Things to do over the New Year's Day long weekend in Big Island of Hawaii (Updated 2026)

very interesting and informative. Our guide was great. The tastings were good. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

This was even better than the great reviews. You need to do it to understand- words don’t do justice. Colby and the dive crew made sure we were both safe and had a great time. Very professional with excellent equipment! My wife was hesitant to go, but it was a top highlight of our Kona visit. Highly recommend!

10 out of 10. No notes. The experience, and the crew in particular, were so on point that we ended up booking their manta ray night snorkel tour later that night, and we had already done a manta ray night snorkel tour with a different operator a few nights prior. The Captain Cook snorkel tour was so fun, super informative, and extremely well run. The boat we were on was small, fast, and nimble. Which is what you want. That means less time getting to the snorkeling and more time in the water. It also means less people in the tour. Which is a huge plus. Smaller tours are ALWAYS better. We saw tons of wildlife and learned a lot from the crew. If I remember correctly, the Captain was named Alexis and tour lead? (not sure what her title was) was named Caleigh. They were AMAZING. Crazy informative, super competent, funny, and overall really chill people that clearly love what they do and are seriously good at it. I've done about 15, mostly snorkel tours, across the Hawaiian islands and they were probably the best crew I've ever encountered. Can't recommend Hawaii Oceanic enough, ESPECIALLY CAPTAIN ALEXIS AND CALEIGH!!

Great experience. We did the tour and the foot bath/ soak. The water was 48 degrees with a magnesium add in and was wonderful. The tour guide was incredible and very passionate about conservation and tools the history of the farm beautifully. After seeing several evaporation stages to get to sea salt, we did a tasting with a lot of different flavors. Definitely worth the time and the flavored salt is so so good, we bought several!

Really nice tour guides and seeing the mantas was amazing

We had such a cool experience! The manta rays were amazing and the guides were fantastic. Highly recommend this outing.

Tour was beautiful and so fun!

Fantástica experiencia. Todos hacen del tour una experiencia súper padre. Gracias a Deavon, Rory and Luke. All very informative and professional. Glad we took 2 tours with this company!

Our guides were great, very knowledgeable and funny. We saw 4 mantas. Wonderful experience!!

Great times, manta rays were out and shining, communication was clear and seamless. Playlist out and in from doc was great. Would recommend

My wife and I really enjoyed the tour of your salt processing plant. The tour guide was awesome!👏🏼👏🏼. Not only did she remember the names of all the 21 tourists but she was a wealth of information of the salt collection and processing. She also showed great pride in her Hawaiian heritage and the work the salt processing plant is doing to save the ocean from pollution. Highly recommend this tour.

We had a wonderful time! Our guide Evan was informative, funny, and kept all of us interested in the history of Captain Cook! He had stories of all sorts and was enjoyable to hear about. We had a small group of six, which felt less like a tour and more like we had our own personal guide. Lunch was great as well!

One of the coolest things we have done!

Had an AMAZING experience! We highly recommend this experience.

Very relaxing and unique experience! Wonderful staff helped to make this experience awesome!

Staff was helpful, polite and made the cruise fun. The bar drinks were great and the teriyaki chicken and rice were tasty