Aloha Circle Island Tours — Attraction in Honolulu

Let me start by saying that Cap was incredible. Me and my girlfriend were running a bit late for our pickup and he left without us. A quick call to HQ got me in touch with him and he was nice enough to turn back and get us. He was very knowledgeable about oahu and got us to some great spots in good time and unscathed. The tour was also great with a few hiccups that ill get into. Dole was closed but that is nobodies fault. We went to the coffee farm just down the road instead. My main issue is with the people who run the booking and resservations. I bought a groupon several weeks in advance to ensure we could get a rservation. its the off season so there is plenty. These people know where Im from, so they know theres a time difference. Yet, they call me at midnight my time to confirm the reservation and stuff. very annoying. Next, I get told that i need to sit through some snake oil, scam likely webinar about a membership to some vacation planning company that I have absolutely no interest in, and then im told if I dont sit through it, i will be pulled from the tour and my money and reservation lost. I have never felt so disrespected by a company. Cap and the tour were the only saving grace here. The tour was great save for a few mishaps. DO NOT PLAN TO SNORKEL WITH TURTLES ON THIS TOUR. That honestly just needs to be removed from the description. We drove past 2 prestine beaches with turtles to be taken to possibly the worst beach in oahu. No turtles, muddy water, and a 1/3 mile walk from the bus. BAD. This is the tour planning people's fault, cap was just following the itenarary, so hes blameless. Also, time at certain locations needs to be consolidated better. 45 minutes at the temple is unnecessary. We only got 15 at the mac nut farm which wasnt enough. 30 at both seemed more reasonable. The dole farm was closed due to a water main break. If we would have known that beforehand we could decided as a group to spend more time at other places. fine. All in all, the tour was great. But dont expect sea turtles, and good luck dealing with the...

Pros: You get to see a lot of great scenery You don't have to drive yourself

Cons: It's mostly a tour of tourist traps The cost is $80 - $140 depending on where you book There is an option to add snorkeling which is basically a scam Lots of time (4+ hours) spent on a bus Lunch is cash only (you are warned about this however)

So this tour is basically a drive around Oahu with stops at about 10 tourist traps. Here is a rough breakdown: 4 gift shops 1 lunch stop 1 fruit stand stop 1 beach or garden stop 3-4 scenic overlooks

If you read the tour info online, it states you visit the following: a pineapple plantation, a coffee farm, and a macadamia nut farm. While that is technically true, you really just hop off to walk through the gift shops at each place and move along. You don't actually tour any of these facilities.

The overlooks were all okay but nothing very impressive. We stayed about 15 minutes at each.

The beach for snorkeling is Waimea Beach. Our guide spent 30 minutes talking about how it's never possible to snorkel there, so I have no clue why the company is trying to sell snorkeling upgrades. It ended up just being an hour of swimming or hanging out on the beach.

Lunch was at Fumi's Shrimp which was decent but very crowded (literally every tour bus seems to eat here for some reason).

One other note: when you enter the bus, you notice a large sign that states, "Yes, we work for only tips! Please consider tipping your tour guide 15-20% of your tour cost." Our tour had roughly 20 people who paid about $100 each. As the company's only cost for the whole day was fuel, you'd think they could use some of that $2,000 to pay the tour guide. Shame on Aloha CIT for not properly paying guides and instead trying to guilt guests into paying even more (for what is already an...

We took Tour but it was not worth it. We boarded the bus at 8:15 and went to Diamond Head Lookout. We stopped there for 10 min and took some photos. Then bus stopped at some local suviniour and clothes store for 15-20 min. It looks like store are paying them to bring tourists to their store. Then we were just roaming inside the bus and went to one farm. It was same thing as store. We stopped there for 20-30 min for shopping and free coffee samples that's all. So 2 big stops were only for shopping. Then next stop we directly took at some Shrimp truck. There was only one shrimp stuck so we tourist don't have option to eat something else. We felt like tour guide is getting commissions from all place where he is taking us. We were vegetarian so we didn't had any single option to eat at truck. Then we stopped at one beach at North Shore for 1hr and saw only 1 turtle. 95% of the time we were inside the bus. Last stop was at Dole plantation and then we came back to waikiki by 3:30 pm. I would not recommend this tour at all if your like to go out and explore place properly for 30 - 40 min. We were expecting that Bus will stop at different places for sometime so that we can explore but only place bua stopped is at Shopping and Eating place from where they can get commissions. It's better to spend money in Uber or Local public transport. This your is only good for old people or someone who doesn't like to go out and just want to seat inside bus and look around. This review is only for this Aloha Circle Island Tour I am not sure about tour provided by...