Big Island Hawaii

MayDay513

Has anyone been to the Big Island of Hawaii? We are planning on going in May. We are getting a giant vacation house with a pool near a beach. I have never been to the Big Island. What are the must do/ see/ eat? We like to eat, drink, sight -see, hike etc.

Here's my list so far:
Volcano
Snorkel
Parasailing (I've never gone)
Luau
Green Sand Beach
Bubba Gump
Hike to a Waterfall

MDGirl

I went to the BI last year for New Years -- I have a blog post about it if you'd like to take a look -- and way back in 2004. VNP is amazing, and I would make sure you devote an entire day to it. We did the Kilauea Iki Crater hike and it was a fun hike. It's hard to say what to do beyond that because the park could be completely different in May (when we went in 2004 we just had a short hike to see lava, but that's gone now).

We liked the snorkeling at Two Steps last year, and the first time when we went we stayed at the Fairmont and we saw lots of turtles right off their beach.

We drove to the Green Sand Beach because my friend had the car for it, but there are locals you can pay to take you out there or it's a bit of a hike (with no shade or protection from the wind).

I've never hiked to a waterfall on the BI, but if you get over to Hilo Rainbow Falls is beautiful and right in the middle of the town and Akaka Falls isn't too far off the main road.

Can't help with the parasailing, luau, or Bubba Gump, other than to say you can probably do so much better for food.

MayDay513

I'd love to read your blog post about your trip. Feel free to PM it to me if that works better. Thanks for the advice.

MDGirl

It's linked in my post, it just doesn't show up that well. Here it is:

http://marylandgirl.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/big-island-new-years-2013/

MayDay513

Got it. Thank you! I see it now, I didn't think to hover over your original post. Thank you

Miclan88

Great choice! we stayed on the BI for our honeymoon in keahou (near kona) and LOVED it! It's good you are getting started with plans so early. since the island is so big its hard to see & do everything you want, but it helps to have an idea of your must sees

First i'll talk about food, because who doesn't love food?

1. L&L Hawaiian BBQ  - First place we ate at and it was amazing. Tons of plate lunches to choose from. I got some kind of pecan shrimp (I think) and it was very good. My favorite part was the macaroni salad

2. Sweet Dreams - Delicious Ice Cream. Its in a little plaza thing near bubba gump's. I got regular macnut & chocolate macnut ice cream and it was great!

3. Frisky Seal - not bad. service was a little slow, but it was the middle of the day. hubby & I shared a sandwich that was pretty good. I wouldn't consider it a must do though.

4. Splashers - LOVED this place. everything about it. the ambiance was nice with a ukelele player & and views of outside. and the fish was DELICIOUS. this might have been my favorite meal. one thing I wasn't as crazy about was the mai tai in a pinapple. it tasted like straight rum, but the pinapple it came in was delicious!

5. Sam Choy's - another great meal. a little more pricy, but worth it. call ahead and ask for a seat where you can view the sunset.

6. Costco - this really saved us a lot of money. we had a grill at our condo, so bought meat at Costco and had several meals at home.

7. Café pesto - we went in Hilo and it was awesome. I HIGHLY recommend the pesto burger. I got the pizza & hubby got the burger. to this day I regret not getting the burger. they raise a lot of cattle on the BI and you can tell the beef is fresh. it might have been the best burger I've ever tasted

8. Ultimate burger - after café pesto's burger, I was underwhelmed. kind of overpriced, but the fries were pretty good.

9. Kona Brewery - Another great place. We got the cheeseburger pizza & chicken bacon ranch pizza. I enjoyed both, but I think the chicken one was better. They have beer samplers which is a great way to have a bunch of their delicious beers. I personally liked the wailua wheat & the koko brown (seasonal). the lemon grass was also good, as was the vanilla seasonal. pipeline porter too! they are all pretty good haha. Word of advice though, if you want to take the tour, get there VERY early. the site said to get there half an hour before, but we were there almost an hour early and it was already booked. And that was in November, which is supposed to be off season!

Also, not a food place, but something we really enjoyed was the lilikoi (passion fruit). For breakfast we bought eggo waffles and spread lilikoi butter and passionfruit.seeds on them. It was cheap & easy and had an island feel.

Miclan88

As for activities, here is what we did

1. Took a tour of Greenwell Farms coffee. Learned some cool things and got to sample free coffee It was free too. except we paid for it by buying lots of chocolate covered coffee beans lol

2. You will absolutely LOVE the snorkeling. First we went to Honaunau, Place of Refuge, and it was nice. Lots of yellow tang. Not as spectacular as all the books seem to describe, but it could have been an off day. I'd still say its worth it, the reef there was beautiful. However, You will not regret snorkeling at Kahalu'u Beach. TONS of different species of beautiful fish and lots of sea turtles! 

3. Take a surf lesson! If it is something you've ever wanted to try, its a great experience. We used the Kona Surf Company, Austin was our instructor. Not only was it nice to learn to surf, but it was cool having one on one time with a local. 

