One of the great joys of a Hawaii vacation is the opportunity to see magnificent marine mammals in their natural setting. Swimming with wild dolphins and seeing Hawaiian monk seals frolic make for great travel experiences. A pinnacle for many, though, is glimpsing the whales as they winter in the South Pacific. Maui whale watching tours are one of the more popular tourist activities on the island. Particularly in the winter months, the whales seem very happy to oblige their human counterparts (hello, photo opportunity!) with spouting, breaching, and other easily visible signs of whale behavior. Whale watching tours, when done right, provide for some of the best Maui vacation activities around.
Maui is one of the best places to go on whale watching tours in the winter. Now, I’ve seen whales spouting and breaching while I was ashore, and that’s really cool. It’s even more exciting to be on a whale watch tour, and see them up close. The best season for whale watching in Hawaii is the winter, so whale watch tours are especially popular Christmas vacation activities. Peak whale watch season is December 15 to April 15.
One of Maui’s best whale watching tours, Pride of Maui, actually guarantees a whale sighting (or else the next trip is free). This guarantee speaks to the knowledge and skill of the tour boat captains — it wouldn’t be good business to give a lot of whale watch trips away for free! In the winter, though, it’s a pretty good bet that there will be a lot of whales off Maui’s shores. Whales are intelligent animals; who WOULDN’T want to spend the colder winter months swimming around the Hawaiian islands? Pride of Maui whale watching tours travel up and down the peaceful southern coast of the island, where whales love to hang out.
One of the more popular Maui whale watch tour destinations in Molokini Crater. I’ve been on half-day snorkel trips to Molokini Crater a few times, and believe me — Molokini Crater is no secret spot. There are lots of catamarans, glass-bottomed boats, and other vessels that take Hawaii tourists to this spot.
Pride of Maui has several aquatic adventures for travelers to enjoy, including snorkeling, SNUBA (that’s sort of halfway between snorkeling and fully-fledged scuba diving, with a breathing apparatus attached to a a raft above the swimmer), and scuba diving. Molokini Crater is a great location for this — it’s an uninhabitable, tiny, ancient and extinct volcanic crater where many species of fish congregate. Lots of snorkel trip tourists also congregate there, but I’ve found the early morning trips to be the best. More fish, a few less people. It’s great.
It’s the whale watch tours that Pride of Maui organizes that are the ones guaranteed to find at least one photo-ready whale, although you never know what you’re going to see on the boat ride along the southern coast of Maui or to and from Molokini Crater. A few years ago, while returning to mainland Maui from a a half-day snorkel trip to Molokini Crater, I saw a pair of humpback whales breach just fifteen feet or so from the sideboard bow. Everyone gasped — it was so fast, and unexpected, that no one had a chance to take photographs (remember, we were on a snorkel trip, the whales were a bonus). It was a joy; I found myself laughing without thinking about it, and the woman next to me burst into tears.
There is something so majestic, ancient and wise about the large whales that migrate to Hawaii each winter. It’s almost an intangible, emotionally sweeping quality; sharing space with the marine mammals makes for incredible vacation memories. Everyone has some sort of reaction upon seeing them up close, in their natural habitat. What will your reaction be? You’ll only know if you take a whale watch tour.
This post is sponsored by Pride of Maui.
My favorite memory from Maui is still our whale watching trip. It was the only sea excursion we could really do with our 5 month old son in tow. It was amazing, spectacular and just plan wow. I would go back a hundred times just to say hello to those gorgeous animals.