What am amazing trip we had to Maui! Craig and I had been to Maui two other times–once in 2012 and again in 2014 when I was newly pregnant with Cullen, but we had only told our parents about my pregnancy. This trip we took Cullen with us. At 3 years old, he was a fun companion for our trip, but he also had a threenager-moment most days. We also convinced my sister, Kristy, and brother-in-law, Nick, to come along. This was their first trip to Hawaii, and I think they had a pretty memorable time. They did announce their pregnancy on this trip!
We loved having chill, relaxed days on our vacation, but we also like to get out and go on day trips and excursions during our vacations. We will often do a beach day, then an excursion the following day, and then a beach day again. That way it breaks up our days and time in the sun.
On our trip we had two paid excursions, plus a hike off the Road to Hana. They were all things I would highly recommend and do again if given the chance.
- Whale Watching Cruise
The humpback whales come to the Hawaii waters from November through April. Luckily, we have always been there when the whales are around, so we always get to see them. They are truly majestic animals to see and watch. In the past we have done a snorkel + whale watching cruise combo, but this time our snorkel cruise (that we took later in the week) didn’t advertise we would be seeing whales, so I booked a separate excursion to watch the whales since I thought Cullen would really enjoy seeing them.
We ended up booking the excursion through the Lahaina Cruise Company and their website operates under Hawaii Ocean Project. We road a larger boat, and there were about 50 other people on the boat. We took the earliest trip of the day, which left at 7:30 a.m. because some of the reviews online advised to take the morning tours since the waters are calmer. In total the trip lasted 2 hours, and we saw several different pods of whales during this time: a mother and baby and some male whale in competition with one another.
The experience of seeing these whales breech, spray water from their blowholes, and flip their tails up in the air is much cooler than any of these pictures will do.
2. Bamboo Forest Hike
A friend raved about doing the Bamboo Forest Hike with his family on their recent trip to Maui, so I had to find these four waterfalls myself.
First off, the cell phone service on the east side of the island is very limited! I had planned to pull up a map of the area when we got onto the Hana Highway, closer to the hike, but I forget/didn’t realize there was no cell service on that side of the island! (Probably because in the past I haven’t had a smartphone.) Luckily, my sister had brought the book Maui Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook, which was a lifesaver for this excursion! I would have not been able to find my way back to all four waterfalls without it. [On a side note, I HIGHLY recommend this book if you go to Maui for finding the best places to eat, things to do, and every little tip and trick you could possibly want to know. The book was written by a couple who have lived on the island for many years, and they know their stuff! I brought the book on our first trip (before Craig and I had smart phones), and it was a lifesaver. However, even with smartphones, I’d still highly recommend it because you can flip through a book and find things much more quickly than you can on your phone.]
Once we got to the trail head, we ventured through the tall bamboo tress, which was really cool. The trail was super muddy and wet, so don’t wear nice shoes!
We all made it to the first waterfall, but when we saw that you basically had to traverse across the muddy, rocky side of the hill/mountain, we knew there was no way we were going to be able to take Cullen any further, so Craig stayed back with Cullen. Kristy (my sister), Nick (my brother-in-law), and I kept going. We made it to the second waterfall, which is actually in the background of this picture. I am standing at the top of the second waterfall with the tidal pool that you could swim in in the background. (Nick is in the blue shirt in the background.)
In order to get to the top of this waterfall, you had to climb a ladder, then hoist yourself up over a few more rocks by holding onto a rope. My sister (who was 5 months pregnant) didn’t feel comfortable doing this, so she and my brother-in-law stayed back at the second waterfall.
I got up and over the 2nd waterfall, and then had to transverse over a lot of large boulders to get to the 3rd and 4th waterfall. This wasn’t bad–it was just slow-going and the rocks were slippery.
I didn’t see anyone else on this section, and I started getting a little more paranoid, but I kept going because I was bound and determined to make it to the end. I finally got to a spot where the trail ends and you come up on a pool of water. I knew there was a section that you had to swim (there were cliff/rock faces on either side of the pool of water) in order to get to the last two waterfalls. I can swim and like to swim, but I get some anxiety with lakes and ponds where I don’t know what’s in the water! I finally got in the water, but I definitely had some anxiety swimming in the water–my heart was racing, and I was breathing pretty hard. I had to swim about 100 yards down the pool of water, around a bend, and then finally climb up onto the 3rd waterfall, which was very small. Once I did that, I then walked just a few more feet to get to the 4th waterfall. The fourth waterfall had another pool of water you could swim in, but there wasn’t a lot of water cascading over the rocks, and the sun wasn’t out, so it was too impressive (unfortunately). If the others would have been with me, it would have been fun to stay there a while, do some swimming, and hang out, but it had been quite a while since I left the others, so I knew I had to get back.
3. Snorkeling Cruise
Our second paid excursion was a snorkeling cruise to Lanai, which is a smaller island directly west of Lahaina and Kaanapali.
Craig and I have done a snorkeling cruise every time we’ve gone to Maui, and each time it has been a different experience. The first time the waters were too bad to go very far, so the captain took us to a spot closer to shore, but it was still a great snorkeling spot. Then she took us to a sunken ship in the area (which they aren’t supposed to do!), and we snorkeled around that for a while. It was really cool because the deck hand dove down several feet, which put the boat into perspective of how big it really was.
Our second snorkeling cruise was also to Lanai, but we got dropped off on the island for a few hours to explore. It was pretty fun–we did a little hike, but the water was pretty choppy to do any snorkeling at the beach there, so I got kind of bored after a while.
This time, we road this double-decker catamaran to Lanai to snorkel in the bay.
It is a popular spot to snorkel, so there were quite a few people in this area, but it didn’t affect my experience. There were still plenty of fish to be seen.
Craig and I took turns snorkeling since someone had to stay with Cullen. Although, he did go in the water for a bit with Craig–as he hung on for dear life.
On our way to Lanai, we saw a TON of spinner dolphins. They were jumping up, out of the water and putting on a show for us, which was really fun to watch.
After the first snorkeling stop, we cruised along the coastline of Lanai and the captain told us about the island (90% of it is owned by one guy.) and that it costs $1000 per night to stay at the resort there!
Our second snorkeling spot was referred to as Shark Fin–in reference to the small rock on the left-hand side of this picture resembling a shark fin. The water was much colder here, and while there was fish to be seen, I didn’t think it was quite as good. Although, I also couldn’t stay in the water that long because it was just too cold for me.
Our our way back to shore, we had a BBQ lunch, and Cullen insisted on making a bread, cheese, mustard, and tomato sandwich. Don’t let this picture fool you, he didn’t eat any of it. Instead he fell asleep on our way back to shore, and we proceeded to clean up, throw the sandwich away, but when he woke up, he burst into tears that his sandwich was gone. Even though we all knew he wasn’t going to eat any of it.
Nonetheless, he had a great time, didn’t mind being on the boat for 6 hours, and didn’t get seasick!
He loves making t-rex claws at everything.
This excursion was also through the Lahaina Cruise Company even though I had booked the trip through a different website. (There are so many websites you can use to book excursions!)
I’ve always booked our excursions before going on our trip. They always advertise “online” deals, but I’m not sure if they really are cheaper. (I just like having everything lined up before we go.) I do compare different cruises and see what they have to offer. We picked these two excursions because the smaller boats don’t allow pregnant women (my sister) or children under a certain age (Cullen), so these were bigger boats that allowed everyone. Cullen was also free on both of these cruises, which incentivized me to pick these over others.
I thought both cruises were pretty reasonable (for what you got) at about $32 for the whale watching cruise and $95 for the snorkeling cruise. We were very happy with our experience on both excursions.
Read a other posts on the excursions from our past two trips:
Our excursions in 2012–snorkeling cruise, surfing lessons, and zip lining.
