News and reviews of made on Maui products and Maui-based companies and success stories. Also featuring island shopping guides

Posts tagged ‘Private’

Kids Birthday Party Location Ideas!

Your kids have too many friends to all fit in your backyard, you’ve done the beach park thing one too many times… where can you have a fun kids birthday party on Maui?  Here’s a list of some ideas to get you started!  Please comment with additional ideas!

Disclaimer: Things are always changing- so please CALL the venue first to confirm.  

  • birthday party maui ideas locationMaui Golf And Sports Park
  • Location: Maalaea
  • Cost: $175
  • Package: 10 Kids for 3 hours, includes 36 holes of gold, 10 minutes of bumper boats, 2 12’ pizzas, drinks and 3 tables by the bumper boat pool (you can bring in extra food!)
  • Contact:mauigolfsportspark.com or (808)242-7818
  • Bike Park Maui 
  • Location: Makawao (Baldwin Ave)
  • NEW ACTIVITY!  They are looking to create a designated location for parties and such, but currently open for groups and parties!
  • For More Info: bikeparkmaui.com

maui makawao bike park rentals

  • Valley Isle Gymnastics
  • Location: Kahului
  • Cost: Starts at $200 for 1 – 10 kids
  • Package Details: valleyislegymnastics.com/birthday_parties.htm
  • Times Available: Saturday or Sunday
  • Restrictions: Call one month in advance, participating guests must be 4 or older.
  • Maui Paintball
  • Location: Olowalu
  • Cost: starts at $200 for up to 10 players
  • For more info: mauipaintball.com
  • For more info: lahainaanimalfarm.com
  • Times Available: Saturdays and Sunday
  • Cost: starts at $325 for 1.5 hours, $395 for 2 hours with horseback riding, based on max of 12 guests.
  • Includes: Guided animal tour with ram, sheep, horses and more, treasure hunt and fishing for tilapia.  Horseback riding optional.
  • Location: Lahaina
  • Lahaina Animal Farm
  • hawaii nature center kids birthday partiesHawaii Nature Center
  • Location: Wailuku
  • Details: Invite your friends to play outdoors at the Hawaii Nature Center for your next birthday. Enjoy fishing, a hike through the forest, and do a nature craft with one of our Environmental Educators.
  • Contact:  (808) 244-6500 ext. 22.
  • or email volunteer@hawaiinaturecenter.org or visit : hawaiinaturecenter.org
  • Island Art Party 
  • Location: Kihei
  • Details: Kids Birthday Parties available in the morning (10AM to 12:30 PM) or afternoons (2PM to 4:30 PM) on Friday through Sunday. “At Island Art Party, we have an instructor that teaches the party participants to paint one of our featured paintings. It’s a very fun, social activity and each child will create his or her own masterpiece to bring home! You can see the available paintings by going to our website at www.islandartparty.com and clicking on the ‘Gallery’ tab. We provide everything the participants will need including brushes, canvas, paint, napkins, aprons, instruction and all cleanup. If requested, we are happy to put out a table for a birthday cake. We provide free fresh-popped popcorn and have a bar area with juices and soft drinks that can be purchased separately. “
  • Price:  Kama’aina pricing – For children ages 8-12 (age 8 is the minimum age) the price is $25 per child. Age 13 and up are $39 each on Friday or Saturday and are $29.50 on Sunday. Regular pricing – $59 for age 13 and up and $39 for ages 8-12.

Island.Art.Party

 

 

 

Where to have a children’s birthday party on Maui. Birthday Party Ideas

Category:

Kids

Tagged with:

Eat like a local with Tour Da Food

When it comes to vacations, there are three kinds of people.  Some people go on vacation to relax, some like to explore, and some people just want to eat.  Fortunately for people that come to Maui, with a fascinating history of global cuisines and an abundance of fresh fruit, fish and other foods, Maui’s culinary options will keep your palate happy for the entire length of your stay.   And you haven’t really been to Maui without sampling a plate lunch, enjoying fresh poke, and you really can’t miss our famous shave ice.  With all the options, won’t you feel better knowing you’ve had the best?

Maui's Best Local Food Tour Activity

The Plate Lunch – The Signature Local Food in Hawaii –

If you are one of those foodie travelers, you’re second call after booking your flight should be to Bonnie Friedman.  A serious foodie herself, Bonnie established Tour Da Food in 2008 as the island’s first food tour and the only tour that focuses solely on ‘local food’.

Bonnie currently offers four tours – ‘Wailuku’, ‘Upcountry’, ‘Noodles, Dumplings & Dim Sum’ and perhaps Maui’s most unique tour, ‘GAS-tronomy’, a tour of four of Maui’s best local foods found in gas stations.  Every tour includes transportation from and back to the central meeting place; all food; a goodie bag; and a list of additional off-the-radar eating places.    And for foodies who would rather go it alone, Bonnie can provide a personalized list of recommendations through her website at Cuisine Confidential.

Eat Maui Local Food Guide

Explore Maui’s ‘hidden’ food treasures with Tour Da Food

Bonnie has built close personal and professional relationships with Maui’s chefs, farmers and food producers during her decades spent in various careers on Maui. She is herself a certified Pastry Cook, and has co-authored two cookbooks for Ten Speed Press.

Having just returned from her own foodie trip to Italy (which we jealously observed via Facebook!), she answered some of our questions about her unique activity :

maui's best shave ice tour

Shave Ice Caps off Each Tour

Made Made: How did you come up with this idea? 

