"Excellent. First time I had done snorkeling and I loved it. Saw so many beautiful fish and swam with 4 turtles. Crew were excellent and food yummy. I totally recommend this excursion."
Maui · Wailea & Molokini · Filming Locations + Boat Day
White Lotus Tour Maui: The Real Hotel, Its Public Beach and a Day on the Water
Nobody sells a White Lotus tour on Maui, and the resort is not a walk-in. Season one was shot at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, on a public beach you can reach from a free lot. Spend the morning snorkeling Molokini, the crater off the coast the resort faces.
From
$198
per person
Free cancellation
- 4.5 / 5 473+ Reviews
- 5 Hours Molokini & Turtle Town
- 15-20 Min Wailea to Maalaea Harbor
- Free Cancellation
The Experience
What the Molokini and Turtle Town Boat Day Covers
A morning at sea off the south-west coast, two snorkel stops and meals on board, back in time for an afternoon on Wailea Beach.
Highlights
- Explore the stunning biodiversity of the coral reefs in the Molokini crater
- Enjoy a continental breakfast of delectable pastries, fruit, and hot coffee
- Search for sea turtles as you snorkel through the waters at Turtle Arches
- Sit down to a flavorful lunch of grilled chicken, burgers, and green salad
- Learn about the reef in a family-friendly way from professional naturalists
What's Included
- Certified Marine Naturalists onboard
- Premium snorkel gear, including optical masks for eyeglass wearers
- Flotation devices
- Snorkel instruction
- Fish identification instruction
- Junior Naturalist Program for kids
- Marine wildlife glossy photo card
- Continental breakfast
- Lunch grilled on-board
- Refreshments
How to Spend a White Lotus Day on Maui
The boat is the only part you need to book. The beach, the walk and the sunset drink are free or pay-as-you-go.
Drive to Maalaea Harbor
From Wailea the harbor is 15 to 20 minutes by car. The meeting point and check-in time arrive with your booking confirmation.
Snorkel Molokini and Turtle Town
PWF Eco Adventures takes you out to Molokini crater and then to Turtle Town for a second stop. The trip runs about five hours with meals included.
Walk Wailea Beach
Park in the free public lot between the Grand Wailea and the Four Seasons. The beach in front of the resort is public, with restrooms and showers at the access.
Finish Inside the Hotel
Book a table at Spago, Ferraro's, DUO or KOMO, or take a sunset drink in the Lobby Lounge. Outside diners are welcome; Spago takes reservations on OpenTable.
Photo Gallery
Molokini and Turtle Town From the Boat
The crater, the reef and the south Maui coastline the Four Seasons looks out on.
Book Your Experience
Check Availability & Prices
Select your preferred date and time. Cancel up to 24 hours in advance for a full refund.
Molokini Boats Near Wailea vs the Road to Hana
The featured Molokini and Turtle Town trip, two shorter Makena Coast Charters boats, and the guided Road to Hana day. None of them is a White Lotus filming location.
| Feature | Featured Molokini & Turtle Town with Meals | Molokini Crater 2-Hour Trip | Molokini & Turtle Town from Kihei | Guided Road to Hana Tour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | From $198/per person | From $154 | From $194 | From $219.99 |
| Hours | About 5 hours | About 2 hours | About 3 hours | Full day |
| Leaves From | Maalaea Harbor, 15-20 min from Wailea | Check the meeting point when booking | Kihei, the closest launch to Wailea | Confirm pickup; Hana is 2.5-3.5 h by road from Wailea |
| What You See | Molokini crater and Turtle Town, meals on board | Molokini crater only | Molokini crater and Turtle Town | Waterfalls, black-sand beach and Hana town |
| Operator | PWF Eco Adventures | Makena Coast Charters | Makena Coast Charters | Dynamic Tour USA |
| Reviews | 4.5 from 473 reviews | 4.8 from 216 reviews | 4.9 from 134 reviews | 4.6 from 623 reviews |
| The Show Link | None of these is a filming location; Molokini sits off the Wailea-Makena coast the resort faces | None of these is a filming location; Molokini sits off the Wailea-Makena coast the resort faces | None of these is a filming location; Molokini sits off the Wailea-Makena coast the resort faces | None; no season-one scene is on record on the Road to Hana |
| Check Availability | View Tour | View Tour | See the Road to Hana tour |
More Options
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HELICOPTERMaui: Road to Hana Helicopter & Waterfall Tour with Landing
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Season One, Off Screen
Where The White Lotus Was Filmed on Maui, and What You Can Actually Do There
The hotel, the beach in front of it, the one scene shot elsewhere, what a night costs, and the day out that fits a fan who is not paying four figures for a room.
