Prices Comparison for Dive Charters in Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Big Island

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IslandDiversHI

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Location
Honolulu
While looking at the marketplace on Oahu what I found is that Oahu is seriously cheaper for scuba than the rest of the Hawaiian Islands. This is not a scientific analysis at all, but here are my results:
Average Price for a 2 tank boat dive with gear rental
  • Oahu $136, based on 13 dive shops
  • Maui $183.50, based on 4 dive shops
  • Kauai $188, based on 3 dive shop
  • Big Island, $184.50, based on 4 dive shops
Being a player in the marketplace I'm keeping names out of it, but I've been around the better part of 2 decades, and the shops used to get these numbers were the ones the locals have all heard of.

I'm not really suggesting that anything ought to be done about this, but it seem that the diving dollar goes a lot further on Oahu that the other islands. Anyway, there are some serious diving nerds that check into SB every once and a while (me included) and I thought this might be of interest to the HI community. And insofar as visitors to the Hawaii page read this and decide to come to Oahu for diving, I'm not going to apologize for that.

One of the factors here is that gear rental on Oahu ranges from a $10 to $25 charge. With one exception on the outer island gear rental starts at $35.
 
Interesting analysis. The prices all seem about right from my experience. One consideration to factor in for real "dive nerds" is shore diving. Big Island and Kauai have some very famous and popular shore dives. No real reason to use dive boats for Big Island diving...so many easy access shore dive spots.
 
While looking at the marketplace on Oahu what I found is that Oahu is seriously cheaper for scuba than the rest of the Hawaiian Islands. This is not a scientific analysis at all, but here are my results:
Average Price for a 2 tank boat dive with gear rental
  • Oahu $136, based on 13 dive shops
  • Maui $183.50, based on 4 dive shops
  • Kauai $188, based on 3 dive shop
  • Big Island, $184.50, based on 4 dive shops
Being a player in the marketplace I'm keeping names out of it, but I've been around the better part of 2 decades, and the shops used to get these numbers were the ones the locals have all heard of.

I'm not really suggesting that anything ought to be done about this, but it seem that the diving dollar goes a lot further on Oahu that the other islands. Anyway, there are some serious diving nerds that check into SB every once and a while (me included) and I thought this might be of interest to the HI community. And insofar as visitors to the Hawaii page read this and decide to come to Oahu for diving, I'm not going to apologize for that.

One of the factors here is that gear rental on Oahu ranges from a $10 to $25 charge. With one exception on the outer island gear rental starts at $35.

Very interesting, and here's another option. I looked up the Kona Aggressor and the pricing depends a lot on whether you are going single, double, or quad occupancy - but they periodically run specials for various destinations during the year so you might get lucky. And if you are traveling solo but willing to share with a same-gender roommate(s) then you can get the best pricing.

The list price per diver for double occupancy is $3125 for the trip and they advertise that you can do up to 27 dives in a week. That comes out to $116 dollars per dive - but keep in mind that the LOB price also includes your lodgings and all your food, so it might actually be a bargain.

Plus it includes a lot of diving, and special dives like the night dive with mantas and underwater volcano diving, and you get to dive some of the more remote areas around the Big Island.

Just something to consider.

Aggressor® | Official Site | Liveaboards, Safaris & River Cruises
 
Very interesting, and here's another option. I looked up the Kona Aggressor and the pricing depends a lot on whether you are going single, double, or quad occupancy - but they periodically run specials for various destinations during the year so you might get lucky.

The list price per diver for double occupancy is $3125 for the trip and they advertise that you can do up to 27 dives. That comes out to $116 dollars per dive - but that price it also includes your lodgings and all your food, so it might actually be a bargain. Plus it includes special dives like the night dive with mantas and underwater volcano diving, and you get to dive some of the more remote areas around the island.

Just something to consider.

The Aggressor brings strong value for the diver looking to get max dive time...aka CocoView, etc.
Before we moved to the island we would always stay at a vacation rental that provided guided shore diving, tanks/fills and weights to guests all for @ $100/nt total. We made some lifelong friends and had dive vacations for less than most could imagine.
 
I just paid $89 per person for a one tank private dive in Maui. The guy was great and he is out of Kaanapali Ocean Villas in West Maui. Equipment was like new. He limits his group to 4. Dove with him 3 times and every time it was just our family of 3. We did shore dives. Great reef right in front of his shop. Other two days we hopped in his truck and went a few minutes to black rock or Hunuma Bay. Our dives were almost an hour each. We would meet him at 7:30 or 8 am and be done 9:30 or 10 am. It was great because we had a non-diver in our group and didn't feel like we took time away from them on the trip.
 
Lucky me, I guess, since I live in Honolulu. Nothing in Hawaii is "cheap" per say, but as much as I've been diving this year, I'm glad to be living on the lower end of the scale.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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