Mauiva AirCruise

We went on a western experience tour two years ago. My mother and I enjoyed the experience very much. We opted for the fly, stay, and drive. It was really, really easy as the car rentals were waiting right at the FBO airports. Flights were very short, usually about an hour. It made seeing many places a very easy experience. Actually three or so days out of the trip were spent with the tour group. I resisted at first but decided it would be best just to have a good attitude about it. Had a lot of fun with the group as well. Just didn’t enjoy the one or two dinners we shared with the group (never liked tour group dinners). The tour group itself was great, really happy, positive people from Western Europe. The tour guide, Brian Wunderlich, was an awesome dude, really knowledgeable, easy-​going, and helpful. Never made you feel bad for asking too many questions. Gave some really great advice for when we were heading into Monterey/​Carmel by the Sea/​Big Sur, as we didn’t know anything about those areas. I had a wonderful experience looking at the most beautiful scenery (with his advice) at Nepenthe in Big Sur, which overlooked the Pacific. He seemed to understand our interest for independent exploration and encouraged it. Really great.
My mother and I still have fond memories about our trip. We enjoyed Mauiva a lot. Prices have gone up since then, though. I think it was $ 1,400pp for the fly/​stay/​drive (highly recommended if you hate going with tour groups).
There was an interpreter who started with us that was supposed to be German-​speaking… apparently she wasn’t. So Mauiva swapped her out within a day or so. Didn’t affect my mother and I as we didn’t understand German, but it probably annoyed a few. It appeared, though, that some of the group, while being German native-​speakers, still had strong English proficiency.
I’m planning on going back to Yosemite this year for a full-​on backpacking trip. We missed out on Yosemite with Mauiva because it was raining hard on the day we arrived. Visibility was poor. In retrospect, it would have been cool to just go out and be in the rain. We were poorly dressed for this, though. Won’t be making that mistake again.
tl;dr
Mauiva took care of the logistics, made the flights really quick and easy, provided great rental cars and always gave us decent meals. No complaints, and great feelings and memories.

I booked this tour hoping to have a great time and also security especially with the expensive amount we had to pay. We had 7 plane trips planned to get us around 5 different cities.
Unfortunately we all suffered from the government shutdown which greatly affected this tour since all the parks we intended to visit were shutdown. We only go to three different cities which are Montery, San Francisco, and Las Vegas using only 4 plane trips out of the 7 plane trips planned.
When I asked Mauiva airlines to refund me the cost of these UNUSED plane trips since they are a large expense I had to pay that they NEVER got to use, they refused ! Citing that the government shutdown was out of their responsibility, well I agree on the second part, it was out of ALL people’s hands, but why scam the poor group of expenses you never used using that excuse? If we paid for 6 nights in a hotel, i want my 6 nights, if you gave me 4 nights i want the 2 nights unused back !! Same thing for the unused plane trips.
The second excuse they gave me is that they compensated the losses with a vegas show (Blueman show) which was a 100 $ tickets maximum, and a bus tour to the Grand Canyon’s west rim, a BUS TOUR !! and I paid to get there by plane. Those two barely covered the Yosemete and Cedar park tours and NOT the plane travel cost…
It is a shame that now I’m preparing a law suit to refund my rights and therefore take my advice, do not plan your trip with this company as they don’t have an ethical reasoning or responsibility towards their customers.
Plan your trip yourself using internal flights such as Southwestern or spirit, the Amtrak train is another great speedy transport alternative between California cities and will save you so much time and money.
Never Again with Mauiva or any other company.

The concept here is not a bad one however this year old company has a long way to go to make a good travel experience.
I’ve flown their Eastern Cruise
1. The plane is not a luxury jet. It’s definitely an older style prop plane. The convenience is still nice. If your flight is full it’s very tight for space.
2. The hotels are all Hilton branded. Internet is included in the tour but not from the hotels and it was sad to find that out later into the cruise but a good thing to mention here.
3. I didn’t find the Travel Host to be very knowledgeable about the destination but that appears to be because the host is not a travel guide. They arrange all the details but don’t offer information or a tour per say. There are some destination experts that join the tour from time to time and they have been EXCELLENT but it really would be nice if we had those the whole time and in every location.
I did like the convince of the flights for getting around but the overall experience of a tour is not what I was hoping for. This may be something that sorts itself out with a longer period of operation but I can’t say for sure.
At the moment I’d recommend saving $ 500 (current rate) and doing the stay, fly, drive package. You miss out on the host guide (but this is not a travel guide and that host if already working to set up your rental car/​hotel/​flight ect), the attractions (¹⁄₃ of those are free giving that DC is almost completely free) and the dinners (which are really so-​so). Over all you can do all the attractions, buy a guide book and pay for some better meals for that $ 500. If you have food preferences (the choices are limited and don’t offer a ton of variety) or don’t like 100% of the attractions then you should definitely branch out on your own.
WORTHY NOTE:
Prices seem to stay constant year round on this tour but my main concern is that many of the attractions they list are seasonal. They don’t tell you what they substitute into the tour in the place of these closed attractions but it’s a worthy question if you’re not going in the summer. For example, most of the niagara falls attractions close up in oct and stay closed until may. Niagra falls is not considered by Canadians to be a year round destination — few people go in winter, the dam up more of the river reducing the water flow and if you do go the hotels are very inexpensive because most of the town is closed up. It’s a place to go for a nice escape in the winter — but paying full price on a tour? I think not. This tour is offered year round but I have no clue what they do with thier guests at that time. Ask before you commit or just fly in summer and get what they are pitching as the only way to see these destinations.