There is no White Lotus tour on Maui. Nobody sells one, and the hotel that played the resort is not a place you can walk through on a ticket.
What you can do is closer to the show than a tour would be. You can stay there, if four figures a night is in the budget. You can book dinner or a spa treatment without a room. You can walk the public beach in front of it from a free lot next door, and you can spend a day on the water the resort looks out on.
If one part of that is going to be booked ahead, make it the boat. The Molokini and Turtle Town trip on this page leaves Maalaea Harbor, 15 to 20 minutes’ drive from Wailea, and runs about five hours with meals.
Where season one was filmed
Almost all of it was shot at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, 3900 Wailea Alanui Drive. The hotel opened in 1990 and has about 380 rooms. Production moved in during autumn 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. The resort was closed to paying guests, and the cast and crew lived on site. Condé Nast Traveler reported they had the run of nearly everything: the entrance and lobby, the restaurants, the spa, the pools, and Wailea Beach out front.
A few scenes left the property. Travel guides agree that the episode-one arrival, where the guests step off a boat and the staff line up to meet them, was filmed at Olowalu Landing on the West Maui coast. That is about 40 minutes’ drive from the hotel toward Lahaina. It is not the hotel’s beach. The airport scenes are Kahului. Tanya’s sunset boat trip in episode three was a real Hawaiian charter, but where it sailed from is not on record.
No season-one scene is on record on the Road to Hana, or at Molokini. We sell both as good Maui days. Neither is a filming location.
What a room costs, and what it won’t get you
The published numbers are dated, so treat them as a range. In June 2023 Business Insider checked the hotel’s own website and found ocean-view rooms from $1,395 to $5,300 a night. Summer Fridays sat at the low end. The Friday before New Year’s Eve was the top.
The suite dressed up as the Pineapple Suite is the Lokelani Presidential Suite, 4,500 square feet with three bedrooms. By the hotel’s own figure in 2025 it costs $29,000 a night. We have not quoted a live rate for any room. Check the hotel’s booking engine for your dates.
No booking gets you the screen version. Production designer Laura Fox redecorated the suites for the show, so the room you check into will not look like the one you watched.
The hotel has leaned into the connection. It says website visits rose 425% and availability checks rose 386% when the show first aired in 2021. Those are its own numbers, and they measure interest, not bookings. In spring 2025 it ran a White Lotus Bar at the adult pool and rented a cabana at $1,350 a day, from 14 March to 16 May, for hotel guests only. That promotion is over. So is the partnership between HBO and Four Seasons; season four moved to France.
You cannot buy a tour into the resort
Hawaii’s beaches are public. The resort grounds are not. No operator sells a walk through the hotel, and we would be wary of anyone who claimed to.
You can still get inside without a room. The restaurants take outside diners. Spago, Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant, books through OpenTable. Ferraro’s does Italian, DUO does steak and seafood, KOMO does sushi, and the Lobby Lounge serves sunset drinks with live music. A drink in the lounge is the cheapest hour you can spend in the building the show used.
The spa, renamed the Kai Holo Spa in July 2026, is open to non-guests, the hotel says. Pool day passes are another matter. We found conflicting reports and nothing from the hotel, so do not plan around one.
Walking Wailea Beach
The beach costs nothing. Wailea Beach is public, and there is a free public lot between the Grand Wailea and the Four Seasons, off Wailea Alanui Drive. Look for the blue shoreline-access sign. There are restrooms and showers at the access.
From the sand you are looking at the resort frontage the production used. The paved Wailea Beach Path runs about 1.5 miles along the shore past the resorts, from Ulua Beach down to Polo Beach.
