grand circle island tour = waste of a day
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 6/15/10
The big island grand circle tour was an absolute disaster from the start. I purchased tickets for my girlfriend and I, we were staying on Oahu and had to fly to the big island to meet the tour. Problems started when we got to the airport and realized that we were not seated together on our flight to the island, and were not even on the same flight coming back. I went to the airline and they informed me that I could switch flights however it would cost me an additional 50 dollars, as it was their mistake I informed each Robert’s individual I came in contact with throughout the day, and each assured me that they would take care of it. Though one person only replied “well what do you want me to do about it.” By the time we returned to the airport at the end of the day the bus driver informed us that they had not fixed anything, and then used it as an opportunity to make a joke over the bus loudspeaker about the “two young sweethearts who were split up.” At this point I had 20 minutes to make my flight and the airline would not switch my flight. I wish this were the only part of the day that didn’t live up to expectations, however the tour itself was also a giant disappointment. We spent about 10 hours on the tour that day and I think about 1.5 of them we were not stuck on the bus. We made the stops on the brochure, the volcano, waterfall, black sand beach, coffee shop, chocolate store and lunch, however our time allotted at each spot was ridiculous. We were given a half hour to shop at the coffee store and chocolate shop, and then 7 minutes at the black sand beach, and like 10 at the waterfall. We drove around the island and the tour guide’s anecdotes and jokes kept our attention for maybe the first 20 minutes, then it started to seem like the microphone just happened to be on while he muttered things to himself. This tour was a total ripoff, buy your own plane tickets and rent a car, or just rent a car and hit up the sites listed on the brochure that interest you on your own and you will save a lot of money and have a much better time. But the icing on the cake was the plane ticket debacle, they messed up and did nothing to fix it and were thoroughly disrespectful to us about it.