Our Maui Atlantis Submarine AdventureNeither my husband nor I had ever been on a submarine before, so when we came across Maui's Atlantis submarine tour, we jumped at the opportunity to take part! We decided to allow ourselves a leisurely morning on the day of our Atlantis Adventure, so we booked our tour departure time for 12 noon. This allowed us to sleep in a bit, before we drove ourselves to Lahaina Harbour to meet the boat that would take us out to the submarine.
This 48 passenger air-conditioned Atlantis submarine was to take us 130 feet under water to the seafloor - for someone like me who comes from the mainland, going so far underneath the ocean surface was quite an adventure indeed! (Hence the reason why this is one of our top 10 Maui adventures!) Before I go further, I should let you know that if you have kids, an Atlantis submarine tour would be a great addition to a Maui family vacation, as it would be a TOTALLY kid-friendly activity. The only catch is that any children would need to be at least 36" tall, and able to climb down a ladder to gain access to the interior of the submarine. Once we got inside the submarine, we were pleased to see that every single seat was facing the outside wall of the submarine, and had its very own window for viewing the array of underwater sights. We saw some HUGE schools of fish....
As our boat took us back to Lahaina Harbour, we snapped this picture of the submarine submersing with its next batch of passengers aboard:
Maui Atlantis Submarine Tour Tips1) We found it really tough to find parking in Lahaina that was close to the harbour. Make sure you allow yourself lots of extra time for finding a good parking spot. Alternatively, you can park farther away and you'll use the extra time for the walk to the harbour - of course, given the beautiful Maui weather, a walk through Lahaina to the harbour wouldn't be such a bad thing!2) Allow yourself lots of time to find the boat departure slip. We normally don't have much trouble finding our way around, but we had a lot of difficulty finding the correct slip for the Atlantis submarine tour. We ended up asking for directions from some folks that were on another boat in the harbour... luckily for us, they knew where we had to go for the Atlantis tour! 3) There are no drinks, food, or restrooms on the submarine. We brought along a bottle of water in case we got thirsty on the tour, but since the tour only lasted 90 minutes, the lack of these amenities wasn't a problem. 4) Especially if you have your heart set on this tour, make sure you book your reservation in advance, as space can fill up quickly! Last, but not least, check out this amazing video that I first discovered on the L.A. Times website! One of the Maui Atlantis sub tours found themselves surrounded by a pod of 5-10 humpback whales... Lucky for us, one of the passengers on that tour captured this great video! To read more about our adventures in Maui, click here to see our Top 10 Things to Do in Maui for Adventure! Go to Homepage from Atlantis Submarine
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As you can see from the above picture, the submarine was anchored quite a ways out to sea from Maui. Doesn't the sub look rather magnificent out there?
