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Big Island
Meixai was very fun & knowledgeable.
Bummed we missed the eruption by just over a day, but that's nature.
Saw many craters & went in a Lava tube.
Again nature thwarted us for the stargazing as the moon was too bright.
Wear good walking shoes.
After researching several options, we chose the Ultimate Hawaii Circle Island Sightseeing tour from Veltra for our mid-April 2026 trip, and it did not disappoint. Our guide, Marcus, was total pro, wWith 15 years of experience, his knowledge and storytelling made the 10-hour journey fly by.
The Highlights:
1) Coffee Farm: Stunning views and a great tasting session in the gift shop.
2) Punaluu Black Sand Beach: We were lucky enough to see sea turtles basking on the sand!
3) Volcanoes National Park: Seeing the steam vents and the scale of the active volcano was easily the highlight of the day.
4) Rainbow Falls: The best panoramic view is actually from the side of the park; the hike to the top isn't strictly necessary for the best photos.
5) Waipio Valley Lookout: Absolutely breathtaking photo opportunities.
The logistics were seamless with a prompt pickup at 7:20 am from the Fairmont Orchid. While it is a long day covering 2/3 of the island, Marcus kept us entertained throughout. Lunch, dinner, snacks, and water were all provided, making for a stress-free experience. Highly recommended!
• Wear runners for hikes & lots of walking
• No need to bring water as the tour provides plenty.
Terrific experience! Derek was a wonderful guide! Knowledgeable, friendly, and professional! Gave a preview of events, a timeline, and kept to the schedule.
The tour took us to places we probably wouldn't have gone to on our own. We saw turtles on the beautiful black sand beach, enjoyed a walk around the coffee farm with delicious samples. Spent time at Rainbow Falls. Enjoyed cookies at a local bakery. Plenty of opportunities along the way to pickup meaningful, local souvenirs.
But my favorite stops were in Volcano National Park. The caldera was amazing. No spouting lava but lots of smoking vents. The steam vents were amazing as well. Lunch at the cafe was well organized and tasty. The view from the restaurant was great. Beautiful vistas along the route. What more could you ask for???
Good for everyone, including kids. Plenty of stops along the way. Great overview of many sites.
We had a great time with Kimo. He made us feel at ease. He was very knowledgeable and funny. He was able to answer our questions and did not make us feel dumb. He also seemed to genuinely enjoy our party’s craziness.
The tour was super well organized, with a guide who shared interesting insights along the way!
Loved this tour - our tour guide was very accommodating and knowledgeable and we saw some beautiful spots of the island. Definitely recommend this trip as you get to see a lot in one day. My favourite places were the black sand beach with the sea turtles and the Volcanoes National Park (but to be honest, I loved all the sites).
Loved this tour! We saw so much of the Big Island in a single day. And the guide shared really interesting facts along the way.
A fantastic way to see the islands highlights in one day like the Volcanoes National Park, Waipio Valley (our favorite), black sand beaches, and gorgeous waterfalls.
The tour guide was super knowledgeable and kept a smooth pace, making it easy to enjoy every stop. Highly recommend for a comprehensive island experience.
Such a great day - from the black sand beach to the Waipio Valley lookout and multiple waterfalls, of course with visiting Volcanoes National Park as the standout!!
This was the highlight of our cruise. We were lucky to see the Volcano erupt, which was well worth the trip. The restaurant we stopped at for lunch was also very good. Desmond and Anthony were great guides.
The good: Black Sand Beach and Volcanoes National Park are as good as they can be. Halema'uma'u Crater is amazing.
The average: The Coffee Farm we visited is a small one. We saw the coffee plants, but didn't see much about how the coffee is produced as the machines are taken apart and stored. Food is ok-ish, lunch is fast-food bento, dinner is at a small restaurant.
The unfortunate: We didn't see any star due to the cloudy weather. If you want to do stargazing, join a stargazing group as they will have better planning and equipment.
