Aloha Sunshine Tours, LLC — Local services in Honolulu

Review of Pearl Harbor, Dole Plantation, and Polynesian Cultural Center Tour, Departing from Waikiki Area, Aloha Sunshine Tour, May 12, 2025

We were picked up by “Uncle Johnny” on time. We learned that Oahu was made up of 2 collapsed volcano craters. We arrived at our first stop on schedule and were picked up from all stops on time. Uncle Johnny provided plenty of cold bottles of water throughout the trip.That's where the positive parts of this review end.

Uncle Johnny's bus was clearly in bad shape when he arrived. It was dented, the fiberglass on the top was coming off, and most of the mismatched seat covers were shredded. (See photos)

The tour route took us from the Waikiki hotel zone to Pearl Harbor, an optional stop at a Macadamia nut farm gift shop, a couple hours at the Polynesian Cultural Center, and an hour at the Dole Plantation gift shop. For some reason, a stop at a roadside shrimp shack (sketchy-looking but great flavor!) was also included. This required us to pass the Polynesian Cultural Center and then backtrack to it, where we also had several food vendor options. By the time we got there and secured our entry tickets, we missed the orientation and opening show, so many of us ended up wandering aimlessly, getting lost among the twisting pathways, or joining other tour guides’ groups instead. Had we skipped the shrimp shack and gone straight to the Polynesian Cultural Center for lunch, we could have had more time at this or other stops.

Being from a farming community, we wanted to learn about the cultivation and processing of Macadamia nuts and pineapples. We were disappointed to have only 30 minutes at the Macadamia nut farm gift shop, and about an hour at the Dole plantation gift shop. Definitely not what was advertised.

The worst part, however, was our tour guide. Uncle Johnny's attitude toward his captive audience was non-stop hyperbole (“The view is so beautiful that 5 people fainted yesterday.”) and condescension (“Dont you know? I just told you that. Riiight??”). He told us a few good bits of information (see above) sprinkled sparingly throughout 9 hours of incessant droning at us all day long like we were 4 years old. All day long, Uncle Johnny shared his personal opinions, hearsay, and blatant lies. These included telling us about the interracial marriages of people he knew (borderline inappropriate), how his friends told him that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints practiced polygamy to get more funding-per-wife from the government (hearsay, inappropriate, and untrue), and he pointed out a home on the North Shore that he said belonged to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. (According to Google, Bezos owns a home on Maui, but has never owned one on Oahu, at the time of this review.) To cap it all off, as he was dropping passengers off at various hotels at the end of the day, Uncle Johnny chose to share his personal political views as we passed by the recently-sold Trump Tower Honolulu.

Printed at the top of this Aloha Sunshine Tours bus is, “We promise to be the best part of your vacation.” They did not live up to that promise. This was by far the worst tour we could have booked. Other vendors offer similar tour experiences without the endless annoyance and overall sketchiness of this Aloha...

We booked the Kauai to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I could find very few reviews about this specific tour, so I wanted to share that we were the only people in the group that flew over from Kauai. Other tour members traveled from Oahu and Maui, so feel free to use those reviews when looking at this tour, as well. Overall I was very satisfied with the one day tour to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The stop at the coffee farm was nice for the restroom and to see some views, also to grab some snacks if needed. Regarding lunch, we were very excited to participate in the food truck the guide recommended but it was not open during our stop- this is not uncommon, two of the recommended favorite food stops later in our trip to Maui were also closed, the food we had was good. There are not a ton of options where we stopped, but we were looking mainly for nourishment- goal achieved. We thoroughly enjoyed the visit to the Punalu’u Bake Shop at this stop. If you go to the back entrance of the Bake Shop, there are food items beyond the bakery, we did not know this and went to the sweets side of the counter. The stop at Punalu’u Black Sand Beach was incredible! We were able to see some turtles and explore a very unique environment. While a much different looking landscape, beautiful in its own nature. Also not too crowded! Hawaii National Volcanoes Park- this was what the whole trip was for! While we did not spend a ton of time in the Park, it was just enough of a sampling to fill the needs. We saw the steam vents, were able to visit Volcano House and see Kilauea- she was not erupting when we were there, the previous episode stopped 5 days before we arrived and the next episode began 3 days after our trip. We were able to see the white clouds of volcanic ash and because of this the crowd was not too large. While it would be neat to see an eruption, I could see an eruption crowd making the ability to enter the Park on a tour like this impossible. We walked through the lava tube and were able to walk on lava rock and see some craters. This tour checked all of my boxes with someone else responsible for the planning, details, and booking. This was not the tour company’s fault but the last leg of the flight was delayed by over an hour, that was frustrating, but again not the tour company’s fault- something to remember as a possibility, if booking any next day morning excursions. *Specific to the Kauai one day tour, there were two flights in the morning and two flights at night. Wait and grab food at the Honolulu airport. Be sure to have snacks available as Hilo airport had one shop and one cafe-like food stop. Most things were closed by the time we got to the Honolulu airport that evening, this was not a...

Whew, where to begin. We booked this through Trip Advisor and our itinerary was The Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Dole Plantation and Polynesian Cultural Center.

1). Our tour was originally schedule to depart at 7:00 am. The day before, we get a text that the time has shifted to 6:00 am. Yikes. That's early, especially on short notice, but we did it (what choice did we have?) We arrive to the designated meeting spot 10 minutes before the time we were supposed to be there. THEN, we waited for another 30-35 minutes for the tour guide to even show up. Pretty terrible service. 2). Our tour guide-Leena. Nice enough lady, sure she meant well, but we were on the bus all of about 5 minutes before she started complaining about how expensive things have gotten over the past couple of years and that "we just need to be patient, things are going to get better. 'They' are going to "drain the swamp." Take that how you will, whatever your political leaning may be, but not appropriate to be going on a political rant with your customers. She made multiple comments about this also throughout the day. Secondly, she was touting pseudo-science about plants and herbs and such all day--going on long rants about how "they don't want you to know that these things heal you." I'm not against plant based medicine--but again, not appropriate to be preaching to your guests about these things. 3). When we booked the tour, it was indicated that the tour would last about 6 hours. When we boarded the bus at 6:30am, she politely advised us that she "would try to have us back by 6pm." ?!?! 12 hour duration for the tour is a far cry from the 6 hour duration we were told it would be. Wild. 4). The check engine light and service soon light were on throughout the day on the van--another Yikes. 5)Our tour guide added in an additional stop that wasn't on the itinerary--normally not a big deal, but when a tour specifies a certain duration and the people on your tour might have other commitments that they have, not cool. 5). For $200 per person, I would not recommend. Nothing was included but the transportation (save entrance to the Polynesian Cultural Center)--so it was basically $200 per person, so $800 for our family of four), to get shuttled around the island listening to some wack-job go on rants about the government and plant based medicine in a vehicle that was long overdue for a service.

I would have a hard time recommending this company after...