My wife and I had a terrible experience with Maui Kayaks last week. We originally booked a tour for Wednesday, but were called the night before at 8pm to reschedule due to weather issues. The only day we could get rescheduled was for Saturday, which was our last day on the island. On Saturday, we arrived for our tour at the appropriate time (7am) and waited for 45 minutes while all other 12 members of our group showed up late. None of them had any kayaking experience, our guide didn’t speak English very well, and we were already 45min-1 hour behind schedule. We could see the water was already choppy that morning but our tour guide assured us it would be okay and was very excited because he hadn’t been able to work for the whole week due to cancellations. This made me nervous to begin with.
Next, our tour guide rushed through a very brief “how-to” for kayaks and said we probably wouldn’t be able to see any turtles today (due to visibility). This infuriated me since the whole trip was booked as a Turtle adventure and the viewing of turtles was “guaranteed”. The excursion was also recommended for families up to ages 5+. This was not the case.
When we finally got out on the water and waited what seemed like forever for our tour guide to join us, we paddled out to sea in very choppy conditions. It was a real struggle going out (with the wind at our back) and we were already getting far away from each other in the group. One of the kayaks (with an older couple) flipped over and they had a really difficult time trying to climb back in the kayak. Our guide could barely help anyone because we were so far apart and drifted away because of strong winds and waves. If all that was bad, the worst part was trying to paddle back to shore. Exhausted and going into the wind, it seemed to take hours to get back. It took about all of my wife and my strength to get back to shore. It was a miracle we all made it back. We were exhausted for the rest of the day and aside from seeing one humpback whale breach, it was a complete failure. I would never go back to this tour. There are plenty others to check out.