Captain Max Boat Tours — Local services in Honolulu

2024 Update to add a second review for second time touring. I’ll still leave the 5 star rating from our first time with this group(below review). We decided to book with them again this trip.. definitely different depending on your guides. Alex the captain was very nice. Santiago was in the water with us. Not nearly as engaged as previous guides. He kept pushing the go pro which we declined. We saw a couple turtles and everyone’s snorkeling around enjoying them and then he decides to pull our group away from that area to a different area and it was just fish. Seemed silly, finally saw a turtle in the “new” area just before getting out of the water. Kyla from the previous tour was a lot more guest interactive and pointing things out/offering to take photos with the guests phones in water. Just a different vibe this time. Still fun as we like turtle canyon, but we could have booked w/another tour for half the price to go to the same area.. we chose this again from our initial trip. Next time I’m not sure.

2023-The company has 5 stars for a reason! Smaller group max 6 people so more personal and intimate. Our guides Garrett and Kyli(spelling, sorry!) were AWESOME. She got into the water with us and would quietly point out turtles to us so the other tour company groups didn’t crowd our space. All the other groups were piled on each other but we had more space. I dived down under the water w Kyli, granted I wasn’t as graceful or could go as long (haven’t done it in years) it was a blast! she took my phone and swam down for some epic photos of a turtle. She swam down and got a sea urchin for us to hold and see too!! You have the choice of a life jacket, waist floaty, or if you’re confident swimmer no floatation. The fins and snorkel fit comfortably and no fogging. I would not hesitate for a second to recommend them and definitely will go again with this company!!! Garret opened the boat up on the way there and back and it was like a rollercoaster. A freakin blast!!!! Y’all made our...

Less than wonderful experience, partly my fault for putting too much into reviews and reco of an acquaintance. Water was murky as well, which can't be helped... While I was happy it was only a 90 minute cruise as some adventures waste too much precious Hawaii time, it's my fault for not realizing it was a 1 stop snorkel & done, and misunderstood the guide when she said there were "3 places" she wanted to show us. I also didn't realize "Turtle Canyon" is just, what, 1/2 mile at most?, off the Waikiki beach in full view of our hotel room. A strong swimmer or with a float could just about swim out from the beach? Nothing exotic for sure...

2 things I think that can be improved on by the company is 1) Communication; we had a morning trip scheduled (which would have been better for swimming as current picks up in afternoon) but apparently it didn't fill up and they texted they'd like to move us to afternoon. I had to try a couple ways to get confirmation that they received my reply accepting the change. Also, the "3 places to show you" is just in ONE boat stop, could make that more clear as well as telling everyone before getting in the water that we'll be swimming around and the current is strong and think twice before declining a floatation device. For future guests: Please read the ENTIRE communication from them as you do NOT need to be there 30 minutes ahead of time if you are Ubering and don't need to park. Again, my fault on that. They show up 10 minutes ahead of time, or in our case 3 minutes.

2. In the email communication perhaps include a picture of the actual GATE we need to meet in front of. That would be helpful when the crew is running late to KNOW FOR SURE you're in the right place.

On the plus side the boat captain did go a little out of the way on the trip back to harbor to get us a distant...

Absolute joke of a company, if I could give negative stars I would. I've never felt compelled to write a review, positive or negative, until now. My mother owned a restaurant for 25 years and supported my family growing up so I have an immense level of respect for small business owners. I have zero respect for the owner(s) of this company.

I booked a Turtle Canyon snorkel tour on 9/17 for 9/21 at 9:45AM. Someone at the company texted me just now asking if we could move to 10:50AM. I said that it does not and then they asked if 7AM works. I said again that it does not and that we booked the time slot for a reason. They then claimed that unfortunately the time slot does not work due to boat maintenance but it’s much more likely that they overbooked and want to make more money by shifting people to the less popular time slots.

I booked three tours in Kaua'i before I arrived in O'ahu and all three of them were super friendly and called to confirm. This company chooses to text at nearly 8PM and instead of being upfront about an issue, only claims that there is necessary boat maintenance after trying to funnel my gf and I to open time slots.

Check Google reviews for numerous other last minute cancellation instances, always with the same purported excuse of “boat maintenance “. Clearly they use this as their go to reason any time they overbook or cannot deliver. They even have multiple instances of simply not showing up to scheduled tours without providing any notice.

Take your business elsewhere. There are plenty of other companies that do similar tours that are certainly more professional...