Dive Review of Lahaina Divers/Marriott Ocean Club in
Hawaii/Maui

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Lahaina Divers/Marriott Ocean Club, Aug, 2005, by Hilary Snitker, WA, USA . Report 1886.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$	N/A
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	We did our AOW with Lahaina Divers on our recent 11 day trip to Maui. We also dove 3 additional charters and shore dove 2 days. We were very pleased with the personnel at Lahaina Divers and had excellent service the entire week, including when my husband's regulator started leaking. They adjusted the regulator in the shop the same day and did not charge us for the service. The sites: "Turtle Reef" (max 40') consisted of 2 close to shore dives; Black Ball and Mala Wharf. Both were excellent dives with lots of healthy fish and coral. Mala Wharf is one of our favorite shallow dives with the swim throughs and interesting wreckage of the old wharf. Molokini Crater (max 65') was an excellent dive to see scads of tropical fish, healthy coral, white tip reef sharks, and in one case, a Manta Ray. It's a great place to just cruise slowly around the reef watching for all the tiny critters that inhabit the coral. Lanai (max 75') was probably our favorite dive site as we did it 3 charters there! We went to Cathedral 1 and 2, as well as a few reef sites. The Cathedrals are magnificent in their beauty and there was so much marine life that we could have easily spent everyday diving there. Molokini backwall (max 80') was a dive that I can't really say much about. The day we dove there were 4 knot currents and 6' swells. The backwall is a drift dive, but the current was too swift to classify that as "drifting". We wound up only doing 1 tank on the backwall instead of 2 since a few divers on our boat were uncomfortable with the current. It was amazing to stop at 80' and literally see nothing but blue surrounding us. The bottom is at over 400', so we stopped at 80' and worked our way up the wall from there. Our second tank was in Molokini Crater, which is always a relaxing dive. Black Rock (max 35') was a shore dive. We rented tanks from the Sheraton as that was more convenient than lugging our own. Fabulous dive for us that day. We enjoyed an hour of bottom time on the AL64's, saw 3 turtles, and had an amazing encounter with 2 Spotted Eagle Rays. When we saw them we literally hit the sand and watched. They slowly made their way over to us and one settled on the bottom looking at us not 10' away. Suffice it to say the camera couldn't take pictures fast enough! The amount of marine life on this dive was staggering, including an octopus that we tried to coax out of his hole without success. Kapalua Bay (max 25') was also a shore dive and very disappointing. For the most part the reef was covered with algae and there wasn't much marine life. We dove for over 40 minutes and quit with almost 2000psi in our tanks since there was nothing to enjoy about this dive. Lahaina Divers boats are large. They have Newton 46s which are set up specifically for diving. They are wide and powerful and get you to the dive sites quickly and comfortably. Because of their size, they are great for people like me who have sea sickness concerns. They will carry a maximum of 24 divers, though we only had one charter (Turtle Reef) that carried this many. Typically our charters only had 15-20 divers, with one only having 12, and the excellent layout of the boats never made us feel crowded. Divers may enjoy sitting on the bow, in the very large dive area, or on the upper deck near the captain. Between dives they served chips/salsa and submarine sandwiches, in addition to lemonade and water. They do provide AL72s, which is plenty of air considering they have to limit bottom time due to a shortened SI. SIs were typically 45 minutes, and although they said the dive profiles were 30-35 minutes, we were able to push that to 40-45 minutes on every dive we did. They allow computer divers extra leeway, which was nice. They also provided AL100s to 2 divers on one of our charters who were sucking through their 72s in 20 minutes. I've read people complaining that Lahaina Divers short fill their tanks. On not one charter did we dive with a tank with less than 2900psi, and typically they were between 3000-3100. The one tank I had that was 2800, they immediately switched out for one with 3000 for me. We have a timeshare at the Marriott Ocean Club in Kaanapali and love it. Cannot say enough good about the rooms, the grounds, and the pool. Because we're in Kaanapali, we have chosen to dive with operators in that area, and will continue to dive with Lahaina Divers as long as we receive the type of service we have gotten the last 2 years.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	26-50 dives
Where else diving	Bahamas, Florida Keys, USVI, BVI, Maui
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm
Water Temp	79-80°F / 26-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	50-150 Ft/ 15-46 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	Time and depth limits, to a point.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	Squadrons
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	The boats had a large camera tank and camera table. Unfortunately, the camera table was also used for lunch, so between dives it was not available. Before and after diving, there was ample space if you needed it.

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Dive Review of Lahaina Divers/Marriott Ocean Club in Hawaii/Maui

Lahaina Divers/Marriott Ocean Club, Aug, 2005,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Lahaina Divers/Marriott Ocean Club in
Hawaii/Maui