So many gorgeous stops along this tour, and the guides are so funny and make a long day seem like a breeze.
Anthony and Desmond were spectacular tour guides! Desmond is an expert at taking the amazing photos of your group, and Anthony is so knowledgeable and taught us so much with words, pictures, and artifacts while driving. But most of all, they were friendly and caring. I've never been more impressed with two tour guides! The tour showed us many interesting sites and we had a blast. It was the highlight of our trip to the big island!
Highlights included walking through Volcanoes National Park, seeing steam vents and lava fields up close, the stunning black sand beach at Punaluʻu, and panoramic views over Waipiʻo Valley.
It’s a long day, but absolutely packed with jaw-dropping sights and well-paced stops.
We enjoyed a great day learning and exploring the Volcanos, Craters, Lava Tubes. The bus was clean and on time, the tour guide (Torrie) was really good and informative. The lunch was really good as was the dinner. Overall it was a great experience. I would definitively recommend this company and tour.
Good walking shoes and light jacket.
Shawn is super polite and well educated in many topics regarding the lava, plant life, history and sites on the islands. He was particularly helpful in suggesting to us to change the itinerary so we could see the active eruption and we are so happy he made the suggestion. 100% well worth the private tour. We changed things up and kinda called audibles throughout the day and Shawn was all about it. We had a great dinner and the day was a total success. Thank you.
If you don’t want to be herded in a tour bus and would like the ability to customize, book this!!
Aloha Monika,
Mahalo for taking the time to share your experience with us! One of my favorite parts of just doing private tours is the ability to call those audibles and customize our itinerary based on our guests desires, or in this case the Volcano. Happy that we were able to get to the Volcanoes NP, see the eruption before it stopped, still be able to take you to the other locations we had planned, and enjoy a great dinner! Thanks again!!
Mahalo,
Shawn
This tour was mind blowing especially because of tour guide Felix! He showed us all the best spots and gave so much interesting history and facts without making you want to fall asleep LOL. First time in Hawaii and I’m so grateful to have been on this excursion! Amazing food, views and so much more. Thank you wasabi tours and even bigger thank you to Felix!! ❤️❤️
This is an ALL day trip be prepared to have nothing else planned but a great time!
Kilauea was just amazing, I could go every day if it was possible!
The guide was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable. It was a fulfilling day. It was really good. However, all the participants were Americans, and perhaps because they all had knowledge about Hawaii, the topics discussed were quite difficult. Things like how to buy land and rumors about Captain Cook. If you have prior knowledge and are fluent in English, it would be very enjoyable, but if your level is just average, you might feel a bit left out.
ガイドさんがとても熱心ないい方で、知識も豊富。充実感のある一日でした。とても良かったです。ただ参加者はアメリカ人の方ばかりで、またハワイに着いても知識がある方ばかりだったからか、話の内容がなかなか難しいものでした。土地の買い方やキャプテンクックの噂話など。事前知識があったり、おそらく英語がペラペラだととっても楽しいかと、ただそれなりレベルだとポツン悲しい思いをしてしまうかも。
It's quite tough if you can't understand English well! Also, the lunch bento is somewhat disappointing for Japanese people, so those who are particular about food might want to bring their own. The ta
かなり英語を聞き取れないと厳しい！あとお昼のお弁当は日本人にはなかなか残念な内容なので、食にこだわりのある方はご自身で持って行かれるといいかもしれません。味は不味くはありません。
Translated by OpenAI
The tour guide was great. We really enjoyed ourselves
The guide was very kind, and there were many services that weren't mentioned when I signed up! In cold areas, they lent us windbreakers and jackets, and they also checked our meal preferences in advance and placed orders for us. There were several occasions where they provided Hawaiian juice and bottled water as well.
I mainly signed up for the volcano tour, but they also drove us around to other places while giving detailed explanations the whole time. The guide was English-speaking, but they spoke to us in the Japanese they had learned, which made it feel very homey and enjoyable.
