Good experience overall

Posted on: 2022/03/29

The overall trip was good. The driver was on time to pick us up and very nice and accommodating. We started with the early hiking at the diamond head hike which is great because it gets quite hot after 9am at the top and by the time we got back, there was a large crowd waiting to get the tickets to start the hike. The view at the top of the crater was very nice. You can see all the high rise buildings in the waikiki area. It does take about 45min one way with 0.8 miles to climb up to the top. You will climb through a small tunnel which was cool.

Then he drove us around the island and we stopped at a few different beaches. We saw the area with very expensive houses which was very interesting. We also stopped to see the koko trail and the blowhole. We then stopped at a few additional places including the place where they sell macadamia nuts. That was a very nice place where we get free coffee and can taste all different kinds of macadamia nuts before we decide to buy them. We then stopped at the food truck place for lunch and the food was not that good. The garlic shrimp has too much garlic and the butter and lemon shrimp was too blend. What is worse is there was a lot of flies, so we have to constantly worry about the flies going to our food! The kids had a great time chasing the the chickens though.

We then stopped at another fruit stand and the sunset beach. We were supposed to stop at another beach but we decided to skip as there were too many stops along the way and mostly are shops for tourists. The last stop was the Dole plantation which was a big disappointment. I did not even get a chance to see even one pineapple! The place was so crowded with fancy stores selling tourist merchandises and the ice cream was ok. We were not able to get on the train to see the pineapple fields as the tickets were sold out. The maze was ok, but no pineapple there. I personally do not recommend going to dole plantation.