North Shore Catamaran Charters — Local services in Oʻahu

This was our second snorkeling trip while in Hawaii (first on Big Island). No one wore masks even though their website says they would, as mentioned by another reviewer.

We took an hour and a half to get to sharks cove, then snorkeled for about an hour. Then rode for another hour and a half back to the dock.

There were very few fish, I’m not sure if it was because it was choppy or later in the day, but our experience on Big Island was much more full of sea life. The highlight of this trip was flying fish which were spotted a lot on the way there.

The crew was nice but had very, very little interaction with anyone on board, except for about 4 other people who sat in the back of the boat and appeared to be their friends along for the ride. They also had trouble with organization along with their odd communication or lack of. They handed out our snorkeling gear about 30 minutes before we arrived at sharks point so had to awkwardly hold it an unnecessary amount of time because there was no storage. Several of us sitting next to each other on the bot had hairs in our ‘sanitized’ snorkels as well as sand in the mouth pieces.

They also required us to wear what looked like airplane flotation devices (which smelled like sweat) that you can blow up through a straw, even though we were the only boat in our location. They also told us we would snorkel in two places but only went to one. My impression is that this is really a sailing boat and are not properly equipped or knowledgeable to lead a snorkeling tour.

I wish I had other snorkeling tours to compare this to on Oahu, but for our money and really more so our time, this was not worth the hour trek (each way) across the island and 4 hour boat ride for limited sea life. But it was about half the cost of tour we went on at Big Island so I guess you get what...

We stayed in Kahuku and didnt want to deal with all the people in Waikiki. Parking is alwAys a disaster!!! We found NSCC through Google and we were thrilled that it was just a short scenic ride to the boarding location. It was right in Haleiwa and very easy to find the boat based on instructions on the website. When we arrived at 1pm we were greeted and told we were free to bring our own drinks and snacks aboard. Loved that! So the guys took off to the store and us ladies used the facilities while waiting and chit chatted with the crew. The guys were all friendly shared how they ended up living in Hawaii stories(one guy from Maine and the other from Ohio). My daughter in law is terrified of sharks so when we found out we’d be snorkeling in shark cove immediately we knew luck had brought us! Lmao we all boarded and really enjoyed that they hadn’t overcrowded the tour. The trip over was lovely we sipped our white claws and really enjoyed the breeze- When we arrived we tied off and hit the water with our guy watching over us and immediately started seeing fish- we saw quite a few turtles and zero sharks!! Lmao The beauty in the whole thing was it’s was no pressure the crew was laid back and we had plenty of room to move about- they played great music too!! Sadly we are back in the desert but we will be returning soon and definitely will be using these guys...

Super bummed to have had a really unfriendly captain. This was part of my wedding trip and meant a lot to me and I ended up crying afterwards because of how we were treated. They also made us wear these uncomfortable lifejackets just to snorkel, but they let you deflate them though so it made no sense. The snorkel spot also wasn't great and we only got to snorkel for less than 30 minutes and spent most of the time just getting there. Right when I arrived and said hi the captain ignored me and continued to watch videos on his phone, then he acted annoyed at me for literally just checking in and was just in a bad mood. It was so uncomfortable. Next we were waiting for some of our group to arrive and he acted SO annoyed and asked me over and over again if they were there... and they clearly weren't, but it was a private tour with just our group so there was no reason for him to care if we took off a little late. We wanted ONE group picture and the captain literally rolled his eyes and acted like we were so annoying and wouldn't take the group picture. Can’t stress enough how uncomfortable and bad he made us feel. Luckily the two other crew members were nicer. I've always had the best boat experiences in Hawaii so I was super disappointed! I know everyone has bad days so I felt bad posting this but also wanted to save future guests from a...