4. Night snorkel with manta rays. Trust me, its as cool as everyone says. They are just so graceful and magnificent.

5. VNP - definitely make sure to see it in the day and the night. There was an eruption when we went and I am so glad we were there at night to see the glow. We did most of the short things in the park like the lava tube & steam vents. We didn't do the hike to the crater, but everyone at the park recommended it. The chain of craters takes a while, but it is worth the trip. BTW make sure to get gas before you get to the town volcano. there is no gas in the park and limited gas nearby at a very jacked up rate. Also bring a jacket, when the sun goes down, it can get cold!

6. Rainbow Falls & Pee'pee Falls were both nice, but they don't take very long. I expected more of a hiking experience, but it was more like you drive up and there it is. There might be some trails, but it was so rainy that we didn't really explore them. Akaka falls had a trail to hike, but it wasn't any longer than half an hour.

7. This is the luau we did http://www.sheratonkona.com/dining/haleo-luau-dinner-and-show We chose it because it was close, but it was a great show. the fire dancer was incredible. The food was pretty good and there was so much to try! the show was set with the ocean as a backdrop which was unique and lovely. They also had a bunch of activities going on before the show to enjoy while drinking free unlimited mai tais

8. Punalu'u Black Sand Beach - So cool. There were sea turtles nesting on the beach and the black sand was just such a different experience.

9. We didn't go to the green sand beach, since we didn't realize how long of a hike it was and it was almost dusk when we got there, but we did visit south point right near it. It was breath taking. one of my favorite spots on the island. There were even people cliff diving there. I personally wouldn't trust the currents there, but to each his own. we really wanted to watch the sunset there, but unfortunately the one lane road to get back would have been pretty trecherous in the dark. That is one thing I have to advise you about. The main roads are very dark and windy, the roads to the coast are even worse. Very bumpy and mostly unimproved. Not really a fun ride, but always worth it I made my husband drive the whole time though lol.

10. The beaches we went to were Kekaha Kai State Park & Hapuna Beach. Kekaha Kai State Park was kind of rough getting down to on the unimproved road. And then we had to hike over some lava rock to get to a spot with entry to the ocean. Kind of rocky, not the best for swimming. It was nice because it was closer than the Kohala beaches. Hapuna was beautiful, the only problem was that it was a bit of a drive. We got some really nice sunset pictures there.

11. we didn't parasail in Hawaii, but I have in Dominican republic and it was a lot of fun.

One thing I would recommend if you are on a budget is to see if you can attend a time share presentation. My husband and I didn't qualify, but if we sat through their meeting we would have gotten up to 50% off most of the excursions we did.

 

 

daria24

Some highlights from our BI HM:

1. Green sand beach-we walked, rather than riding in the pack of a local's pickup. It takes about 45 minutes but I would have tossed by cookies bumping up and down the road in a pickup. The beach is great, but the waves are FULL FORCE-so be careful swimming. 

2. Cliff diving at Southernmost point-not something we had planned to do, but there were a bunch of people jumping off when we got there, and some guys snorkeling, so the water was very calm at that moment. 

3. Makalawena Beach-north of Kona-you have to take the (god awful) unpaved road to Kekaha Kai State Park, then hike across lava for 20 minutes to get to it. There was NO ONE there for most of the time that we were there, the sand was as soft as sugar, and the water was perfect. 

4. Zodiac tour out of Keahou Bay-zodiacs are rubber boats, they are really small so they can go a lot of places the catamarans can't. We got to snorkel at three different sites (Captain Cook Monument was one of them).

5. VNP-make sure you stay until dark so you can see the lava at night. If you have the time to drive to the Hilo side and see the lava flows on that side, it's a lot more impressive. 

Food-wise, the only place I remember specifically was the Kona Brewing Company.

MayDay513

Thank you girls! I really appreciate it! Is there anywhere, where you wouldn't go back to? Places to avoid? I mean, I always yelp and everything else before I book something, and I have about 4 months to plan, but it's always good to hear from others. I always appreciate all the feedback.

daria24

We did a dinner/star-gazing tour of Mauna Kea that I wouldn't bother doing again. For the price, I didn't think it was worth it. Though I appreciated the parkas the tour provided as it was about 35 degrees. 

You can drive up to Mauna Kea yourself and they offer some free star gazing if you are still interesting, but all in all I didn't think it was that impressive.

If you decide to do a night hike to see lava at VNP-get as much info as you can as to whether it will be worth it. We spent almost tour hours hiking around lava fields, nearly broke our necks, and didn't get to see a thing. 

Those were really the only 'disappointments' we had. 

Miclan88

Not necessarily something to avoid, but be aware that helicopter tours out of Hilo seem to get cancelled often. Ours got cancelled and rescheduled for the next day and got cancelled again. We were pretty bummed, but the one agent said there wasn't much activity going on with the volcanoes anyway. If it's something you are really interested in, do it early in your vacation, that way you can try to reschedule. And definitely ask about volcanic activity because I wouldn't want to spend like $150 and not really see anything!

CMGragain

I just returned from Hawaii.  There was no active lava to be viewed at this time.  This is not unusual, so be prepared for this.  I loved Kona!