A day on the water the resort faces
Molokini sits off the Wailea-Makena coast, the stretch of sea the resort’s beach looks out on. Most Molokini boats leave from Maalaea Harbor. A few launch from Kihei, which is the closest start to Wailea.
Don’t book it thinking it is Tanya’s boat. It isn’t, and no one can tell you which boat was. Book it because a morning at Molokini, then the turtles, is one of the best things to do from south Maui, and you are back in time for an afternoon on Wailea Beach.
Pick the day that fits
Three ways to spend a White Lotus day on Maui:
If the budget allows
Stay at the Four Seasons
The only way onto the pools and grounds. The hotel sells its own rooms; we don't.
Best fit for most fans
Take the boat, then walk the beach
Molokini and Turtle Town in the morning, Wailea Beach from the free lot in the afternoon.
Check the boat →A different day
Drive the Road to Hana
No screen link at all. Hana is 2.5 to 3.5 hours each way from Wailea, so confirm pickup first.
See the tour →Prices, ratings and review counts from our October 2026 data check (the Road to Hana tour from August 2026); operators use seasonal pricing, so treat them as the shape of the market, not a quote.
If five hours on a boat is too long, the comparison below includes a three-hour Molokini and Turtle Town trip from Kihei with Makena Coast Charters, from $194 and rated 4.9 from 134 reviews. The same company runs a two-hour Molokini trip from $154.
Olowalu, and the coast beyond it
If you want the arrival scene, Olowalu Landing is a roadside stop on the way to West Maui, about 40 minutes from Wailea. There is nothing to book there.
Past Olowalu is Lahaina, still recovering from the August 2023 fire. Lahaina Harbor had not reopened as of September 2025. Check what is open before you plan a day around it.
The island as a whole is quieter than before the fire. Visitor arrivals in July 2025 were 23.5% below July 2019, by Hawaii Tourism Authority figures, while January to October 2025 ran 7.6% ahead of 2024. Nobody has measured a White Lotus effect on Maui, so we won’t claim one.
If the Road to Hana is your other day
Plan it as its own trip. Our best time for a Road to Hana tour guide covers the weather month by month, and guided tour vs self-drive weighs the van against a rental car. The guided Road to Hana tour is on our homepage.
Neither HBO nor Four Seasons is connected to the tours on this page. For the boat day, check Molokini availability.
Guest Reviews
What Molokini and Turtle Town Guests Say
4.5/5
from 473 verified guests
"Thanks to Captain Doug and all the crew we had a lovely Tour and learnt so much about sea life. It was a great snorkeling day and we got to swim with so many species, had an unexpected dolphin pack visit during the ride and even managed to sea at least one turtle in Turtle Town while snorkelling. Later on the Captain took us to different spots and got to see many more Turtles from the boat. Overall it was a great and fun experience!! Recommended! ❤️"
"sorkling was great. Directions to the boat were very confusing and frustrating!!snorkling"
"Wonderful experience! Both snorkel spots were great and I was able to swim with a sea turtle! Staff was first rate, particularly Capt Emily."
"Captain T and his amazing crew did an excellent job! Everything was so good prepared and organized. Everyone of the crew knew in each second what to do!! We also received a lot of biological information during the boating. I think this was one of my best organized trips ever! Only two things to improve from our point of view: -) we’ve been over 100 people… for an natural event… snorkeling should be calm and relaxing but it felt like swarming with snorkeler. -) we had a photographer on board - she did a great job, but it was really expensive! It would be great to know the price before we pose for all the pictures. Afterwards we saw the pics, we liked it and so we bought it. 💵💵"
"Excellent. Everything was excellent. Excellent guide. Excellent photos. I recommend buying the photos of your family at the end."
"Excellent communication about the day and where to meet. Absolutely fantastic trip, service, amenities and food & drinks. Cannot fault the trip at all. Highly recommended."
"It was a beautiful cruise in a beautiful boat with a very nice crew. Everything was absolutely great!!"
