Maui Ocean Center is turning its tanks and tunnels into a Halloween playground next month, bringing back Fins & Frights on October 24 from 6 to 9 p.m. with trick-or-treating, a marine-themed costume contest, and Halloween cartoons projected inside the aquarium's dome-shaped Sphere Theater. Keiki are encouraged to come dressed as their favorite creatures of the sea, and marine naturalists will be on hand to help kids decorate their trick-or-treat bags before they head out to gather candy among the exhibits.
As reported by Maui Now, the event will include a costume contest with prizes across four categories, plus a decorated pumpkin contest for those who want to enter without dressing up. Head naturalist McKenna Bell said she is looking forward to the new educational stations planned for this year's event, and she plans to dress up as a princess for the occasion. Those stations include a hands-on spooky biofact table and mystery boxes, according to the same report.
A Venue Built Around Virtual Encounters
The Maalaea aquarium hosting the party is no ordinary fish tank. Opened on March 13, 1998, the 3-acre facility features a 750,000-gallon Open Ocean exhibit with a 54-foot walk-through tunnel, making it the largest living tropical reef aquarium in the Western Hemisphere, according to Wikipedia. In 2024, the aquarium was named one of the nation's Top 10 aquariums as part of USA Today's 10Best Readers' Choice Awards, per Hawaii.com.
Notably, guests will not find any dolphins or whales swimming in tanks on site. Maui Ocean Center supported a 2002 Maui County ordinance banning the exhibition of captive cetaceans, which led the facility to feature virtual whale encounters in its 3D Sphere Theater instead of live marine mammals, the aquarium has said. That same dome, which broke ground in February 2018 with dual-laser 3D projection technology, will screen the Halloween cartoons for this year's Fins & Frights.
Conservation Groups Set Up Shop Alongside the Candy
Several of Maui's marine conservation organizations are joining the party as community partners, turning trick-or-treating into a brush with real environmental science. The Marine Institute at Maui Ocean Center, founded in 2016 as a nonprofit operating Maui's only land-based coral nursery and sea turtle rehabilitation center under a federal NOAA Fisheries permit, will be present, per Maui Now's earlier reporting. NOAA's Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary is also taking part.
The Pacific Whale Foundation, founded on Maui in 1980 by marine pioneer Greg Kaufman and funded through its social enterprise PacWhale Eco-Adventures, will also join the festivities. Its work includes noninvasive whale research, according to Aloha State Daily. Rounding out the lineup are the Maui Nui Seabird Recovery Project, which operates under the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit in partnership with the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife, and Stormwater Maui.
Food, Tickets, and Timing
Hungry trick-or-treaters will have plenty of options at the Reef Café, which will offer poke bowls, beet salad, and ahi poke nachos for purchase during the event. Ululani's Hawaiian Shave Ice will handle dessert duty, while Maui Ocean Treasures will sell Halloween-themed fudge for anyone craving something sweet on the way out.
Entry costs $20 for adults and $10 for keiki ages 4 to 12, with free admission for Maui Ocean Center annual members. Last entry is at 8 p.m., and tickets are available now at mauioceancenter.com.
