North Shore

We joined the North Shore, Turtle Watch, Dole, and Macadamia Nut Farm tour, Stephanie was our guide and she kinda did things her way. It was nice she gave us several options to stop at beaches that weren’t necessarily ... moreon the list and she gave us suggestions on the food trucks to try at the old Sugar Plantation. But it was also a bit awkward when she will just talk about random things to fill the dead air, for instance she pointed out every passing McDonalds, Cheesecake Factory which I’m pretty sure isn’t particularly useful info to learn about Honolulu or the Hawaiian culture. But that’s neither here or there, the disappointment came to the Turtle Watch part, we just skipped it, she took us to the beaches where we’re supposed to find them, slowly drove and asked we saw anything (as the van was moving) then proceeded to concluded that there were probably none. After driving for at least another mile of the same slow drive and deduction, she asked if any of us was interested in going back to the first place where we thought there was something due to the crowds surrounding something and taking pictures, we didn’t saw anything yet, then she said if we did we would have to walk back one mile by ourselves, as traffic was bad and she wasn’t about to turn back.

Frankly, we joined the tour for the turtle Watch. To be just brushed off like that was disappointing and we felt a bit scammed,

I loved this tour. The bus took us around the island, visiting ALL the hot spots. It can feel a bit rushed but lots of places to go. I think it’s suitable as a first day of your trip activity. Our guide Kanamu was amazin... moreg, I loved all the local histories and traditions she told us along the way. The highlight of the trip is definitely Waimea Falls. We spent 1.5 hours here, I personally highly suggest not to go swim in the waterfall because that would become the whole focus of this place. It’s such a beautiful area, you’d be rushing through the short hike trying to get to the waterfall, and once you’ve done swimming you’d be rushing back to your bus. You’d be missing a lot of this beautiful place. I also loved that we stopped for a short 30 minutes Dole plantation. That’s really enough tbh. I would otherwise not have come here but now I can say that I have been there. I loved the fruit stands that we passed, bought some fruits. If you’ve had good sugar cane before don’t buy them here, they weren’t that great. While taste great, they weren’t very juicy, and quite hard to chew. You can definitely try if you’ve never had them before. Bought some macadamia honey at the “nut house”, and I loved the macadamia nut sampling. I was so tired at the end of the trip but definitely worth it!

Had a fantastic tour around the island. We had short stops at all the places of interest. The highlight of the day was seeing turtles coming out of the water onto the beach.
It was a very full day with lots to see and gr... moreeat it was a small group.
It would have been great to make a stop at Haleiwa as it looked interesting but we were running out of time.
Overall a fantastic day

The hospitality was amazing and the food was great! Worth every penny!

The father and son team that run this operation and tour were outstanding, really cared for everyone and very professional.

It was a blast, felt like a well oiled operation. Highly recommend the picture package the free fall goes by so fast that you’d want to have the pictures / videos to remember your experience.