Best Oahu Tours by AYC — Local services in Honolulu

Knowledgeable, fun tour guides. Tour started at a small coffee farm, where you have a light breakfast which consists of a plain croissant (on rare occassions you may get a coconut turnover) and your choice of beverage. You can sample several types of coffee. There is a breakfast burrito for purchase. Next stop is the main attraction Waimea Falls. Highly recommend you bring cash as the shuttle ride is cash only, several exhibits where Native Hawaiians are either demonstrating their crafts or making crafts have small cash only donations. Takes about 30 minutes to hike to the Falls. Om the way you see an amazing array of flora. Its a large botanical garden. There is also a living village that contains depictions of how the native Hawaiians once lived. They still consider those grounds sacred and believe their ancestors spirits reside there so be respectful. You should wear water shoes which you can either bring with you or purchase at the little stand nearby for $25. Everyone entering the waterfall must wear a lifejacket which you can borrow for free by the lifeguard station. Entering the waterfall is tricky as there are numerous rocks and boulders. The depth is 30 feet. Its quite fun and refreshing. Another aspect was seeing the portraits of the original Native Hawaiians which shows they were a beautiful, Afrocentric people. You can also play ancient native hawiaan games (bring cash to tip the native who shows you how to play.) Lunch is served at 12:25 and you have your choice of chicken cesar wrap, shrimp wrap, veggie wrap or a kid's chicken nugget. I dislike wraps so knew I was going to starve. Next and last stop is the Dole Plantation. Its very commercialized. You walk through the store where there is a palooza of pineapple type stuff to buy. Tried the pineapple ice cream and it was very tart. At 2:00 there is a demonstration of how to properly cut a pineapple and you are offered a sample. There is a train ride that takes you around the plantation but you dont have enough time to take it. There is a stand selling grilled corn on the cob. Whatever you do, do not get it with salt. They drown it in salt so all you taste is a sea of salr and no corn. One bite and my blood pressure jumped through my veins. ...

I don’t know about their other tours, but I really can’t recommend the Honolulu holiday lights tour by this company. The trolley was in fact lit up, but it was the laziest “tour” I’ve ever been on.

We were staying at Alohilani Resort on Kalākaua and kept seeing people on lit-up trolley having a grand old time (cheering as they went through the street), so we figured we’d give it a try. Little did we know this one (And You Creations) was the wrong/no fun one. There were multiple links to book a holiday lights tour, and one of them (I assume the legit one) was booked up on the day we wanted, so we booked this one (buyer beware). This one starts at their office at 307 Lewers St.

The driver who was our “guide” didn’t give us any background information on the display at the city hall or the Shaka Santa; in fact he didn’t talk at all and just drove us to downtown, whilst playing a really loud and obnoxious Christmas song medley. They dropped us off across from the city hall, telling us to come back to the bus a little over an hour later. On the way back, once again he & the other staff member said nothing. Other than the ride from Waikiki to downtown Honolulu, we really got nothing—this is really not a “tour”. (They might argue that there’s a cheesy souvenir selfie booth at the building you start out at, and they give you some bagged kids’ cookies as a perk.) All the participants just sat in silence as we rode back the trolley to Waikiki. The lights themselves were cute, but as an activity, if I wanted a silent ride to downtown and back we could’ve taken an uber for cheaper. For having paid $30 a pop, we felt like suckers and it left a bad taste in our mouths during Christmas time in Honolulu.

EDIT: I adjusted the number of stars because I got an apology and a refund from the company for the poor experience. They also offered a credit for future tours & wanted me to consider removing my review. But it’s not like the other people who went on the same tour will get their money/time back, and that’s akin to review manipulation, so I’m just adjusting the stars for the goodwill gesture. I appreciate that they...

I am not exaggerating when I say this tour made my trip, but not for the reasons you might expect, the whales, but for the people. Captain Sarah, Euige (sorry for probably definitely spelling it wrong! 🥺), and Natalie were our guides for the trip. They made it feel less like a tour and more like an outing with friends.

Euige was kind and encouraging, cracking a few jokes and explaining a lot of what we were seeing, being super thorough. Natalie performed a lovely hula at the end and excitedly pulled off a few groan-worthy (but incredible) jokes of her own, but also took the time to connect with the kids on board. (I don’t have any myself but noticed and found it super sweet.)

Then there was Captain Sarah, a literal life of the party. She made it easy to open up, got the guests talking, and projected the excited energy that made it feel like everyone in the boat were folks that had just gotten together after not seeing each other for a while. She happily answered questions, told some of her WILD stories about her life, explained some of her equipment and chatter to the guests up top, and just really took it to the next level.

Of course we did end up seeing whales, and even some dolphins! We got lucky and were even able to hear them sing on the hydro phone. The crew were just as excited as the guests which really was awesome to see the passion from them that they really love their work and sharing that joy with their guest.

There’s other points of the tour - the food, the service, ect - but even if we didn’t see whales, the tour would have been far worth it and still been the highlight of the trip.

Absolutely recommend these guys! And would go again if I could! (Or stay on the boat the whole day - heck give me a bucket I’ll join the crew and clean!) Thanks for the awesome time. CHEE-HOO!! -Jesica &Joe (the Pokémon tattoo gal w/ the guy that is a bit scared of the ocean lol)

P.S. I would 10000% if I got the chance buy Captain Sarah a drink and LOVE to just sit and listen to some of your stories. Thanks for being an inspiration...