Maui's Only Clear Bottom Kayak Rental (priced per tandem kayak)

This is one of several kayak rentals/tours that operates out of Makena. There is Makena Landing Park, then down the road a bit there are a bunch of places on the edge of the road where trucks with kayak carriers can park on the side of the road. This company tends to park at the intersection of Honoiki and Makena Rd. They launch from near there, not over at the park. They do two hour rentals of very stable kayaks with a clear bottom. They give you a quick rundown of how to use them, local rules, and then let you go. You have about a mile of free-range, and this is right next to Maui's "Turtle Town". The kayaks are nice, and unsinkable. No problems with stability. Clarity of the glass bottom is better with a little water in the boat, but it's very hard to balance the boat well enough for both passengers to have a reasonable amount of water on the bottom. Not a deal-breaker or anything, but it can detract from the experience a bit. The idea of the glass bottomed boat is good, but the magnifying effect gives you a pretty narrow field of view, so it can be challenging to see much. Convinced me that maybe snorkeling is worth a try. Anyway, with a little practice we did manage to see some nice fish in the reefs, and did spot one turtle hiding out half under a rock. It was a fun experience overall, and nothing to complain about with the vendor. Make sure you sunscreen well!

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. THEY WILL NOT MAKE THINGS RIGHT AND THE CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HORRIBLE First of all, the booking process is confusing and not very clear. We booked 2 kayaks and paid for 2 kayaks. Not knowing they were tandem. After getting lost because the confirmation email didn’t indicate not to use the correct mapping app, we arrived late for our 9 am tour. When we arrived, we were met by a lady who told us the quick safety measures but was abruptly stopped when she told us to block the view of her pitbull from an elderly woman walking her small dog, as she told us, “the dog doesn’t really like other dogs, so please move in closer so you can block my dogs view”. We were shocked as this as the other couple that was on the same tour was elderly and could very easily been knocked over. Not 2 seconds later, the pitbull - that’s was NOT tied up, charged the small dog, across the road and attacked the small dog. The tour guide luckily, managed to control the dog and the smaller one was u harmed, but the owner was very frightened, as were we. Lucas came and finished our safety briefing and we proceeded to the beach. Upon reaching the beach, we had to assist the elderly couple down the rocks as Lucas watched on. To be clear, these people were not part of our group. We asked where our kayaks were and I was kind of put on the spot as I thought we were getting 2 single, clear kayaks. There were only tandem kayaks on the beach, at which point, Lucas didn’t really give us a choice but to go tandem, as there were no singles down there. After helping the elderly couple into their kayak, we loaded ourselves and off we went. When we finished, we asked if there was a difference in price as we only took one kayak out instead of the 2 that we paid for. Lucas said, there was no difference in price. Which is absolutely not true. The price for one kayak is $125. The price of 2 is $250. Therefore, I felt as though we should have been refunded $125. Through multiple RUDE emails, Lucas refused. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. THEY WILL NOT MAKE THINGS RIGHT AND THE CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HORRIBLE.

We had lots of fun kayaking with Clear Kayaks Maui! You really can see very clearly through the bottom of the kayak. We saw lots of fish, but unfortunately no turtles. That didn’t limit our enjoyment, though. They gave an excellent overview of how to maximize our time on the water safely and getting the kayaks into & out of the water (over the wave break) went very smoothly with their help.

This was a great kayak option. Mush less expensive than going with a guide. If you have any kayak experience, this is the way to go. If you want to see whales, you can go out to deep water, or stay close to shore to see some turtles. Get good directions to the meeting place; google maps didn't quite get us to the right place.

We booked a kayak on Nov. 17th for 9A Friday, Nov. 22nd. We received a reminder email @ 12:05P on Thurs., Nov. 21st - nice! We are excited and ready to go Friday morning and arrive 10 minutes early. Looking around, we didn't see "Clear Bottom Kayak", so I called and learned that they cancelled our trip due to lack of other reservations. While I understand the need to have X number of rentals to offset costs for bringing kayaks to the water, I take issue with a couple of things that could have been managed/communicated better. 1) Have a clause or statment before a prospective customer books that "excursions are subject to cancellation if the outfit does not receive a minimum of Y number of reservations." 2) If you call a customer to advise of a cancellation, make sure you SPEAK with or recieve a return text from said customer. (The guy I spoke with at the time of our reseravation said he left me a message last night. I looked and did see a missed call at 6:42P; however, I did not receive a VM notification until after I made the call to CBK). It would have been nice to receive a text advising of the cancellation - this is something I would have seen. 3) If you don't contact the customer, be prerpared to call or text again prior to the appointment. Had I not called just before our appt time, I would not have known that they cancelled on us. Needless to say, we planned our day around this outing. VERY DISAPPOINTING.