Makena Turtle Town Eco Adventure in Maui

First off let me say that John Shappel our guide was fantastic. Clearly explained everything so we knew exactly what was going on. Took us to an incredible location that was full of turtles! Got to swim with them and get some amazing photos. Definitely the highlight of the trip!

If you don’t get a chance to explore the ocean with John, I genuinely feel sorry for you. We kayaked by a pod of dolphins, saw beautiful coral and fish, and chilled with a sea turtle. John is incredibly intelligent and well educated - psych and anthropology background plus a marine scientist for 15 years and an experienced kayaker. We learned so much more than we thought we would and we’re thrilled about it. We felt super safe the whole time. John gave clear directions and was also just super fun to be around. He connected all 10 of us (we were three and joined a family of 7) together so we felt like we were just out on the water for the day with a group of friends. Would do this every day if I could!

John is the best tour guide you could ever ask for. He is fun, so helpful, experienced, and simply loves his job! The kayaking was so easy and we must have seen 15 turtles. They swim right up next to you and are so cute. I would do this every time I come visit from now on.

This was our first time kayaking in the ocean and wasn't sure what to expect. Our tour guide was John and he was super friendly and informative and explained in detail how to use the kayak from getting in to storing our snorkel gear (which is included) to getting back into kayak after snorkeling in the ocean.John had a great knowledge of the area and sea life. We easily found green sea turtles to snorkel with. They are use to people and really don't mind you swimming around them. Our guide spotted a octopus and retrieved it and let us all get a close up view (Spectacular!) This was a very relaxing, beautiful trip and would highly recommend for novice or experienced kayakers!

We had a great adventure. I think the highlight was holding the octopus.

Matt was amazing! He is friendly, and helpful. Maui is an amazing place! this tour is fantastic...Matt was not only professional but funny and personable. Thank you for such a beautiful day! Katherine

Our tour guide was Matt and he was outstanding. I was with a group of 4 but the total group size for the tour was 10. It was a totally reasonable number of people for Matt to keep track of without forcing everyone to adhere to absurdly specific rules. Kayaks, paddles, life jackets, water, and snorkel equipment are all provided. We brought our own snorkel gear with zero hassle. Pictures were available for purchase at 60 for two people and 5 more for each additional person in the group. We opted for that package and it was definitely worth it. We got plenty of pictures of us on the kayaks, in the water, and great pictures of everything we saw. The camera Matt used was way better than anything we would've brought anyway. The tour started out with Matt explaining how we were going to launch our kayaks, his recommended paddling method, and how we would put on our snorkel gear once on the water, how to get out of the kayaks to go snorkeling, and how to get back in the kayaks from the water. The launching spot was a very sheltered bay that made getting our Kayaks out easy. We started with a fairly long kayaking segment seeing many turtles along the way that put us past most of the other tour groups, giving us plenty of space to feel comfortable. We saw multiple turtles at and Matt led us to all of us favorite spots on that section of reef. Our second snorkel spot was about half way back to the launching spot from our first snorkel spot. There had been a group there previously, but they were gone when we got there making for another very uncrowded snorkeling experience. Again, we saw multiple turtles 3 at once even!. After that, we kayaked back to the launch bay, Matt explained the landing process and everything went smoothly. What really made this experience great was our knowledgeable guide. He was great at answering any questions about the wildlife and definitely had multiple snorkeling spots in mind.