My kids challenged themselves to speak in English, and the guide responded kindly, which made me very happy as a parent to see their growth during this tour. The weather was great, we got to see sea turtles, and we witnessed both daytime and nighttime lava flows. Additionally, we were able to observe an incredible number of stars in the night sky that I had never seen before. It was an unexpectedly amazing tour filled with good luck!
ガイドさんがとても親切で申込む時に書いてないサービスが沢山ありました！寒い地域ではウィンドブレーカーやジャンバーを貸してくれ、食事も事前に希望を確認して注文してくれたり、ハワイのジュースやペットボトル水の提供も数回ありました
ボルケーノツアーメインで申込みましたが、その他の場所も細かい説明をずっとしながら運転してくれました
英語ガイドさんでしたが、覚えた日本語で話しかけてくれたりしてアットホームで楽しかったです
子供達は習った英語で話すことに挑戦しましたが優しく対応してくれて、このツアーで子供達の成長した姿がみれて親としてとても嬉しかったです
天気も良く、ウミガメにも会い、昼と夜の溶岩流もみれて、更に見たことのない数の満天の星空観測も出来、幸運続きの想像以上に最高のツアーでした!!
I highly recommend Wasabi Tours for a tour of the Big Island! The guide spoke English, but other groups had guides who could speak Japanese as well. The tour was rich in content and exceeded my expect
ハワイ島のツアーはワサビツアーズをオススメします！英語ガイドさんですが、他のグループは日本語が話せるガイドさんもいました
内容が濃く盛り沢山のツアーで期待以上です❣️
Translated by OpenAI
Our family loved it, as we love the e-bikes to keep the speed up, but get around the park at a good pace!
In general, my family and I had a good experience. Dexter was a fantastic driver and tour guide.
The only thing we did not like is that we had to drop and pick-up people at the airport 3 times, I'd rather spend more time in the rainbow falls than going over and over to the airport.
Be prepare for cook weather, rain, slippery trails, etc.
Aloha and mahalo for your review!
We’re so glad to hear that you and your family had a good experience and that Dexter made a great impression as your driver and guide—he’ll be happy to hear your kind words!
We also appreciate your feedback about the multiple airport stops. We understand how this can affect the flow of the tour, and we’ll be sure to share your comments with our operations team as we continuously look for ways to improve our guest experience.
Thank you for choosing Polynesian Adventure, and we hope to welcome you back again for another island adventure!
Warmest aloha,
The Polynesian Adventure ʻOhana
Great day, we got lucky to get to see the current ruption! What a perfect experience.
The Big Island is so beautiful and to wrap up at Mauna Kea- the perfect tour!!
Brett was an excellent tour guide. Funny engaging and informative. It is a long day as the island is rather large. Greenwell Farms (coffee farm) was our first stop. Excellent coffee! Brett explained the growing and harvesting process, followed by tasting and souvenir purchases. Then on to the Punalu'u sweetbread bakery for treats. I lived the Lilikoi flavored pastry. Nice gift shop also. Next stop was Punalu'u black sand beach with a bonus sleeping turtle. Quick provided tasty lunch at a shady state park. Next into Volcano National Park. Brett has fantastic volcano pics. Kilauea was steeming and erupted hours later. Traveled down a large lava tube, very cool. Huge old lava fields. Next on to Rainbow falls and majestic Akaka falls on the East side of the island. On the North end, we visited Waipi'o lookout for sunset. It was along day, but excellent. Strongly recommend. Brett made the trip very enjoyable.
It is a long day, lots to see.
Came over from Oahu, and loved every ounce of what we saw. Def coming to BI next!
There were 13 participants, including 10 travelers from the mainland United States and us, but the guide made an effort to speak Japanese when talking to us, which showed consideration and allowed us to enjoy the tour.
アメリカ本土からの旅行者10人と私たちとで13人の参加でしたが案内のドライバーが私たちと話す時には極力日本語を使ってくれ、気遣いが感じられ、楽しくツアーをすることが出来ました。
Translated by OpenAI
