Ultimate Circle Island Tours — Local services in Honolulu

This is going to be a long but honest review. My husband and I are celebrating our honeymoon this week and we had our tour yesterday. However, we had an unfortunate experience. #1 The pick up process is very unorganized and inefficient. Multiple tour companies pick up at that same location and they start shouting the names of the people on the tour. They don’t have megaphones so you can’t really hear unless you are next to them but keep in mind multiple companies are doing this at the same time so it’s very easy to miss your name being called. You would think oh I just need to find the name of my tour on the bus right? Sure we tried looking for the name of “ultimate circle tour” on a bus and we didn’t see it. Anyways our bus was late and we ended up boarding a bus that says “island rainbow tour” so that was confusing. Maybe they go under different names but they’re all the same tour? #2 It seems that they were short handed and our tour guide was a fill in. He said that it was his first time giving the tour which explains a lot. He wasn’t very knowledgeable or informative about the places we passed by. A lot of the ride was quiet so I didn’t learn much about the locations that we saw or visited. #3 The actual bus had dirty seats and no working AC. This made the ride pretty uncomfortable especially since we were in those seats most of the day. Also the mic of the tour guide didn’t work that well so we often couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then our bus broke down before we could make it to the Dole plantation. We ended up squeezing in with another tour bus of the same company. This brings me to point #4. Their bus was much nicer, they had great AC and their guide was entertaining and very informative. In the short 5 minute ride to the Dole plantation we learned more than the whole day we spent on the first bus. So we realized that we got the short end of the stick with our experience. We had a not-so-great bus and not-so-great guide. But if we had gotten on the other bus we would’ve had the experience that we were expecting based on all the great reviews. This is the reason I am writing this honest review. I wish we had received a better experience. My husband and I made the best of it so we still had a good time seeing these beautiful locations together. But it is a bummer that it really just depends on who you get as a tour guide. It seems that the company doesn’t really prioritize the customer’s experience. They just want to make as much money as possible by booking as many people as possible. Which unfortunately means that some will have a great experience and others won’t. If you don’t have enough working busses and enough good tour guides don’t book people for that bus. I would’ve happily gone the next day if we knew we would get the experience promised on their website. I booked this tour mainly so that we can see the highlights of the island. Which to be fair we did. Except we didn’t make the final stop at Green World Coffee Farm because of the delay with our bus breaking down. But a big reason I booked this was to learn as much as possible about Hawaii throughout the day. I didn’t learn much so we could’ve just done the tour on our own. So just be aware of that. Overall, the stops were great, got to see many spots in one day, but for us, we learned very little, were very hot, and spent a lot of time and money we shouldn’t have. It’s a toss up and if you decide to do the tour, I hope you have a better experience. Also if you park at the Hyatt Regency hotel it is...

Johnny was our tour guide and it made all the difference!! He is funny and very informative regarding history and Hawaiian Culture. We learned many Hawaiian words and got to play a version of family(Ohana) feud with the other guests! We had a blast and learned so much about our fellow guests. Where they came from a great information about each country we had visitors from. Each time we got off the bus Johnny gave us some yummy Pineapple gummies, water bottles and lots of great tips and directions about where the bathroom would be located @ each stop & what are the must have goodies to buy and souvenirs to look for. My favorite stops were the coffee and macadamia nut farm because there was tons of free samples, which made me buy lots!! I also loved swimming in turtle bay where we saw a turtle on the beach. I also loved stopping for fresh fruit and the dole plantation. Overall our day was filled with so many great memories, photo ops, and souvenirs! But Johnny was the absolute best part of our trip!! Thank you for providing us with so much joy and teaching us all how to slow down and enjoy life. The turtle is a sacred symbol of Hawaii forever but Johnny our #1 guide is a National...

This was an awesome tour, the company offered a great discount and our tour guide Johnny, he was the BEST ever that I've ever had. Not only was he extremely knowledgeable, he was entertaining, very loveable, funny and real. You really got the sense that he loved what he did and it showed in his treatment and care with us. All of the times at the stops were perfect. He pointed out interesting facts and information throughout the day as things came up and we learned and saw so much. I LOVED how he told the parents with small kids to respect the other people in the bus and made sure they weren't screaming and making it miserable for the rest of us. He was very respectful to the parents and diplomatic yet got his point across and was understanding. I loved the trivial game he had going and the gifts! Omg the gifts he gave us at the end! Unexpected and wonderful. I usually dread the end part where you feel pressured to tip your driver. Not at all in his case and i really wanted to tip him for everything he did and to show our appreciation for the amazing time that we had. He was also really good about bathroom breaks and just the overall care for us really. We had a...