Road to Hana Excursions

[timsbabe]

Looking for recommendations for excursion/tour companies for Road to Hana. If anyone has done the POA or independent excursion, approximately how many stops do they make? Not really interested in renting a car as DH wants to enjoy the view as well!

[Susan-M]

Valley Isle is the one that consistently gets 'two thumbs up' on Tripadvisor forums. We haven't used them (have driven it ourselves) ... but the nice thing about taking a tour is that you can do a circle route and see the south side of Haleakala without violating your car rental contract. Driving it yourself though means that you can take the time to hike the Pipiwai Trail at O'heo Gulch (if that's of interest.)

[Aussiegirl58]

We recently did this trip on our cruise 11th May.We used Valley Isle Tours and requested Tim as our driver. He was mentioned in other reviews by people who had previously done this trip with him. I can't recall exactly how many stops we had but they were plentiful plus ones where Tim would pull over for us to get photos that he thought we might like to take. A good driver makes for an enjoyable trip and he was one. The bus only had 12 people which was a good number. The Road to Hana is a great trip so I hope you enjoy it when you do it.

[hill6]

Did the one through the ship and we had 19 on the bus that held 21. It was not uncomfortable. Our driver was great and very informative. We made lots of stops along the way that were not on the map we were given.

 

Here is the link to my review. Road to Hana starts on page 3. I have a picture of the bus we were on.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1745674

[timsbabe]

Thank you for the info...we will check out valley isle tours!

[timsbabe]

Did the one through the ship and we had 19 on the bus that held 21. It was not uncomfortable. Our driver was great and very informative. We made lots of stops along the way that were not on the map we were given.

 

Here is the link to my review. Road to Hana starts on page 3. I have a picture of the bus we were on.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1745674

 

Thanks Debbie...your pictures and review were awesome!!

[hill6]

Thanks Debbie...your pictures and review were awesome!!

 

Your welcome and thank you. :)

[DaisyGoldberg]

We did the trip with Valley Isle last May and were very happy. The coaches are as comfortable as described and the windows are large and make it easy to see from just about everywhere (if you have your choice of seat, though, grab one on the left! Unless you're afraid of heights, then the right is better in terms of not looking down over cliffsides)

 

I believe the itineraries are basically the same for all the little local excursion companies, and they all use smaller vehicles and end up parking alongside each other all the way around. But I would totally recommend Valley Isle.

 

It's a long day and the geography so very different from one area to the next that it was so nice to just relax and look out the window and not be worrying about driving! The little coaches are also quite tall, with huge windows, so you literally see more than you'd see in a regular passenger vehicle, anyway.

[puddles99]

I'll give another vote for Valley Isle tours. You can read more about our experience & see pictures in my review (there's a link in my signature below). We had a nice day even though the weather was a bit dreary. However, I will admit that we both swore we would never do the Road to Hana twice - LOL. It's just a long exhausting day. So glad we did it, Valley Isle was great, but once is enough for us!

[allesonwonderland]

Did the one through the ship and we had 19 on the bus that held 21. It was not uncomfortable. Our driver was great and very informative. We made lots of stops along the way that were not on the map we were given.

 

Here is the link to my review. Road to Hana starts on page 3. I have a picture of the bus we were on.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1745674

 

Great review, your pics are wonderful!! We are going to the Luau on our first day as well, so we will either do Haleakala on our own on Day 2, or the Road to Hana either partway on our own, or through the ship. (I'm usually one to book private excursions, but being a long one and on the day the ship is leaving, we'd pay the extra for the ship excursion.) Glad to see someone else do something similar.

[hill6]

Great review, your pics are wonderful!! We are going to the Luau on our first day as well, so we will either do Haleakala on our own on Day 2, or the Road to Hana either partway on our own, or through the ship. (I'm usually one to book private excursions, but being a long one and on the day the ship is leaving, we'd pay the extra for the ship excursion.) Glad to see someone else do something similar.

 

You have more than enough time to do Haleakala the first day too. We had a lot of time to kill in Lahaina before the luau. This way you can truly see it all.

 

I would recommend booking a Hana tour rather than driving it. The road is scary and you will miss most of the beauty if you are white knuckle driving it. (my co worker did it on his honeymoon and said he felt lucky to not end up in divorce court from it.)

[allesonwonderland]

You have more than enough time to do Haleakala the first day too. We had a lot of time to kill in Lahaina before the luau. This way you can truly see it all.

 

I would recommend booking a Hana tour rather than driving it. The road is scary and you will miss most of the beauty if you are white knuckle driving it. (my co worker did it on his honeymoon and said he felt lucky to not end up in divorce court from it.)

 

After reading your review and a few others, I am now considering doing Haleakala on the first day. We were going to do Iao Valley State Park and drive up around the western coastline (minus the scary one lane/narrow part) before wandering around Lahaina and doing the Luau, but maybe we can skip some of the coastline and fit everything else in.

 

When I showed DH some videos of the Kahekili highway I was detouring around he thought that skipping it was a good idea. I'm sure he'd rather do the Hana excursion than have to drive it. LOL