Going in April. What is the best island to go not including Oahu. For like 2 days.  Want to visit somwhere, leaning towards maui     

For two days, Maui is good.  Spend a day on the beach and a day going up Haleakala.

But if you want to surf a manta ray, there is a place on the Big Island where they have a sunset snorkeling with manta rays.  They lure plankton with these big underwater spotlights, and the plankton lure the manta rays.

serious?  holy crap, that would be mad copped.

 Is it really expensive?  I want to save $$$ so which is cheaper? 
 

Maui is pretty expensive.  You should be able to find places in Kona on the Big Island that are as affordable as any on Maui.  Maui is overall a more beautiful island, because it has more lush vegetation.  The Big Island is geologically new, and a lot of it is still just black lava with no soil to support vegetation.

This site is a publishing company that does a great "Hawaii Revealed" series of guide books.  This should give you prices for many resorts on the Big Island, and another page has that info for Maui:

http://www.wizardpub.com/bigisland/bigresort.html

Sounds like the manta ray dives work better if you do it as a scuba dive, though there are snorkeling tours that do it.  There are a lot of diving companies that bring groups there.  It costs $99-$145 for the dive, depending on company.  "Big Island Revealed" says to avoid the company called Manta Ray Dives (and a company called Neptune Charlie's that uses the same phone number), because they've had a huge amount of complaints from readers.  They mention the company Kona Coast Dives spends just about all the dive time with the mantas, while some tours use 1/3 to 1/2 the dive time to roaming around looking at other things:

This is another dive company, that had better pictures on their web site:

http://www.konahonudivers.com/mantaray.shtml

The company Sea Paradise does snorkeling tours, which last year cost $79.  Their phone number is (808-322-2500).  I didn't look for a web site.

 bumping so this isn't in the obama thread.

only chilled in oahu....waikiki for 3 days and then stayed at the Turtle Bay resort for 2 (it was in that Sarah Marshall movie).

so i didn't get to swim with the manta rays.

maybe next year.      

Kauai has the best beaches, seems less "touristy" than the other islands.

Hanamu (sp?) bay was frikkin awesome...the water there was real clear...it's a place to snorkel

X, you missed out SON!  Me and the gf were in Maui for about 8 or 9 days over Xmas.  First time since I was like 12 since I've been back to HI and saw Oahu and Hawaii the first 2 trips.  Loved Maui, a little touristy in spots, expensive, yet reasonable, and beautiful.  Not as urban as I remember Oahu (and that was like 18 years ago, can just imagine now) and I thought a better variety of things to do than Hawaii (although as I said, I was young and at my mother and step-dad's mercy back then).  I did not hike the crater or take the road to Hana, regret the first, but as for the latter, as a guy from Hawaii who lives here says, "You're from Oregon right?  You've got plenty of waterfalls."  Did lots of snorkeling, easy access in Maui EVERYWHERE.  You can "SNUBA" relatively cheaply at a sunken crater that has ridiculous marine life not far from Kihei or just regular snorkel or SCUBA.  SNUBA is cool cause they just run an airline down to you (up to 100' I think) and you don't need the extensive training of SCUBA.  I got to sail on a former America's Cup yacht, which was pretty cool until the wind died.  Fortunately the whales were kind to us instead and we had a baby that gave us quite a show for about 50 minutes while 3 LARGE adults encircled him.  We stayed in Kihei, a small, slightly touristy coastal town on the west coast.  TONS of beach access and really just one longgg main road following the coastline, very different to the heavily "tourized" town of Lahaina.  Yea, we thought about hitting another island too, but didn't.  Next time I might just take a day trip over to Lanai, its very close from Lahaina and supposed to be one of the more authentic and prettier islands.  Oahu and the Big Island have cool things, but I doubt I'd visit either again on less I was on a more extended trip (i.e., 3 weeks), I enjoyed Maui that much.

MAUI NO KA OI!
 

 pretty sweet.  I'm trying to go to Hawaii every year, so maybe I'll do Maui next.

I have too much fun in Oahu though.  Just drinking at Dukes.  Such an awesome spot.

5 years ago I would've been all about Oahu too.  As I age, my love for urban environments is dwindling, I'm turnin' country I guess.