Read all 473 verified reviews
See All ReviewsSpend the Day on the Water the Resort Looks Out On
A five-hour Molokini and Turtle Town trip with PWF Eco Adventures, from Maalaea Harbor, 15 to 20 minutes from Wailea, with meals included. Rated 4.5 from 473 reviews. From $198. Starting from $198 per person.
Check Availability & BookCan't Make These Dates?
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Find a tour that fits your schedule. Dates and cancellation terms are on each listing.
White Lotus Maui FAQ
Where season one was filmed, what the hotel costs, what you can visit without a room, and where the boat day fits.
Almost all of season one was filmed at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea and on Wailea Beach in front of it. Travel guides place the episode-one boat arrival at Olowalu Landing, about 40 minutes toward Lahaina, and the airport scenes at Kahului. Nothing is on record on the Road to Hana. For a day near the hotel, see the Molokini boat from Maalaea.
The Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, at 3900 Wailea Alanui Drive on the south coast. It opened in 1990 and has about 380 rooms. The production used the entrance, lobby, restaurants, spa and pools, plus the beach out front, according to Condé Nast Traveler. The White Lotus name belongs to the show; the building is the Four Seasons.
Yes. Season one was shot on the property in autumn 2020, during the pandemic, while the resort was closed to paying guests. The cast and crew lived on site. One thing changed for the cameras: the suites were redecorated by the production designer, so the rooms you see on screen do not match a normal stay. Exact filming dates have not been confirmed.
The White Lotus is fictional, but the hotel that played it in season one is real: the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea. It takes bookings like any resort. Its beach is public too, so you can see the frontage from a free lot next door. The later seasons used other hotels, and the partnership between HBO and Four Seasons has since ended.
Yes, you book the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea directly or through a travel agent; we do not sell rooms. The suite dressed as the Pineapple Suite is the Lokelani Presidential Suite. Bear in mind that the suites were redecorated for the show, so no booking gets you the screen look. Most fans settle for a day on the water off Wailea.
In June 2023 Business Insider found ocean-view rooms from $1,395 to $5,300 a night on the hotel's own site, depending on the date. The Lokelani Presidential Suite, the screen Pineapple Suite, was $29,000 a night by the hotel's 2025 figure. We have not checked a live rate, and reports disagree on whether a resort fee now applies, so check the booking engine for your dates.
That depends on your budget, and we have not stayed there, so we will not rate it. What we can say: rooms ran four figures a night in 2023, and the suites from the show were redecorated for filming. If you want the place more than the room, dinner at Spago or a drink in the Lobby Lounge costs a fraction of a night, and the Molokini boat covers the sea view.
We have not compared their rooms, rates or service, so we cannot rank them. Here is what is on record: both sit on Wailea Beach, which is public, with a free public lot between them. The Four Seasons is the one that played the White Lotus in season one. If the show is the reason for your trip, that settles it; for anything else, compare current rates and reviews directly.
No. Nobody sells a White Lotus tour on Maui, and you cannot buy a tour into the resort. You can eat at its restaurants, book the Kai Holo Spa, walk the public beach in front of it, and visit Olowalu Landing yourself. The bookable part is a day on the water the resort faces, which is why this page features a Molokini and Turtle Town trip.
Yes, in a few ways. Spago, Ferraro's, DUO, KOMO and the Lobby Lounge take outside diners, and Spago books through OpenTable. The hotel says the Kai Holo Spa is open to non-guests. Wailea Beach in front is public, with a free lot between the Grand Wailea and the Four Seasons. Pool day passes are a different story: reports conflict, so do not count on one.
No. Tanya's sunset trip in episode three used a real Hawaiian charter, but where it sailed from is not on record, and the arrival boat in episode one was filmed at Olowalu. Molokini sits off the Wailea-Makena coast the resort faces, which is the connection. Book it as a south Maui snorkel morning; the comparison table shows the shorter Kihei options.
Not that we can find. No season-one scene is on record on the Road to Hana; the off-property scenes that are known were shot at Olowalu Landing and Kahului Airport. The drive is still one of the best days on Maui, just a separate one: 2.5 to 3.5 hours each way from Wailea. Our guided tour vs self-drive guide helps you plan it.
Still have questions? Email us at info@road-to-hana-tour.com