When to book activities?

[iflexsol]

Is it (cheaper and easy) to book the activities, like Submarine, snorkeling, parasailing when I'm in Maui? Ofcourse I'll book my Luau, scuba, Road to Hana ahead of time?

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

My buddy used Coconut activities online. We only dive so we don't do those other things. He saved a bunch on a luau.

 

[diversteve]

Is it (cheaper and easy) to book the activities, like Submarine, snorkeling, parasailing when I'm in Maui? Of course I'll book my Luau, scuba, Road to Hana ahead of time?

We generally do all that stuff there. But we decide to do things on the spur of the moment so pre-booking doesn't work for us. Collect the discount coupons in the airport (waiting for your bags), hotel lobby and restaurants for discounts. Or you can get most of it free if you want to sit through a timeshare presentation (not worth it...imo)

Are you taking the tourbus(van) to Hana? If you can afford it, the helicopter flight is much better. Although you don't land in Hana. But you will see parts of Maui inaccessible by foot and the volcano craters. But it's pricey, esp. for a family.

Did you know there's two different subs also? one's real, the other's a glass bottom boat. And more confusing, I think the same company runs both. It's a pleasant ride but you'll be disappointed since you're diving, they don't go deeper than about 100' or so. One of those things you do once. On Oahu, boat divers are often viewed by the sub's passengers.

And the jetski's are overrated, they're limited to where they can go. So you mostly ride around in circles. But they don't mention that till you're on their boat out to the platform.

If they're running that offshore jetboat, that looked like a rush, they blew by us doing about 60 one afternoon a couple years ago. We signed up to do it, but it swallowed an anchor line and tore it up the day before our ride.

The first time we were on Maui, we didn't pre-book anything and still were able to do everything we wanted. Might of cost a little more though, I don't remember. Last time we pre-booked our diving, more to ensure the space than the price.

 

[DiveMaven]

We usually prebook just about everything, but we always travel during peak seasons since I'm a teacher. We also check when the cruiseships are in port, since they can swallow up a lot of the available space. We'll prebook the first couple of days of diving to make sure we get spots right after we get to Maui, then we'll book the rest of the dives as we go along. We've never prebooked a luau, but I understand if you want to do the Lahaina Luau, it's not a bad idea to prebook as they sell out pretty far in advance during peak seasons.

We've used Activity Savers and Activities-4-Less to prebook, and will again this year.

 

[Charlie99]

Are you taking the tourbus(van) to Hana? If you can afford it, the helicopter flight is much better. Although you don't land in Hana. But you will see parts of Maui inaccessible by foot and the volcano craters. But it's pricey, esp. for a family.

Did you know there's two different subs also? one's real, the other's a glass bottom boat. . It's a pleasant ride but you'll be disappointed since you're diving, they don't go deeper than about 100' or so. One of those things you do once.

Another good alternative is a combo van ride / helicopter ride. Blue Hawaiian IIRC. The morning booking is a van ride to Hana, lunch, then a helicopter ride back. The afternoon booking does the helicopter ride over to Hana, and then rides the van back to Kahului.

As for the subs, my non-diving wife enjoyed the semi-submersible (i.e. deep draft boat with side windows) more than the sub. The semi-submersible goes to a shallow reef with lots of bright coral and fish. The sub is deeper, darker and less to see.

For me at least, booking in advance is more to ensure availability than for pricing. If you are going at a peak time, advance booking is important. If its a slow week, then booking last minute gives you more flexibility to pick the nicest weather for diving.