I booked the Waterfalls and Volcano National Park Tour through Princess Cruises. We docked in Hilo at 8:00 and met our tour guide, Victor, in the terminal at 8:20. There were 12 of us in a modern van. Victor was so warm and personable, and made us all feel instantly comfortable! We spent over 7 hours touring different waterfalls and looking at the volcanos. He made the history of Hilo come to life! I learned so much! We had lunch in the afternoon, plenty of bathroom breaks, and an opportunity to pick up some souvenirs. The tour itinerary was good……but Victor was fabulous!!! I highly recommend any tour that he is leading!!

We were very fortunate to have great weather for viewing some constellations and planets (Saturn and Jupiter were viewable) with the solar telescope. Our guide was Sam who brought his environmental science background to the tour and was also incredibly knowledgeable about the local culture and, of course, astronomy. Also very thankful for the coats they provided, it was below 50 degrees at our stargazing point! A must do excursion!

Secrets of Puna sounded like a wonderful excursion offered by our cruise. The trip started out wonderfully, with a few stops showing areas of past lava flow along the coastline. The second half of the trip was supposed to give us the availability of snorkeling and shopping. Well, we had 45 minutes at the hotel where the tour agency was located where snorkling was off a boat dock and shopping was at the hotel gift shop. Courtney, our tour guide, did a good job, but most tourists don't ay good money to go to a hotel gift shop.

We stayed at the Grand Naniloa and attempted to rent kayaks every day of our stay. Every day we were told that we couldn’t due to “staffing issues” and to come back after 10am on Wednesday. We even checked on Tuesday to see if we needed to make reservations for Wednesday (the last day of our trip) and were assured that we didn’t need reservations just show up “anytime after 10am”. We showed up at 12:30 and were told we couldn’t rent a kayak even though there were 3 people at the desk because the one man that told us to come “anytime after 10” was going home soon. It would have been really helpful if he had said “anytime after 10am” meant 10-12pm. TLDR- even after asking everyday we still missed the 2 hour window they were willing to rent kayaks during the week. No one there could have cared any less that they’d given us the run around all week. Truly horrible service. Hilo ocean adventures is just down the road and the staff is actually nice and willing to do their jobs. Stop there first, I wish I had.

Great excursion while in Hawaii! Diego, our guide, was terrific! He was extremely knowledgeable and entertaining in discussing background info on the island and the stars in the sky. The weather was not always cooperating throughout this trip but that should always be taken into consideration.

First off -- Nate, our tour guide, was outstanding! We learned so much about the stars, planets, and other interstellar objects. He was well-versed in Hawaiian history and culture and so patient with our 7 y/o copious amounts of questions! Unlike other tour guides, I didn't feel like he was "BSing" through the tour; he would say if he didn't know something or if he was taking an educated guess. I will say, our group, and at least one other group, did think this tour took you to the summit of Mauna Kea -- something that is off-limits at night to do on your own. This tour DOES NOT take you to the summit. You go to about 6K feet or so, and it's all accessible independently if you so choose. What you are paying for is the tour guide's knowledge, telescope, picnic lunch, and the other stops along the way (all of which are free to do on your own as well).

This tour was amazing and our tour guide Tery was so great, she had this infectious energy and enthusiasm, was so talkative and knowledgeable and just made the whole trip so awesome. The views and tour were incredible and the food was really good too.

We did the hike during the recent eruption of Kīlauea. The hike down to the crater was as described and required a reasonable level of physical fitness, due to the 500 ft of descent and then, after a walk across the crater, climb back to the start point. One of the people on the tour was having some difficulty on the climb, but our guides Andre and Victor were fantastic. They were extremely knowledgeable and kept everyone entertained, while making sure that noone was left behind. Following the hike and lunch, we went to the view point, from which we could see the eruption. We were about a mile away, but could feel the heat from the volcano on the front of our legs, while our backs were warmed by the sun. Victor lent us binoculars for a better view and we were told why a closer encounter would not have been a good idea. We were also taken to the steam vents, where we could safely feel some of the heat from underground.

The tour guide was great. He was very friendly and knowledgeable, but the trip overall wasn’t worth the amount we paid for it. All of the points of interest were places you can easily get to on your own without expert knowledge or equipment. Also, unfortunately for my group, the weather made the stargazing part impossible, which was the whole reason I booked the trip. I wouldn’t normally blame someone for weather issues, but, once again, the star gazing spots weren’t anything special. The spots they took us to were basically spots on the side of the main road my fiancé and I drove to get to the meet up location. Also, if they had any inclination that the weather might inhibit the stargazing, I wish they would have warned us. I would have cancelled had I known that was a possibility.

The tour was fantastic with our guide Victor. Super nice guy who is a wealth of information. We got the pleasure of meeting him through a Norwegian Cruise Line excursion and he truly gave us an amazing, memorable day.

It was awesome! 100% worth it. Wear comfortable and warm clothes. The provide a jacket because it gets really cold! Nate was our guide and he did an amazing job explaining everything.

Please read thoroughly because the description is very clear this does not go to the top of Mauna Kea. I saw a few not great reviews because it did not go to the summit. We had Rich as a guide he was amazing. So much knowledge about constellations and the Hawaiian islands. We have children who are teenagers and we would totally recommend this tour with Rich!

