Pete's activity reviews | Book tours, activities & fun things to do on HawaiiActivities.com

Must do volcano tour

On Friday March 16th, 2018 my family and I attended the Deluxe Volcano Night Lava Viewing with Dinner at Kilauea Lodge & Stargazing Tour that also included the coffee trip to the Kona Joe Coffee Farm, Punaluu Bakery and the Black sand beach. To start, I have to say our guide Uncle Jim made the trip well worth the time and money we invested. He was prompt, courteous, knowledgeable and most of all both engaging and entertaining. From the history, folklore and ancient stories to the general knowledge of Hawaiian culture there was rarely a moment where we were not enjoying the tour. We started out from our resort and Jim began to answer our questions and tell us stories of the landscape (lava, terraforming and the effects of adding green spaces to the resorts on the climate) and a Captain Cook story. As we moved on and picked up the other guests the stories continued as he pointed out various points of interest and beaches we may want to visit on our own. Some great aspect to the tour were the mythical stories of the gods and goddesses and how they actually mirror what it believed to be the realities of the Hawaiian Islands today. Each of the stops we made were better than promised, lunch and dinner were both great and Uncle Jim having a telescope for the night time volcano viewing was great. Some of the highlights from our perspective were walking down a lava tube, walking through the steam vents, picturesque picnic lunch and the gathering of stones to gift to the volcano later in the day with a chant led by Uncle Jim. And I can’t forget the smell of the Huli Huli chicken BBQ that he teased us with that I never did actually get back to try, maybe on our next visit. I would recommend this as a must do tour on your trip to the big island and ask for Uncle Jim, he will make the tour that much better.