Adventures In Paradise Snorkel Tours — Local services in Hawaii

I really intended to leave a 2 star review but since my email to the manager has gone unanswered for over a week and a half, it is sadly 1 star. I wanted to let the manager know about our experience before I posted it, but I have not been contacted. I was not looking for any compensation, just acknowledgement of the experience.

Please note that in all my reviews on yelp I have only given this dreaded 1 star on two other occasions. Most of my reviews are 3s and 4s.

I have been travelling for over 20 years extensively and never experienced the lack of professionalism I witnessed from Jason and Lalu near the end of our tour.

Trip started out well as we arrived early ready to go and they both worked on getting the day started. Things seemed a little unorganized but we overlooked it.

Once all of the guests arrived, minus two people who didn't show up, we were given instructions and we got going.

The trip to the monument area was beautiful and my husband and I had an amazing time snorkeling and exploring the area near the monument. The site is amazing and the fish were everywhere.

It was a great snorkeling experience, but things started to deteriorate once it was time to return to the initial launch site. When it was time to launch our kayaks for the return trip, they noticed that someone without permits had landed their kayaks at the shore. Jason and Lalu then made the decision to push those kayaks off the shore because those people did not have a permit to access the shoreline. They simply pushed those kayaks into the water and let them drift free. I am not aware of the policies or procedures surrounding the restricted shoreline and cannot comment on the legality of what they did, but I did find it interesting that they moved someone else's kayaks and let them potentially drift out to sea.

This is when things started going downhill between Jason and Lalu. Lalu was still on shore as we paddled back and we did not see him when we returned to the launch site. My husband and I were the first guests to arrive back at the launch site and waited for Jason until he gave us the all clear to come in.

We waited for the rest of the guests and Lalu to return, but Jason had to bring us in by himself because Lalu had not yet returned. After the first few guests had disembarked on shore, Lalu finally arrived. At that point, we began hearing passive-aggressive comments between the Jason and Lalu. This escalated into into a shouting match between them, including numerous expletives being shouted. It appeared to be based on whether they should have touched those other kayaks before we had returned. There was swearing and we were legitimately concerned things would escalate into a physical altercation.

None of the guests knew what to do at that point. We all pretty much walked away feeling like we had been having a good experience and it was all messed up and ugly when it was over.

Our trip to Hawaii was nothing short of fabulous with this one exception - and it was a big one.

I would not recommend this...

Bottom line: Snorkeling was fun in spite of this company. One guide was rude to our group. We would not book again.

We scheduled a six person Kayak and Snorkel tour of Kealakekua Bay and Captain Cook Monument. We arrived 15 minutes early as instructed by email. No liability paperwork was signed, which was odd. Their website states "kayaking and snorkeling experience not required." The guides asked our group who had snorkeling experience and when some group members said they had none, the guides began mocking them for booking a "guided snorkeling tour" with no snorkeling experience. This made several group members feel anxious and start having second thoughts about snorkeling.

Kayaking across the bay was uneventful, one of the guides shared the history of the bay and we saw a pod of dolphins swimming. Upon arrival to Captain Cook Monument one of the kayaks capsized. Our group members had not received any instruction on how to right the kayak or get back in, so had to paddle around waiting for the guides to swim out and help them.

Snacks consisted of bags of Doritos, trail mix, granola bars, no beverages. After beaching the kayaks, we went snorkeling around the Captain Cook Monument. The location was good for snorkeling and we saw numerous types of fish, a shark, and an eel. If you have your own snorkeling equipment, you are better off bringing it as it is probably better quality than what was available for loan.

One group member who was an experienced snorkeler and scuba diver asked to not wear their life vest while snorkeling. Towards the end of the snorkel tour, one guide started berating them to put on their life vest on. This was unprofessional and also laughable, as the guide had helped this person into the water without a life vest. Their website states that wearing a life vest while snorkeling is not required. The group member offered to put the life vest back on, but the guide ended up storming out of the water and sitting on the end of the dock scowling until it was time to kayak back.

This was the only company that wasn't booked for Saturday. Perhaps it's because their guides are short tempered and bad...

I cannot review the actual kayak and snorkel experience as we did not get to go. We were booked for the afternoon kayak (11am report time) and received a text and email at 9pm the night before that we couldn't kayak due to swell and were rebooked on a boat to snorkel tour with a 7:30am report time the next morning. That's my first complaint: if you're changing someone's report time with less than 12 hours notice, a phone call is in order.

I didn't see the text until the next morning, thankfully I'm an early riser, so I had to drag the rest of the family out of bed much earlier than anticipated, but we all really wanted to snorkel Captain Cook. It wasn't until we arrived at the meeting point that we were informed the tour wasn't going to Captain Cook but to an alternate site. This, too, should have been communicated beforehand. If you already had to message me the night before to change my report time and location, you can certainly tell me that the snorkeling location is changed. Of course, then we would have just cancelled so I'm assuming they were being willfully misleading.

The alternate snorkel location was mediocre at best. It definitely wasn't worth the early wake up. I only realized after the fact that the alternate snorkel wasn't even run by this company but that they had pawned us off on a different tour group. I emailed both groups about my experience and the lack of communication, as I feel that booking a Kayak/Snorkel to Captain Cook and getting neither to Kayak nor to see Captain Cook is a completely unacceptable replacement. As I stated in my email, I'm not faulting them for weather conditions but for the way they handled communication and rescheduling in light of those conditions. If you run a weather dependent activity, you need better back up plans than this. It's been a couple of weeks and I have not received a response...