’t guarantee it.» Well, that kind of upset me, because if I showed up to go skydiving with my dad and they split us up I’d get pretty pissed! After me saying «OK, this sounds really stupid and I’d like to hear an actual reason for splitting us up» she finally explained that if there were three groups of two people, they would split the middle group up and take three people in two planes. OK, that makes a little more sense. So then I asked if I could actually reserve a spot with my dad. And she said no. What?! That’s so stupid! I asked why, and she said «we just can’t». I really don’t like it when they don’t explain things to me.
So then I said «If I call 48 hours in advance to see if there are two other groups of two would I be able to cancel and reschedule another day without being charged?» and she said «yes». Ok… I feel like this tense conversation could have been avoided, but oh well. I reserved a spot and we showed up on a Thursday.
Everything went smoothly from there. Phil was my instructor and made me feel very calm (ha! yeah right) and safe. My boyfriend came with us and they told him he could go up in the plane for $ 30! (Also something that would have been nice to know over the phone).
The overall experience was great. The landing was smooth and the harness was fine. I know my dad had a great time and so did I! And we had complimentary shiner bock after the jump!
Although I was pretty disappointed with the lack of information they gave me over the phone, the people were nice and everything was safe. The safety is the most important thing here, and I was satisfied with that. And it was FUN too!

**Fair warning — brevity isn’t my thing**
I had always thought there was just a certain type of person who did «crazy and reckless» things like skydiving. I mean… I’m pretty boring and risk-​averse. So when a friend of mine found a Google deal and sent out a message through Facebook asking if anyone wanted to go skydiving with him… I have no idea what came over me but it opened a door and I told him I was interested.
You can imagine my husband’s shock when I told him I wanted to skydive. He asked me if I was okay or if there was something going on that he needed to know about. I don’t think any of my friends expected me to actually go through with it. My husband wasn’t sure he wanted to do it. He said something about jumping out of a so-​called perfectly good airplane just didn’t sound right to him and he said it felt so risky. I quickly reminded him that numbers don’t lie and he does things regularly that are statistically much more dangerous than skydiving, like driving on I-​35 in either his car or his motorcycle.
Then I had something of an epiphany at a group psychotherapy conference the weekend after we started talking about this (I lead group therapy for a living.) I’ll spare you the psychobabble but essentially it became clear that my badass, risktaker side was very, very, very underdeveloped. So I decided that day that I was going to jump out of an airplane come hell or high water.
I worried at first that my physical difference (I’m an above-​the-​elbow amputee due to cancer at age 16) would preclude me from jumping. I called one morning and spoke to the owner, Mark, who not only said it wouldn’t be a problem but also told me his brother is an amputee and has over 7,000 jumps under his belt. He actually was involved in creating an amputee skydiving team called Pieces of Eight (google them!) Something about his voice and demeaner (what I could infer from a 5 minute phone conversation, anyway) put me completely at ease.
I had a really good feeling about jumping at Skydive Temple and not just because the Google deal was only redeemable there. I’m a big fan of trusting my gut and it has rarely, if ever, steered me wrong. After reading Unilocal & Google reviews, watching YouTube videos and reading up on tandem skydiving, I was sold. I then kind of took the lead in organizing this event. I give my husband the hard sell and he came around. I harrassed my other two friends who were interested to nail down a date at which point I called and made the reservation for Saturday, April 21^st.
OH MY GOD!!! SO INCREDIBLY, INCREDIBLY GLAD I DID THAT!!!
When I saw that Phil was my tandem master, I felt really good because his name is all over these reviews. And now I can see why. He told me he had been doing this for «21 wonderful years» and that he’s jumped with all kinds of physically different people: multiple amputees, paraplegics, quadraplegics, blind, and deaf. And he had been in Special Forces. Right then, I thought I was definitely in safe hands.
My husband’s tandem master was John and Aaron liked his straightforward yet succinct communication style. He let him steer the chute a little and made the experience fun.
We had to wait a while but it was fine. I got the impressions that this is just a nice, chill hangout place for people who skydive as a hobby. I did not feel any anxiety at all while I sat and watched other people go up and come down. I was okay on the plane, too actually until they opened the door and I looked down and made a «shit just got real» comment to my videographer who asked me what it meant to be at that altitude. He then informed me that we were only halfway up. Increased anxiety. I was the first one out. Sitting on the edge of the plane looking down 12,000 feet was pretty spooky.
I had no idea what to expect of the freefall. For me, it was scary-​intense. I did not plan to scream or close my eyes and I involuntarily did both. We did a somersault coming out of the plane and when I opened my eyes the ground was above me and the sky below. Wind in my face at 120 mph is not something I’ve ever experienced. It was difficult to breathe. I then remembered I had to look at the camera so I waved, then gave a thumbs-​up, then suddenly realized I had done it and started fist pumping the air. After the chute deploys, it gets quiet and you can have a conversation with your tandem master or just enjoy the view. It barely feels like you’re falling at that point. The landing is pretty easy, too.
We both got photos and videos by Joey and Austin which were DEFINITELY WORTH THE MONEY. And we both felt like total badasses. Needless to say, we both LOVED the experience and are already talking about planning our next jump.

