Today was an earlier start as I had booked a whole island tour starting with our pick up at 8.30am. We travelled the island in a minibus with our tour guide, Michael, who took me and three friends on a similar tour when I was here last year.

I had given Michael a wish list of things/places/sights I would like to include today, and he planned them out to fit best into our 9 hour tour.

We started with a deeper look at Waikiki, the went to a coffee farm for our morning coffee, and then on to the Dole Plantation to try some DoleWhip (pineapple soft serve ice cream). Michael was prepared to let us spend more time exploring there (there’s a train tour of the plantation and a maze to do for example), but everything had a 45 minute wait so we decided to continue on. Everyone is glad they tried DoleWhip, but I suspect only Sam would look for it again (sorry, Mel!)

Another item on my wish list was Haleiwa Town, so that was our next stop to explore, and also where we ticked off another item: shaved ice. We all agreed we enjoyed this more than DoleWhip or malasadas! We were also glad to find the Gallery of Clark Little, an ocean photographer that the older boys followed on social media. Michael suggested stopping there to paddle board or canoe, but we knew that would cut down time spent exploring the island so put that off for another time.

Our next stop was Waimea Bay and Waimea Valley, where we walked in to a waterfall and swam underneath it (all visitors were made to wear life jackets, which we didn’t think we needed, but enjoyed floating and swimming right underneath the waterfall once we were in there).

It was after 2pm by then and we were ready for lunch, so Michael took us to an area on the North Shore famous for all its food trucks, some having even been featured on The Food Network. I went straight for the same garlic shrimp plate I had last year, and influenced Abi and Tim who also had that. Zac came to lunch with us and had a poke bowl, while the other four walked over a hill to another group of food trucks to find their lunch.

From there Michael took us to Turtle Bay Resort for a swim and snorkelling. We arrived too late in the day to hire snorkels, but we were happy to just swim. Michael was happy to stay there so we could see the sunset or have dinner, but seeing as I had originally booked a tour finishing at 5pm, we didn’t feel we should extend it that much, especially when he said it would take 1-1.5 hours to get home from there.

We boarded the bus again and headed home, via Kualoa (where Jurassic Park and other films were made) and another lookout spot. Michael offered to take us on a tour of downtown Honolulu or to keep going around the rest of the east coast, but we were content with what we had seen, so cut through the mountain range and back down the main highway to Waikiki.

Once home and showered and changed, we went to the Maui Brewing Co. for dinner, and then the girls and I wandered through some markets while the boys went back to the Ross store for some bargains. I interviewed everyone over dinner to see what they wanted to do on their last (😢) day here tomorrow, which I have purposely kept free, and the older boys said today was the best day of their holiday so far. They just wished they had done the tour earlier, but this was the only day I could book Michael while we were here. Everyone is a little sad the holiday is so close to ending, especially Abi, Belle and I who have been accustomed to this for a bit longer than the boys! 😉