This is a tough one to decide. Maybe someone can help us
Fairwinds offers a nice snorkle trip to Kealakua Bay. Food drinks slide etc.
Sea Quest offers snorkling the same area (shorter time) and then takes you on a raft to see Sea Caves and Lava Tubes. We have a 9 year old and we love adventure. Can anyone help us choose?

We did the Sea Quest snorkel trip and had a great time. They take small groups on Zodiac's, which is how they can go into the sea caves. We snorkeled at two spots, Honaunau and K Bay, with a nice variety of fish and turtles. The captain stopped along the way when we spotted pods of dolphins. A snack of fruit, beverages and Maui chips was served partway thru the trip.

Well, we're definitely not helping you decide here--our family did Fairwind both times we visited and loved it!

I know you guys! They both sound great. I guess the biggest question is will what we see with the Sea Caves, Lava tubes and the other snorkle area prove to be better than the pampering we get with Fair winds

While both the Fairwind and Sea
Quest are great trips, I.M.H.O., Sea Quest falls more in the adventure category than Fairwind and the Sea Quest captain shared more in the way of history of coastline features. Definitely bring underwater !

However, if you are looking to commemorate the trip on the other hand, a videotape including underwater sea life was available from the Fairwind trip.

JohnD is correct, the captain of our SeaQuest zodiac was very knowledgeable about the geology of the BI. He also was working with palm fronds as he talked, and he presented each woman with a palm frond fish at the end of our snorkel trip. A nice touch!

topping. Any other perspectives?

I'm trying to decide between the two trips also. I'm leaning towards FairWinds because it spends more time at Kealakekua, while we could get to Place of Refuge ourselves.

This is an old thread I know but we did the SeaQuest zodiac and the place they took us to snorkel Captain Cooks Memorial was the most beautiful place we have ever been to! We also got to see whales, dolphins and sea turtles. Highly recommend!