text: I bought these shoes for my trip to Zion National Park, particularly for the Narrows hiking trail since I will be in the river for pretty much the entire day. These shoes are very light weight and provides very good support for a flat-footed guy like me. Grip was pretty good underwater as I was able to maintain my balance most of the time other than when I kick the invisible rocks underwater.  However, these shoes have 1 major problem, but it was resolved pretty easily by a couple simple modifications. The stitching at the bottom of the tongue, where the colored stripe runs across the middle of the shoes, is EXTREMELY thick. 4 layers of material thick!! When wearing the shoes barefooted, the stitching does not really pose a problem. But once you wear socks, your feet will be pushed into that stitching which would first feel like a minor discomfort but quickly turn into major feet pain. Since I was short on time and really needed water shoes, I decided to just keep them. By removing the insole, my feet were not pushed into the stitching as much, but still was. The 3 elastic bands aren't tight enough to keep the shoes on my feet while in water so I added some laces to it. The added bonus of putting laces on was it relieved the pressure on the stitching completely, such that I was comfortably wearing these shoes for an entire day of hiking.  I think these shoes would be great if not for that stitching problem. If I had to repurchase water shoes, I would have gone for the other Aleader water shoes that does not have a tongue nor the stripe that runs across the middle.