Kauai Plantation Railway — Attraction in Kauai

What a great time we had. The train ride begins at the same place they hold the luau, if you buy your tickets online, make sure you check in at the souvenir shop. Get in line and be ready for a wonderful adventure through the plantation and its orchards. If you only paid for the train ride, it's a 40-minute leisurely stroll through the plantation's wildlife and orchard conservancy. The train cars themselves are amazing works of millwork and really give you a feel of a passenger train at the height of sugar plantation times. You will get to visit the herd of wild pigs, goats, and donkeys as well as the other animals on the plantation before taking a slow roll through the orchards to see flowers, fruits and veggies growing today at the plantation.

If you sign up for the hike, lunch and orchard tour, you are in for the best experience possible. You get to ride the train for a little bit, but instead of seeing everything by train, you get to get off and take a hike deep into the heart of the plantation and see all of the beautiful plants up close(really close).

The hike is great, but, if you require assistance to walk up and down stairs, or have a walker, or any assistive devices, the hike is not for you. I'm over 300lbs, do a desk job and am not much of a "hiker" and I was able to do this hike without a heart attack. Make sure you grab a walking stick, it helps stabilize you on the narrow trail. The biggest hazard is tripping over a root or a rock. I wouldn't go in this hike if it just finished raining, it may be slippery. My kids were up front, following the guide and had zero problems. The guide stops frequently to tell you about the plants and vegetation and it's completely hands and nose on. Touch and smell everything that flowers, it's amazing and completely appropriate.

After the hike, there's a lunch based on your reservation of food preference and a pineapple tasting. My kids didn't like pineapple until they tasted fresh pineapple on this tour and now they love pineapple. Everything was provided for you at lunch, however, if you have special dietary needs etc. make sure you pack it, lunch is picnic style and contains everything that is listed on the tour/hike description.

Our guide Kuhio(I hope that's how its spelled) was amazing. He was so patient, answered all of the children's questions and encouraged them to touch and feel everything. My son was particularly interested in honeycomb ginger and in my son's haste, he broke the flower completely off. Of course, my son was mortified but Kuhio just laughed and reassured him it was no big deal and showed him that there were many more and that they grow quickly. My sons loved Kuhio and despite them crowding him the whole hike, he was super patient and great with them.

After the lunch we went to the orchards and were again encouraged to pick anything we wanted that was ripe and eat it, and as much as we wanted. It depends what is in-season but we really enjoyed the coconuts, oranges, lychees, avocados and sugar cane but there is much more.

This hike was one of the highlights of our vacation, that's why I've spent the time to write a full review. I'm sure that the family that runs this whole plantation, the luau, the train ride, and hike are some wonderful people that I'd like to meet someday. The conservation and resource sharing with the community and tourists alike are wonderful testaments to the family based community on the island. I will be back for sure.

Mahalo to Kuhio and the whole family that made this trip...

Got the luau and train ride package which I booked on their website several weeks in advance. I received an email a few days prior to the luau instructing us to arrive by 4:30 and telling us that we had to check in at the Train Depot before the Train ride, so we got there at 4:15. The train depot was locked from the front so I attempted to go around the back because we saw another entrance. Here we attempted to ask an employee what to do. I told them we got an email telling us we needed to check in for a train ride at 4:30 and he said the depot doesn't open until 4:30. So we waited until 4:30 and went inside the depot when another clearly annoyed employee told us "I know what the email says but you need to check in at the luau booth. They open at 5." She then pointed at the door as though that was meaningful. No one was helpful or willing to explain anything to us, which wouldn't have been necessary if the email we received hadn't been entirely incorrect. So we waited another half hour to check in. We were then told that the train would leave at 5:30. They also claimed that we only paid part of the tickets and they charged us another $170 and we were sent into the luau area. Once in this area, everyone was much more welcoming and accommodating. There were free drinks included in our package. The bartenders were quick even though the lines were very long. The drinks were delicious. Once we were able to sit down I double checked my bank account and emails and found that they double charged us. This was shortly before we were to board the train. So instead of going on the train ride, we went to try to figure out why they charged us twice. They said we could go on the train and deal with it later but at that point we just wanted to get it figured out so that we could relax. They tried their best but found that the website charged us too much and it was a different company so we were going to have to reach out to the other company to figure it out. Just what we want to be doing on our honeymoon! The food was buffet style and was the quality of most other buffets. There were hundreds of people seated 10 to a table. It was very crowded but the food lines were quick. The entertainers were phenominal. We left right after dinner and missed the main part. Just in a sour mood. For us, this whole ordeal was a sad waste of money and time, and we still have to waste more time getting our money back for being...

Train Ride: Feed animals, tip your guide, shop later!

After Grove Farm, the train didn't have much new information. Kilohana hasn't grown sugarcane since about 1970. I think the kids had a much better experience on the train, because they stopped and gave us tortillas and leaves to feed to the animals.

I was a little sad that I didn't see anyone else give anything to the guide. The tip jar looked woefully empty.

As we started on the train ride, there were Kauai chickens eating tortillas on the lawn. I asked the tour guide and he said that they used to feed them day-old Love's bread until Love's went out of business. NOTE: Love's was bought by a company on the mainland.

I liked seeing the "wild boar" of Kauai. They were much smaller than I thought they would be. I don't remember seeing any of them in the "wild" ... and then found out that a bunch of people at Kiahuna golf club have been feeding a baby wild boar for months. (Some girls were leaving out fruit and someone else left half a watermelon.) They're not thinking ahead to a fully grown wild boar approaching people and cars expecting food.

If you're going to do some shopping at Kilohana, you'll get some "free with purchase of $**" coupons on the back of your souvenir ticket, so don't shop first!

We didn't do the Koloa rum tasting, but we did buy some at Costco and Walmart. Oddly, Walmart was cheaper and had a better...