I was surprised after seeing all the five star ratings when we purchased seats on this Na Pali tour and had such a mediocre/rotten time.
We drove down from the North Shore (left our little hotel at 5:30am) and showed up right before 7am as instructed.
All seven of the tour passengers watched and waited as the captain drove up to the dock around 7:15, with his boat in tow.
Huh?
No apology. Nothing.
Around 7:45 we were invited to get on the boat.
The water was really choppy and most of the passengers were quickly getting seasick, grasping the rails so they weren't tossed around the deck. It was the kind of day you wonder - if they didn't stand to lose so much money - if they would have canceled. He didn't.
Fast forward three hours of that. Sound fun to you? Yeah. It wasn't too much fun.
Pretty much a nightmare. A lot of the folks started taking dramamine and were half asleep. Pretty odd.
The captain was on his cell phone much of the time at the beginning. I noticed, leaned over and listened in. It was a personal call to a friend.
Really???
I just paid 180 bucks for this tour and you're talking to a friend?
To be fair, he chatted later with a few other captains about the iffy weather which was - maybe? - a bit too rough for boat tours.
During the first hour, the captain left his second in command to 'run' the tour. But, sadly, english seemed to be his second language and no one could understand him. One older lady kept interrupting him and saying "Excuse me? What did you say?"
After a while, no one listened to the poor guy. Again, he was VERY sweet, but you couldn't understand a word he said. It was almost funny. But it wasn't.
Not for 180.00 a person. We were starting to feel as if we'd been taken.
The positive: Boating into the caves was a cool and the Na Pali coast in itself is amazing, just amazing. The cliffs, the coast, the clouds. WOW. Breathtaking.
But, in all fairness, ANY boat/raft tour has that in its favor. We did see a school of dolphins. Again, most boats do. It was cool. Kauai is heaven. It just is.
Perspective: I took a Zodiac raft tour of the coast a few years before (for 1/2 the price) and we motored into the caves, actually landed on a beach and got out and walked, swam; something the Makai motor boat did not/could not do. And, we were served sandwiches, chips and drinks of the same quality, probably from a local supermarket.
On the Makai, we ended up snorkeling in the middle of nowhere, meaning nowhere NEAR a reef, - just out in the swelly ocean - so there was nothing to see. Just greenish water, and no ocean floor or fish. People were stupidly floating around in the super large swells and looking numbly at each other.
"Did you see anything?"
"No. did you?"
At that point, I felt a bit condescended to. I felt embarrassed to be a stupid tourist from Seattle, embarrassed that we'd spent that kind of money for what we actually received.
After ten minutes, everyone was back in the boat, shivering. We were fed a sandwich and chips and a can of soda that probably came from a local supermarket in town. You know, the kind of sandwich wrapped in plastic with the little packet of mayo you squeeze on yourself?
All in all, couldn't wait to get OFF the boat and when we did, all the passengers left the boat in silence, unenthusiastically handed their tips to the 2nd in charge, feeling sick. Then we all moped to our Sebrings for the long drive home.
We paid a lot more for this tour based on the reviews and expected more. Frankly, we were convinced that the company itself had generated the email review postings - all the 5 star ratings. Craziness. We actually thought we'd read the WRONG review and got on the WRONG boat.
It may seem hard to believe, but we're really pretty easy to please, too. But when you pay a lot MORE for something, you expect a bit more. Right?
So it's taken me a while to 'cool down' before writing this review.
I would suggest, unless it's the middle of summer (when the water is calmer) my advice is to take the BIG boats or a Zodiac when you visit Na Pali. That's our recommendation.
This guy does two or three tours a day,at $180 a person, 5-7 people per tour, that's a lot of dough. He told us he does tours every day of the week. I just think folks should expect a teeny bit more.
My impression is that the captain is a true Hawaiian native. You could tell he grew up in the area, grew up boating and surfing those waters. That was cool and that was the BEST part. He wasn't some transplant. He was the real deal. What wasn't cool was being made to feel like stupid tourists. There was certainly a degree of disdain going on there and we weren't the only one who noticed it or commented on it.
I can't imagine growing up in that paradise, then having to boat stupid tourists around your whole life to make a living.
Still, we all have our choices. I really can't recommend Makai tours. If you do, I hope you have a WONDERFUL time. I do. We didn't. read more