Kapalua Bay Beach — Attraction in Maui

Basic information for tourists…

Beach parking lot is free, but small (40 cars) and fills up quickly. There are other lots in the area, but they are reserved. If you can’t find a spot, you may be able to park along Lower Honoapi’ilani Road. We arrived at 7 AM, and the parking lot was almost empty. When we left at 9:30 AM, the lot was full, and there were only a few spaces left along the road.

The beach is beautiful - crescent shaped, soft sand, but it’s not particularly big, so it can start to feel crowded pretty quickly.

The water is pretty calm in the morning, but it gets deep quickly, so watch out for the little kids.

It’s easiest to enter the water for snorkeling around the middle of the beach - after that you can swim to the reefs on either side of the bay. We didn’t see large schools of fish, but we did see quite a large variety. We had better luck on the northern side (right side as you look out towards the ocean), but I don’t know if that’s normal.

There are showers and toilets near the parking lot.

No real food options besides Merriman’s (which is fine dining and opens late) and Sea House which is a little more casual, but still a restaurant. It’s a pretty short (and scenic) walk to the Montage’s pool bar, but you will pay dearly for food/drinks because…well, it’s the Montage. I think it's easier to bring food and drinks with you or you can just leave before lunch.

There are only a few palm trees lining the beach, so the shady spots under them are the first to get taken. If you are not one of those lucky few…bring sun protection.

The beach was getting pretty crowded when we were leaving around 9:30 AM, and as we were leaving, a group of ~50 tourists got dropped off by bus. Yikes. Go early if you can.

If you are an early riser, you may want to get a spot at the parking lot early, then eat breakfast at the aforementioned Sea House in the Napili Kai before heading out to Kapalua Bay. They serve a very nice (albeit expensive) breakfast with a wonderful view...

I do have to say we really like this beach. There is some beach protection on both sides as it's kind of a horseshoe shape. A little bit protected from the wind. There's a neighborhood immediately behind along the boardwalk.

Parking can certainly be busy and a bit of a challenge to find a space but there is free parking here. We never had to wait more than 10 minutes and a space opened up but it looked like it could certainly be busy and that parking could be a challenge at times. There was plenty of people parked out along the road on the grass and in the ditch who had to walk a bit further to get to the beach.

There are bathrooms here and beach showers to rinse off after you've been at the beach. Down at the far end of the beach is a beach hut that is actually connected to one of the resorts nearby where they rent out chairs so you will likely see people from that resort sitting on lounge chairs down at that end. The rest of the beach is more typically used by public beach users.

The days we were there we snorkeled and we saw turtles. one day there was a big turtle that was on the beach laying there in the sun most of the day. Pretty cool to see for sure they've seen so many people they really are not scared at all and you can get really close. There is some decent reef around here but so much usage a lot of it is dead. There is some waves and break out a bit further so be cautious when you are snorkeling that you don't get washed into some coral as it is not very deep for quite a ways out. That can be an advantage though if you have young kids as this would seem to be a pretty safe protected beach in...

Further north along the coast of Maui sits Kapalua Bay, a beautiful bay with a nice but small beach and decent snorkeling options. The journey to the beach was a bit long as parking is a bit of a walk out and even more so if you choose not to pay for parking (we are cheap so we didn’t). The walk itself is pretty and the path is nice with a wash off area included at the entrance point where there are bathrooms as well. The beach itself is on the smaller side than others so finding a spot may take an early arrival or patience as a whole.

The water is clear although when we went further out the visibility was not as good as it was the days prior at Black Rock Beach. As for snorkeling specifically, the fish variety was alright and the lower visibility, although not terrible, certainly didn’t grant as much fun as we had hoped. Unfortunately as mentioned before, if the snorkeling isn’t good then there isn’t much else going for the beach as it is a bit smaller and crowded. If we had to label it as something we would call it more of a lounging beach, a relaxing place to enjoy the view and waves. We could have just had bad luck with snorkeling that day so that’s something to note as others may have had a different experience. Nevertheless, it’s a beach. Go out and...