The Best Things To Do If It Rains On Your Vacation To Maui

Nearly 2.5 million people traveled to Maui in 2023, using their vacation days to enjoy this paradise's lush, green landscapes, beautiful waters, and outstanding natural wonders. (See more reasons why Maui should be your next vacation destination.) However, depending on your location in The Valley Isle, you might get more rain than you bargained for if it pours during your getaway. For instance, Hana welcomes 400 inches of rain every year, but Central Valley receives less than 3% of that amount. Keep that in mind when packing, and follow our packing recommendations for your next trip to Hawaii. 

However, you don't need to suffer if it rains during your Maui trip. Instead, adjust your itinerary slightly and head to these favorite attractions on Hawaii's second-biggest island. To figure out which points of interest are ideal for rainy-day fun, Explore combed through Tripadvisor and Google feedback to determine which attractions had the highest and most reviews. We also considered entertaining sites with unique features. These selections are so fun that they work well on a sunny day.

As one of the few developed places surrounded by ocean waters, no one knows and loves marine life like the Hawaiians. At the Maui Ocean Center, travelers can learn about the world underneath the ocean's surface for $40 per person. This massive aquarium houses one of the largest displays of live tropical corals on the planet. It's also one of the world's finest and part of the "Top 10 Aquariums in the World" list on Tripadvisor, earning about 6,400 reviewers and 4.5 stars." "What a fantastic interactive pro-conservation pro-restoration facility! Lots to see, explore, and learn," one commenter wrote on Tripadvisor. 

One of the aquarium's most popular features is its Humpback Whales of Hawaii Exhibit, which, using the biggest 3D sphere on the planet, brings humpback whales to life using 4K imagery and surround sound. Another favorite, once-in-a-lifetime experience for those with a SCUBA certification is the Shark Dive Maui, which plunges visitors into a 750,000-gallon tank filled with over 20 scores of sharks and hundreds of fish. Visit the Maui Sea Turtles Lagoon Exhibit, which showcases the world's largest sea turtle in a replica of its natural habitat. Interestingly, these turtles are born and reared in the Turtle Lagoon for two years and then set free.

There's nothing like waiting out the rain cozied up with a beer in hand, and that's exactly what you can do at Maui Brewing Company, the biggest craft brewery in the state. Since the Kihei location of the brewery has amazing ocean and mountain views, you might feel like you're outdoors. Those looking for a sip can choose from a year-round selection of beers with Hawaiian touches, like the Coconut Hiwa Porter and the Pineapple Mana Wheat, as well as limited-release brews, such as the Shibata Rice Lager. To get a front-row seat of how this brewery makes its beers before they're distributed throughout the United States, Canada, and Japan, book the hour-long, $20 VIP Production Facility Tour.

"This place is awesome!" one happy customer wrote about the business with 4.5 stars on Tripadvisor. "We went here twice in 6 days! Great food and drinks! And lovely music nightly! Would highly recommend!" Maui Brewing Company has three locations in Maui, and it serves food inspired by the island, prepared with local ingredients. It's been a Hawaiian staple since 2005, when it began brewing beer in the Aloha State, and despite how the brand has grown, it still only brews its beer in Hawaii.

More than 21,000 animal species call Hawaii home, and tourists love flocking to this outdoor paradise to see amazing creatures like manta rays and dolphins. But when rain keeps you indoors, you can still embrace your inner animal lover at Cat Café Maui. It works with Maui Humane Society and Maui Cat Rescue, housing cats until they find permanent homes. While living at the cat café, these animals can find their fur parents and get the TLC they wouldn't receive at a shelter. Visitors can book a 50-minute cat hangout for $20 per person or attend the café's special events, like the $20 hour-and-a-half-long cat yoga and the $20 cat movie night every Saturday at 6:30 p.m.

It's been a staple here since 2022, when owner Moriah Diamond founded the café as the first of its kind in Maui. She has helped 500 cats find homes (including on the mainland, as Hawaiian vacationers can't help but find their future pets here). Don't forget to stop by the gift shop to take a piece of the café home with you and support the feel-good business. Cat Café Maui has 5 stars and over 1,000 reviews on Google, with reviewers writing comments such as, "We greatly enjoyed our hour-long visit with the cats ... It was a wonderful experience to kick-start our vacation ... I would highly recommend visiting the Cat Cafe if you love cats and cuteness!"

With 1,500 acres, Wailea Resort is a colossal Hawaiian getaway with 3,000 hotel rooms, nearly a dozen tennis courts, 5 spas, the only golf club with 3 acclaimed courses, and 5 beaches. Outside the resort, you can check out The Shops at Wailea, an indoor-outdoor mall with over 70 stores open daily. With store doors leading outside but under covered entranceways, it's the perfect way to enjoy the Hawaiian ambiance during the rain while souvenir shopping. 

