MAUI, HAWAII:  LAHAINA INN + LAHAINA DIVERS

        (Please feel free to phone our mainland office any time, for prices & info:  612-yyy-zzzz.)

• Here is an affordable yet surprisingly luxurious way to beat the high cost of dive trips & snorkeling vacations on Maui. This lovely 3-star guest inn -- LAHAINA INN -- only a couple minutes stroll from Lahaina's scuba diving nerve center, is one one of our best secret getaways on an island where vacation costs are spiraling out of control. You will be quite pleased at the high quality & low price of this Maui diving & Maui snorkeling package. Here is one of the best Maui honeymoon or Hawaii vacation bargains we have discovered since the early 1990s.
  
  The Lahaina Inn & the Lahaina Divers scuba center + the Lahaina Boat Harbor are only a few quick minutes walk from each other. When Maui is crowded in seasonabl peaks like Christmas, Spring Break or summertime, the Lahaina Inn + Lahaina Divers combo package beats the traffic, beats the prices & rewards the vacationer with a bona fide value that will be self-evident the first day, we assure you. In more than 15 years of visits to the Hawaiian Islands, a total of 59 weeks of property inspections, dive vessel inspections, photo shoots & dive trips, the Lahaina Divers + Lahaina Inn duo emerges as one of the best pure deals we have found anywhere in the state of Hawaii.
  
  You will save from $120 to $150 per night below the more crowded & costly Ka'anapali & Wailea sectors of Maui & still enjoy the same delightful creature comforts + super-swift access to Maui's most well-known scuba diving center. A dive op that's respected widely in Hawaii, Lahaina Divers has two big power yachts that are among the largest & fastest Coast Guard certified diving vessels in the Hawaiian Islands. You can even dive the unspoiled classic sites of Lanai island -- across the channel from Maui -- on these sleek Lahaina Divers vessels. At least 3-4 times a week there are exciting day trips from Maui across the big channel to dive at Lanai, the exclusive isle where Bill Gates was married. Plus they visit the famous Molokini Crater, both inside & outside wall, several times a week.

We have known Greg Howeth, the owner of Lahaina Divers, for more than 20 years & he is salt of the earth, just plain easy to work with & a gentleman of his word. His crew is smart, savvy & friendly as the day is long. These guys are pros, from guages to gunwales, & they have served scores of our good Maui diving clients since the early 1990s. For scuba divers, Lahaina Divers is the class act on the beach-rich isle of Maui, we feel confident in sharing with divers who love Hawaii as much as we have these last 15 years. And Lahaina Inn is a pearl of a location, with prices so vastly lower than the big beach hotels, it makes staying right in the heart of Lahaina village a treat, for solos, Maui honeymoon couples, families with children, you name the demographic slice, there's a smile & a clean room ready for you.

Your Maui Guest House / Lahaina Divers Package includes: Lodging in Lahaina's top value 3-star hotel + boat diving with Maui's best & most experienced dive operation. Lodging sales tax of about 13.5% (required by Hawaii Legislature) is extra. Meals, drinks & air tickets also are extra package costs.

For many years, Lahaina Divers has been one of the respected mainstays of Hawaii diving. This long-standing Maui company is proud of its 50-foot luxury speed-yachts & has been recognized as the class act among Maui's many dive operators. We have beens sending satisfied Maui scuba diving clients to Lahaina Divers since 1992, countless scores of mainly US, Canadian & European divers. The divemasters at Lahaina Divers are skilled & personable & the vessels are state of the art in comfort & diving ease. Lahaina Divers offers the two largest & fastest dive boats on Maui, & among the best dive vessels in the state of Hawaii at large, complete with wide diver-entry doors & ladders, spacious enclosed cabins with ample gear stowage, plus heads & showers. These Lahaina Divers vessels have excellent safety records & a high ratio of professional guides to guests, so that everybody is well cared for, but nobody will feel regimented too strictly underwater. Their philosophy is that Maui scuba diving should be low-key, relaxing & entertaining.

Lahaina Divers was Maui's first PADI 5 star Dive Center & its first PADI Instructor Development Center as well. Lahaina Divers for many years has been the last word in Maui diving. You can rent snorkel gear as well as scuba gear any day you wish, at reasonable rates, & snorkelers are always welcome on the afternoon dive vessels, when space permits, for a nominal fee, normally about half a diver's fee.

Clients of U.S. Dive Travel's Lahaina Divers package will get free tropical munchies on the morning 2-tank trips to Lanai & Molokini Crater; or lunch on the 4-tank trips -- just another service of this smooth & personable operation. You'll be really glad you chose Lahaina Divers & not Brand X on Maui. If you do get over to Maui (you know, "Here Today, Gone to Maui !") be sure not to pass up the chance for some primo Lanai diving, among the best reef & archway environments in all of Hawaii. From Maui's western flanks to Lanai, this is one sweet spot in Hawaii diving, for certain, our 15 trips to the Hawaiian Islands have proven, again & again.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the best Maui scuba diving is NOT at Molokini Crater, despite the great press that Molokini gets year after year. Molokini Crater is to Maui as Mount Rainier is to Seattle: cool, close, imbued with legend. But everybody goes to both, in fact thousands of good folks each year, so there are places where Maui County corals are a bit less, shall we say, eagerly visited by the masses -- whether snorkelers or scuba divers.

Yes, Virginia, there's a lot more to Maui diving than this little croissant of brownish lava jutting from the Pacific Ocean. Sure the drift dives off the back side of Molokini Crater are invigorating big critter encounters with some fun burly currents. But the Maui divemasters & the locals would agree that some of the best Maui scuba diving in this sector of Hawaii is along the southern & southwestern shores of Lanai island, a private island about 10 miles West of Maui, that's known for its dramatic undersea lava tubes, brilliant coralheads, pinnacles & mysterious cathedral archways. To see the morning sun filtering through the vaulted ceilings of these lava domes off Lanai, as hundreds of multi-colored fish of many species flit every which way, is life at its best underwater. That's Lanai diving & snorkeling the way we always remember it -- the lava soul of Hawaii diving.

After Niihau's leeward shore & Molokai's South Shore, diving southern Lanai is the best part of the Hawaii diving spectrum -- in terms of abundant coral & fish species, great lava seascapes, & surprises from rays & whitetips to dancing eels & nudibranchs. In short, Lanai diving is really the best of available Maui diving options, we feel. We even like the sound of the phrase, "Lanai diving." Don't you think that "Lanai diving" is a bit reminiscent of a Spring Break party stunt, perhaps?

Click photo to enlarge.

For prices & more info, call John, Susan or L.J. at  612-yyy-zzzz.

For more details on Lahaina Inn + Lahaina Divers, click here.

All Photos except one © Copyright U.S. Dive Travel Network. All Rights Reserved.
Top left photo © Copyright Lahaina Inn. All Rights Reserved.