My 18 year old and I went out yesterday for an incredible first tandem jump. We had a truly wonderful time and were put in their expert hands at skydive temple. Our tandem leaders were awesome, truly put us into happy mode and nothing was scary as they explained it all very carefully to us. We were in safe hands. The place was fun to hang out at too and wait.
woooweee — can’t wait to go back. Thank you Skydive Temple for your wonderful caring fun passion for a awesome sport! We hope to be back! We had wonderful birthday celebrations here! Kim and Blake Pflugerville TX

Wow! What a great experience! First time to skydive – did a tandem dive. Can’t imagine having done that with anyone but Sam. All the folks here are nice, but Sam was my tandem guy and he was awesome – funny, confident, and explained every step of the way. No surprises. My whole group had a great time (two of us actually skydived) and it was just a fun place to hang out.
Had a little glitch with picture package and Mark (owner) never batted an eye – made it right immediately. These are great folks and I couldn’t recommend anyone higher! I was scared spitless and they made me relaxed and having fun in no time! I’ll be back and now my friends that didn’t jump are clamoring for their turn. Definitely an adventure I’ll repeat. Of course I’ll have to go with Sam again! Shout out to Wendy, Austin, Phil, Mark, and of course, my hero, Sam! Thanks guys for a memorable birthday present!

Great place! Awesome experience close to Austin. No worries (first timer), just excitement. Ready to go back!
One thing (which is not a disparaging remark about Skydive Temple) ~
My friend jumped with an experienced, friendly, passionate about what he’s doing, guy! I was assigned to a weekender– his secondary job. Very matter of fact; not passionate about it; wreaks of smoke; and guess he heard me say to my family that he was boring, cause the next thing we know, he’s sitting at the table with my girlfriends & me, telling a crude, and I do mean crude, joke.
Wouldn’t hesitate to go back~ the sooner, the better, but would want someone who REALLY loves doing this and wants your experience to be awesome!

Love, love, love Skydive Temple.
I made my first jump in 2005 but it was at Skydive Temple in 2010 when my love was reignited. Primarily a Cessna dropzone, but they lease awesome planes like CSC’s PAC 750XL and a Grand Caravan. I was in town for SXSW and as soon as I got back home to Chicago, I went to a DZ in the area and got my license.
This year, I brought out a group of people to make their first jump at Temple while we were in town for SXSW. And they LOVED it.
Mark and his staff are totally professional, super friendly and made me realize why I loved this sport so much. Great little family vibe. If I had stayed in Austin longer, I would have called Skydive Temple my home DZ.
I’d definitely recommend Skydive Temple to any experienced jumpers passing through the Austin area.

First-​timers:
Big plane, professional and safety-​minded instructors, welcoming and laid-​back environment
Experienced jumpers:
Welcoming environment
Caravan
Big landing area
Covered packing areas
Packing services
Beer Fridge Kegerator
Safety-​minded and professional instructors and coaches
Awesome people always willing to jump with you

Skydive Temple is definitely the place to go for fun, awesome, and professional skydiving! The crew and staff were very helpful and very friendly. They make sure that you’re well taken care of, and do a fantastic job loosening those nervous bones. Given that you’ll be jumping out of a plane 2 miles high above the ground, feeling at ease may be the hardest thing to do at the time!
My boyfriend, a friend and I arrived at Skydive Temple on a Saturday, not really sure what the hell we got ourselves into, but we were immediately greeted by the friendly staff at the registration desk. In no time, I’ve met my tandem master «Chief» and he was already taking me through the entire process of skydiving. Chief was calm, funny, professional and very relaxing. He made me feel like I was in excellent hands and that I didn’t make a mistake of wanting to come throw myself (or be attached to someone that’s going) out of an airplane.
All in all, it was the most amazing experience all three of us has ever had in our lives, and I am TERRIFIED of heights! But everyone at Skydive Temple had a giant smile on their faces, they were enjoying and love what they do, and their positive and amazing energy definitely made our trip up in the air (and down) wonderful. And plus, there’s a keg of all-​you-​can-​drink Shiner Bock after your skydive. Can’t really go wrong with that.
Shout-​outs to Chief, Sam and Mike at Skydive Temple!