The resort has over 600 reviews and 4 stars on Tripadvisor. "Beautiful outdoor mall with an ocean view on the second floor ... The best Hawaiian brick and mortar shops are here. Great place to shop for clothes and shoes, affordable or otherwise," reads one feedback on the platform. Besides housing well-known national brands with surfer vibes like Billabong and Quiksilver, The Shops at Wailea is also known for its uniquely Hawaiian stores, such as Keani Hawaii, a women's clothing, jewelry, and accessories shop, as well as Lappert's Hawaii, a bakery, ice cream parlor, and coffee spot. Not sure what to buy? These are the 7 souvenirs to get in Hawaii and 6 you should skip.

Maui has plenty of art galleries, but at Makai Glass Maui, you can see blown glass artists Justin Brown and Randy Schaffer at work and also purchase a one-of-a-kind, handmade Hawaiian souvenir — with worry-free shipping, as the glass blowing studio guarantees safe arrival. The studio creates blown glass pieces and home lighting installations inspired by iconic Hawaiian natural features and animals, like waves, lava, coral reefs, pineapples, whales, and jellyfish. That's where the studio's name comes from, since "makai" means "toward the sea" in Hawaiian. Its pieces are so iconic that it supplies the trophies for the Sentry Tournament of Champions, a Hawaiian golf tournament that has been running annually since 1953. In 2024, Makai Glass Maui created a 35-pound humpback whale and wave sculpture as the trophy.

But these artworks are expensive, priced between $425 and $8,500. Even if they're out of your budget, looking at these amazing pieces of artwork is the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. Tripadvisor users agree as the studio has more than 200 reviews and 4.5 stars. "This is the coolest place!" a past visitor wrote on Tripadvisor. "We were invited by friends to visit this studio and gallery and had the best time. The artists are very friendly [and] welcoming, and the studio is open to watch them working. Amazing!"

MauiWine, the Aloha State's oldest winery, sources its grapes from its nearly two dozen acres on the side of Haleakala Volcano, but that doesn't mean you need to enjoy its staple pineapple wines outdoors. The winery is home to the King's Cottage Tasting Room, which dates back to the 1870s when it was created for King Kalākaua, the last king of Hawaii. Here, visitors can try MauiWine's wines for $7 to $20 per glass or $12 to $25 per tasting flight and also enjoy wine cocktails and snacks. 

One of MauiWine's nearly 900 Tripadvisor reviewers wrote about the 4-star business, "The setting is beautiful following a lovely drive into the UpCountry from Kihei (the drive is worth it alone for views). It was a lovely combination of art, history, food and wine ... The wine is interesting and quaffable – worth tasting and maybe a bottle or two for local consumption." MauiWine is 1,800 feet above sea level and is located in one of the most secluded places on the planet. It's filled with 150-year-old trees, views of the ocean and mountains, and florals near the top of the volcano. Despite its isolated location, MauiWine is a model spot for cultivating grapes and pineapples, which is why it creates such delicious Maui Blanc pineapple wine. If the weather clears up, you can explore the winery's vineyards, planted within volcanic soil or book a guided vineyard tour.

Sipping on a glass of wine isn't the only way to imbibe in Maui to pass the time while waiting for the rain to stop. Just about a 35-minute drive from MauiWin is Haliimaile Distilling Company. It's a distillery that, like MauiWine, creates liquors infused with iconic Hawaiian ingredients like Hawaiian spring water. It has created delicious spirits that have won many awards, such as the gold medal in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the Grand Tasting Award in the Global Wine, Beer & Spirits EEPS. Maui visitors can taste items like vodka with Hawaiian spring water and Maui Gold pineapples, rum with Kona coffee, whiskey with distilled pineapples, and gin with Hawaiian fruit at the distillery during a 30- to 45-minute tour. It costs $15, and the tour includes three liquor samples.

With 400 reviews and 4.5 stars, customer feedback on Tripadvisor includes, "The distillery tour is engaging & unique, absolutely worth the cost. Their shop is adorable and we walked away with (the best) pineapple & whiskey. Lovely way to spend our first afternoon in Maui." It's all thanks to two brothers who enlisted Coloradoan distiller Mark Nigbur to help them bring their dream of opening a distillery on the island to life in 2010. These days, Nigbur and his son, Cory, continue to create Haliimaile Distilling Company products for thirsty visitors.