We had an excellent time. Andre our tour guide with Kapohokine Adventures was great and a wealth of volcano and Hawaiian knowledge. We loved the lava tube, the crater and all the dried lava fields. My son really loved the echo produced at the crater. Just wished we could have seen some lava at the end of the experience. But you can’t plan that. But besides that it couldn’t have been a better experience.

Marcus was our guide and we enjoyed the tour with him. **It is 4000ft up, so take a light sweater/jacket - even in the summer. It was around 85 when we left the cruise port for this adventure and was down to 64 when we entered the park to start the hike. The wind made it feel cooler. I ended up spending $50 on a sweatshirt at the visitor center that I prob didn't need after all but was initially freezing when we got out of the van. I did warm up on the hike and took it off but just note to take a light jacket. The volcano park is nice, lots of cool things to see. The volcano hiking was fun and interesting, the area is really neat. Loved walking down on the lava beds and lower floor areas of the volcano. It was steaming but no red flowing lava when we were there but was some the week prior.

Short version: Do not spend your money or time on this tour. Cancel if you have already booked. Trust me. We booked this back in January for our Hawaii trip in July. We paid approximately 1100 USD for our family of 4. We are traveling with two kids aged 8 and 11 so we knew that we would not be going to the summit from the outset. We were picked up at 3:50 pm near Mauna Lani. Then drove 35 to 40 minutes to Kona to pick up the other six members of the party. We then went to Kona Harbor for dinner and honestly what we were served was probably 15 dollars per meal. Basic fish and chips and hamburgers. The price covers a soft drink but not even a single alcoholic drink for the adults. You are on your own nickel for that. We then began our drive to what we thought was Mauna Kea. On the way the tour guide told us we would be going to an elevation of about 8000 ft for viewing and that we would not be going to the summit because access is limited to companies with permits (apparentlu they do not have one) and there were children in the party. This was expected. He then also teased the possibility of viewing through the solar telescope to see solar flares. After about 50 minutes of driving, we pulled into a park just off of Saddle Road, which based on Google searching later that evening is "Gilbert Kahele Recreation Area." I checked my phone, the elevation was 6300 ft, leas than half of the total elevation of Mauna Kea. We then waited at a playground for 45 min to an hour for the sun to go down. The guide made it seem like they were eyeing cloud conditions during this time like we could move to higher elevation if need be. Eventually the clouds did begin to clear after sunset and we piled back into the van and drove.....across the street. Our viewing area for the evening was just off of Saddle Road with headlights from motorists shining into your face and lights from the bathroom at the park also providing nuisance lighting. Not at one point during this tour did I feel that I was on Mauna Kea or had climbed Mauna Kea. I know the actual location is on the slopes of Mauna Kea, but at less than half the.elevation and right next to Saddle Road you never felt that you were "on" the mountain if that makes any sense. At this point, the guide then began to setup the telescope. He pointed out some planets, constellations and stars with the laser pointer. The telescope was a complete and total letdown. All the bluster on their website about how great it is and you will see galaxies ane nebulas....Looking through the eyepiece I could see a slightly larger version of what I could see with the naked eye. Someone else wrote a review saying it was about the same magnification you could achieve with a good pair of binoculars. I totally agree. What we were told was a galaxy was a star with a glow around it. After this my kids totally lost interest. To make matters worse there was always some cloud cover throughout the evening. For the price we paid one would expect every attempt would be made to obtain a cloud free viewing, like maybe moving to higher elevation? This was not done or even hinted at. Regarding the solar telescope, I would guess that you will have a very low chance of being able to experience this since you must have no cloud interference. The guide indicated that the clouds begin to dissipate...after sunset. So you do the math on that one. We were then served the equivalent of Swiss Miss hot chocolate in a small paper cup and that wrapped up the evening. Note: we were not offered Kona coffee as a choice as the website indicated. The entire viewing experience lasted about 1.5 hours and we dedicated over 6 hours of our precious time in HI between pickup and drop-off to this tour. For the last 20 to 30 minutes of the viewing time, my kids and the other party of six were so bored they were back in the van being entertained by my kids telling them stories about their friends and which YouTube videos they think are funny. My wife and I were the only ones who viewed for the entire time determined to extract any possible value we could from the tour. Our guide was a nice guy but was not an expert in astronomy and admitted to looking up some of the knowledge from the internet. He is a college student studying marine sciences. There were two other vans from the same company that we met at the park and shared the viewing area together and he basically admitted they were more knowledgeable than him. I listened to some of their discussions and can confirm this. I certainly did not get the sense that any of the guides from this company designed the telescope or whatever claim they make on the website. Overall this was a completely waste of money and more importantly time in Hawaii. I cannot recommend this tour to anyone and would advise you to just go to the beach with your family and keep your ONE THOUSAND hard earned dollars in your pocket. If you really have the itch to look at stars just drive to the same spot I told you about and park next to them and keep your money. Or better yet..drive to the Mauna Kea visitor center at 8000 ft and actually be above the clouds. Final thoughts: My wife and I are from Michigan and remarked to each other that we have seen WAY better stars, I mean stars that will knock your socks off, in Northern Michigan in the summer. Am I saying MI stars are better than HI? No. But what I saw with partial cloud cover the whole time did not beat what I have seen in Michigan. Secondly, my 11 year old noticed as we walked into our rental near the beach that the stars were better here than where the tour took us. I am just heartbroken from this experience as I had been looking forward to it for 5 months with the expectation that it would be one of the highlights of our trip. I guess I should have done more research. Do not make the same mistake!!!! Do not book this and cancel if you already have...you still have time.