Callie's review, Maui tours & activities, fun things to do in Maui | HawaiiActivities.com

Once in a lifetime sunrise

A few things to be aware of before you book this excursion:
1) The road is very windy: consider ginger candy or Dramamine if you're prone to motion sickness.
2) Cell phone reception will be terrible.
3) It's very cold at an elevation of 10,000 feet. It was 40degrees for us. Dress warmly.
4) The air is also very thin at 10,000 feet: look out for shortness of breath and dizziness.
3) You may not see a picture perfect sunrise. No one can control the weather or even perfectly predict it. There will also be tons of other people there enjoying the view with you.

With all that in mind, we had a great time. At 3am, our driver picked us up and drop us off right in front of our condo in Kihei (pick up may not be available for your particular location - verify with PolyAd/GrayLine first if this is a dealbreaker for you). Stopped at a Kahului convenience store: buy snacks here if you don't like the pastries/coffee onboard.

Uneventful drive up. The 25-ish seater van/bus is heated, but once we arrived in the parking lot, our driver obviously had to turn off the engine/heat to conserve gas. We arrived 1 hour prior to sunrise, and in that 1 hour, the weather went from so clear and being able to see thousands of stars to sprinkling rain to so foggy I could barely see a few feet in front of me and back and forth. There is a tiny visitors center with giftshop, and restrooms (with ice cold water toilet seats), but not much else to explore. So we hung out on the bus until just a few minutes before sunrise.

The sunrise was partially obstructed by clouds, but the sky and landscape was still so beautiful. 30 minutes after sunrise, our driver drove us up a wee bit higher to the next parking lot for more photos, and then down to a golf course for breakfast. Breakfast was ok - I would have much rather saved my appetite for something else. We were dropped off at our condo at 11am.

We had a great driver and saw a beautiful sunrise from the top of a volcano. It was AWESOME.