Michael Takamura

For over 20 years, Maui Ocean Center, The Aquarium of Hawaii has fostered understanding, wonder, and respect for Hawaii's marine life with visitors from around the world. Today, it is recognized as one of Maui’s top-rated attractions and listed among the “Top 10 Aquariums in the World” by TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Awards. Hawaii is one of the world’s most isolated archipelagos steeped in unrivaled beauty and cultural heritage. Regarded as the global capital of endemism, nearly 25% of all marine animals in Hawaiian waters are found nowhere else in the world. Maui Ocean Center serves as a portal into this world beyond our own, providing visitors with an immersive journey through an underwater paradise. Maui Ocean Center is home to the world’s largest displays of live Hawaiian corals and exhibits only marine animals found in Hawaii. Descend from the colorful Living Reef exhibits to the vast Open Ocean exhibit on a journey where encounters with schooling reef fish, sharks, stingrays, turtles, and an incredible diversity of marine life await. In 2019, Maui Ocean Center did what was never done before – bring guests eye-to-eye with Hawaii’s humpback whales in an immersive, 3D environment. Heralded as the first of its kind in the world, the multi-million dollar Humpbacks of Hawaii Exhibit & Sphere adds a new dimension to Hawaii’s famed humpback whale migration, enabling guests to experience a virtual encounter with life-sized whales in their own environment. Humpbacks of Hawaii was a finalist in the 2019 SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards. The relationship between the Hawaiians and the sea and messages of environmental conservation are cornerstones of the Maui Ocean Center story. The collective experience of native wildlife, local culture, and our social responsibility to be stewards of the sea is what defines Maui Ocean Center as “The Aquarium of Hawaii.”