Hawaii The Big Island, Seven Nights

My wife; two daughters, ages 5 and 6; and I visited the Big Island of Hawaii during spring break 2005. We went at the urging of our friends, who traveled with us. Our children swam with dolphins at Dolphin Quest and learned to snorkel at the many public beaches. We visited Volcano National Park, a coffee plantation, and many good restaurants, and actually enjoyed a luau.

I'll try to add all the information over the next week or two, so check back occasionally. Please feel free to ask me a question.

Quick Tips:

Purchase, take, and use "Hawaii The Big Island Revealed The Ultimate Guidebook" by Andrew Doughty and Harriett Friedman. It was perfectly correct about attractions, sites, and dining.

Best Way To Get Around:

Use a rental car and walk. If you want to reach some secluded beaches, rent a 4x4.

This resort is very large and spread out. There is one building for the lobby and bar. From there, walk or take the resort tram or boat to one of three lodging buildings or the conference center.

There is one huge pool that twists and stretches from a waterslide at one end to a sand beach at the other end. There is also one not so ridiculously large, but it is still a very large pool with a satellite pool at the other end of the resort.

They have a salt-water lagoon connected to the ocean with a nice beach, very calm water, and fish and sea turtles there constantly. The snorkeling would be easy and perfect for beginners or children, as there are no waves. Unfortunately, there was some baby oil-like substance clouding the water (sunblock from resort patrons, perhaps?). As a result, visibility became very poor at times.

Dolphin Quest is a business on the resort's property that has nine dolphins. They take children, adults, or families into the water to interact with the dolphins.

There is a Chinese restaurant, Japanese restaurant, Italian restaurant, coffee shops, and a poolside café, all as expensive as you would expect a resort restaurant to be as long as you remember that the resort is also in Hawaii.

It is recommended for people who can easily afford it. If it will stretch your budget, don't go; you'll be spending most of your time at the beaches, volcanoes, waterfalls, and other sites, not in your room. If you don't spend most of your time out on the island, why on earth did you fly to Hawaii?

This was nice, very close to the volcano visitor center and Kilauea's crater. We enjoyed listening to the rain on the roof as we laid in bed. We only enjoyed 2 minutes, then fell completely asleep and stayed that way thanks to comfortable bed and a long day of exploring Kilauea.

Breakfast was quite good. There were lots of different syrups for the banana-macadamia pancakes or plain waffles. Eggs were cooked to order, with bacon, sausage, cereal, juice, coffee, and tea also available.

The towels were a little old and tired, but they did their job well enough.

Your host starts his day at 6am, so he goes to bed early. Please check-in before 6pm. If that might be a problem, email or phone him to figure things out.

We had an enjoyable evening. My wife and I had no great desire to go to a luau, as we've been before. Our friends wished to go, and we thought our six- and five-year-old daughters would have fun. Instead, we all had fun. After the roast pig was removed from the imu (earthen oven), we took our complementary mai tai's and sat down. We all enjoyed the salmon salad, pork, fish, and the rest of the buffet. It was much better than the average buffet and much better than the other two luaus I have attended. Sadly, poi is still poi.

The show, "Drums of Polynesia," featured Polynesian dancers, including a Samoan Fire Dance. It was somewhat campy, but fun and interesting.

I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a luau. I would not recommend a luau for anyone just looking for dinner.

The large Kilauea Caldera is next to the visitor center. There’s no lava at THIS crater, but it is of an impressive size, including 400-feet tall cliffs to the floor of the caldera and steaming vents on the floor. My girls enjoyed walking through the Thurston Lava Tube, a cave/tunnel left by a lava flow thousands of years ago.

The highlight of the day was the active lava flow. After driving to the end of Chain of Craters Road, we parked the car and hiked over barren lava flows to an active lava flow. The 4.4-mile, round-trip hike spent 3.5 miles on barren, jagged, and sharp rock- and crevasse-strewn lava. This was a 4-hour round-trip with five- and six-year-old daughters in tow. We needed water, long pants to protect legs from cuts when we fell, and flashlights for the walk back. We did not have the long pants, so we got the cuts. Despite the risk of cuts and twisted ankles, we were well rewarded with red-hot lava. At its fastest, it went about a foot in 30 seconds, allowing us to stand as close as we could tolerate the heat. As night fell on our return, the hill above lit up with ribbons of fire as the lava flows became visible.