Bonnie Friedman: I have to give credit to my friend/colleague Keli’i Brown, the PR director of the Maui Visitors & Convention Bureau. He took a food tour of Chinatown in NYC in the mid-2000s. When he came back to Maui, he told me about it – VERY excitedly! – and said “You need to do this in Wailuku.” It took quite a while – about 18 months – to do all the research and plot out what I considered to be an excellent local food tour. I launched Tour da Food Maui in May 2008.

MM: What’s your most popular tour? 

BF: I think Wailuku is still probably the most popular tour with Upcountry a close second.

MM: Any favorite moments or experiences?   

BF:  For me, the best moments are connecting with visitors, especially first time visitors, and introducing them to real local food. And they all really seem to love the experience. Most rewarding is when my guests and I become friends. It’s happened several times. There’s a family I see every year when they visit Maui and a couple I have at least one meal with in NYC when I travel there.

 

Maui's Best Manapua...

There’s nothing like a Manapua – It’s worth the trip to Maui just in itself…

MM: Anything else you want to add? 

BF: A few words of my “local food philosophy” – we have some excellent fine dining in Hawai’i, no doubt about it. But for me, the one thing we have here that no other place in the world has is local food. I think we learn a great deal about a place and its culture through its food. That’s the experience I hope I give my guests.

Mahalo to Bonnie for making us hungry answering our questions, and don’t forget to check out her tour options on your next visit to Maui!

Category:

Food and Beverage, Tours

Tagged with:

Maui Mana Adventures – Private Tours of Maui

If you are on vacation, or new to Maui, and you want to explore the island and its surrounding ocean, you have a couple choices.  You can use a guidebook to find the ‘hidden gems’, which now, thanks to those guidebooks, you’ll be enjoying with 600 new friends (and i’m not kidding, last time I drove past Twin Falls, there were approximately 200 cars there.. 4 people in a car, you get the idea… it’s not Disneyland, people), OR, you could jump in a van or bus and be driven around with, if you are lucky, only 10 or 14 other people joining in on your private adventure…

Miranda Camp is offering another option.  A naturalist, adventurist, and self-described ‘amassador of fun’, she will take you and your friends and family on a private tour of your design.  After years of being an informal tour guide to her own friends and family, Miranda decided to make a business of her natural talent – delighting visitors with the hidden treasures of Maui.  She recently started her company, Maui Mana Adventures, and specializes in Hikes, Stand Up Paddling and Snorkeling Tours.

See Maui’s underwater world and its amazing creatures – with great narrative along the way!
A quiet moment on the Stand up Paddle
Waterfalls galore!

Miranda and I worked together for several years at Maui Ocean Center, (seriously, she’s one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet, I think there’s a combination of Hawaiian Aloha and Southern Charm in there somewhere) – so she was willing to put down the paddle for a few minutes to answer some of my questions:

Maui Made: How did Maui Mana Adventures start?  

Miranda Camp: I’ve been taking people on adventures in Maui for many years and one day a friend said to me “You should do this for a living because you’re so good at it!”  It’s what I love to do more than anything else so it was shocking to me that it hadn’t occurred to me before.

MM: What’s your favorite adventure on Maui?  

MC: There are so many great adventures on Maui, but I think I love my Island Loop Adventures the best because they are a combination of various adventures all in one day.  We tour either the West Maui mountains, Halemahina, or the East Maui mountain, Haleakala, and fit in as many adventures as we can.  It’s such a blast!

Maui Waterslide Private tour

the natural amusement park of Maui – a slide!

MM: Anywhere on Maui you haven’t yet been?  

MC: I’m sure there are special places on Maui still undiscovered by me.  I’m working on finding them all.

MM: What sets Maui Mana apart from other tours on Maui?  

Every company has it’s own unique niche.  My company is all about sharing the aloha and special Mana (which is Hawaiian for ‘life force energy’) of Maui.  I specialize in private custom tours, so my clients design their own adventures.  They tell me what they’d like to do and see and we do it at their pace.  I’ve been studying everything I can about Maui from amazing people since I fell in love with it and moved here over 16 years ago.  I have lots of enthusiasm and respect for the island and it’s Hawaiian culture and I love to share that with others.

maui blow hole private tour

See the Maui Blow Hole

MM: What are your favorite places to explore around the other Hawaiian islands?  

MC: All of the islands are so unique and special.  There are too many favorite places to name and I’m still learning.

MM: why do you think ‘ecotourism’ vacations and activities are so popular now?  

MC: Because people are getting back in touch with their surroundings and realizing that we need to take care of the things that sustain us just as they were our own families.  This is what all the ancient cultures realized and we are finally getting back to our roots.  It’s a beautiful thing!  (MM Notes: Maui Mana Adventures donates 5% of their profits to local organizations that work to preserve and restore the special places on Maui.)

Not only will you have Maui's best tour guide, you'll have a friend for life.

Not only will you have Maui’s best tour guide, you’ll have a friend for life.

More about Miranda Camp:

She’s worked as a Naturalist/Educator for The Hawaii Nature Center,  the Pacific Whale Foundation and now with the Maui Ocean Center Aquarium for over 10 years.  She has lead hikes for The Nature Conservancy of Maui and the Maui Sierra Club and volunteers for the Coastal Land Trust, Auwahi Reforestation Program, The Hawaii Wildlife Fund Hawksbill Sea Turtle Recovery Project and more. Safety is important to Miranda: she’s First Aid/CPR Certified.

To see what others are saying, check out the reviews on Tripadvisor.

Category:

Tours

Tagged with: