The driver was friendly, on time, and polite. Our stop to see the blowhole prior to entering the Hanauma Bay was pleasant. We would recommend that the driver have a mike because we were in the last row of the small van and couldn't hear him at all.
We had rented snorkeling gear for 3, 2 chairs and an umbrella. For some reason, the 2nd chair wasn't in the van for us. We waited more than 1 hour for someone to bring the 2nd chair to us. Once we hit the beach, we loved the snorkeling experience although the wind was whipping everything in sight. Many folks had beach umbrellas, rented or privately owned. Most umbrellas blew inside out numerous times, as did ours, and were quickly righted by the beachgoers. We were diligent about trying to hold on to the umbrella at all times to avoid it going inside out. Finally we went to leave, pack up the umbrella and noticed that a piece of metal had blown into 1 of our beach shoes. We closed the umbrella just fine and brought it and the metal piece back to the van. An employee from H. Bay Transp. (not our driver) loudly declared that the umbrella was completely broken, not in the shape that they had given it to us a few hours before. Yes, but we did our best to keep it functional. Why are we responsible for Mother Nature's Wind Force? He demanded that we pay $30 which surprised us. My husband tried to explain that the piece could be used or a replacement piece and the umbrella could then be reused. He just kept yelling so we stopped arguing with him - very uncomfortable situation - and paid. When we asked if we could then take the 'broken' umbrella with us, he wasn't happy. Finally he relented. However, someone else in the van asked us to buy it and paid us $10. We were leaving Oahu soon after, but these folks knew that they could use it on other beaches. Yes, we ended up only losing $20, not the full $30, but I would not rent anything from this company again. Save yourself some aggravation & money - perhaps use another transp. service OR rent/buy your own beach umbrella and bring with you!!!
Response from Host
Jun 2022
Aloha,
Thank you for your feedback. We are sorry about the occurrence with the Umbrella. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to rent out the umbrella to customers if there’s something wrong with it. We totally understand sometimes there are matters of nature we can’t control and we apologize for it coming off from a way of us not understanding the situation. The driver was just worried it’d have to come out of his pocket for bringing it back not functioning properly. The driver should’ve alerted you if any rentals that don’t come back functioning properly or damaged would be charged the used retail price. About the chair they send someone to the office to delivery your chair because somebody else ordered last minute extra chair and their tickets was earlier than yours, would have any problems. When her arrived there you still on the parking lot waiting to get inside, didn’t affect your snorkeling time.
Again, we apologize for this incident and hope it didn’t bring too much of a blemish on your day at Hanauma Bay.
Best Regards.