Sugar has long been an irreplaceable industry in Hawaii, making up the most acres of farmed land in the state and the second most profitable crop. If you want to learn about it on a rainy day and on a budget, then the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum is the place to go. For just $10 per person on Mondays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the museum teaches about Hawaii's sugar industry history and how it has affected the future. It's home to several exhibits and rooms detailing the sugar industry's past, such as The Geography-Water Room, which showcases how Maui's landscape has helped the industry to grow; the Mill Room, which displays several relics from sugar plantations; The Plantation Room, which presents the life of a plantation worker. 

With so much island history in just one building, it's no surprise that the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum has garnered 4 stars and more than 260 reviews on Tripadvisor. One visitor wrote on the platform, "The museum rooms recreate very well different sceneries, and it has original artifacts, including large machinery and vehicles from the last plantation operators, which are impressively big! The museum staff was very kind and the entrance is really cheap. Recommended visit if you want to see other side of Maui and its past."

If you were thrilled by the history showcased at the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum, spend the rest of the day at the Hale Hō'ike'ike Museum. It presents every era of Maui history (including prehistoric times) in a building that costs just $10 per person to tour every Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. At the Hale Hō'ike'ike Museum, visitors will see amazing sights like 2,000 artifacts (the largest collection on the island and beyond), 8,000 historical photos, tons of maps, manuscripts, and other archives.

It's all inside several rooms and exhibits such as the Kahekili Room, which showcases artist Edward Bailey's oil paintings; the Keoni Room, which is the oldest Western structure on the island; the Canoe House, home to the last example of a fishing canoe made out of a koa log, which dates back to over a century. The Hale Hō'ike'ike Museum has earned over 150 reviews and 4 stars on Tripadvisor, with visitors writing comments such as, "A really lovely historic property filled with historic artifacts and explanations. It was wonderful to get a better understanding of the complex history of this beautiful island." If you're interested in saving money on your Hawaiian trip, here are the best spots to stay in Hawaii on a budget, according to trusted booking sites.

Need some TLC after all those walking tours? Spend a rainy afternoon at Ho'omana Spa Maui, which Yelp named as the best spa in the state. The spa is ranked just as highly on Tripadvisor, as it has 5 stars and over 550 reviews. "Tucked up in the high country, the setting was relaxing with cool breezes and sounds of nature," a past visitor wrote on the platform. "Our therapists were top-notch and we would definitely go back again!" And no, this is no ordinary spa like you would find back home. Ho'omana Spa Maui uses Hawaiian Lomi Lomi (a massage technique using calming rhythmic movements) and other methods to relax its clients in a uniquely Aloha State way. To take your relaxation to the next level, follow your massage with the best spot in Maui to watch the sunrise.

No matter which service you opt for, it will include access to the spa's Hawaiian Aromatherapy Beauty Bar which offers body care products all made by the Ho'omana Spa Maui team. But without Jeana Iwalani Naluai and her husband Justin, Hawaiian visitors would certainly be feeling much less relaxed. The pair founded the spa as just a room in their home before it expanded to an entire building with four treatment rooms, a bathhouse, gardens, and two villas available for rent.

If you want to catch everything from "Murder on the Orient Express" to "Nutcracker Sweets" on a rainy Maui night, then book a ticket for a show at the historical Iao Theater, which is housed in a Spanish-Mission Revival style building dating to 1928. As the third-oldest theater in Hawaii, the Iao Theater has hosted famous names like Frank Sinatra, and it also presented the Hawaii premiere of the award-winning film "From Here to Eternity" in 1953. Although the theater closed in the 1970s, it was given new life thanks to a $734,000 renovation in 1994 (and many other renovations since).

Now, both residents and visitors can catch productions of every topic at the Iao Theater. It has clearly kept its peanut gallery satisfied, as it has more than 160 Google reviews and 4.7 stars. One past guest wrote on the platform, "The setting is so intimate! Able to see very well from every seat! Everyone is so welcoming!" And apparently, so are the theater's ghosts, including "Emma," who is behind disembodied voices and flickering lights.

With its breathtaking landscapes, Maui is known for its outdoor activities. However, depending on when you're visiting the island (since the rainy season is November through March) and where you're staying (as Maui is home to 17 microclimates), you might need to budget some indoor activities in case of a downpour. Many Hawaiian tourists have learned that for themselves, as we discovered by reading pages of Tripadvisor and Google reviews of every type of indoor attraction, from art studios to museums.

Through this task, we created our list based on which indoor activities had the most reviews and best ratings of at least 4 stars. We also considered which destinations were places you couldn't find just anywhere else, like a pineapple winery or one of the best aquariums on earth, so your vacation will still be brag-worthy, regardless of the weather. But once it clears up, don't forget to take a cruise down the Road to Hana during the safest time of the year.