Green Tours - ShoreTrips - NCL Shore Excursions

[Queensland Girl]

:) I have been reading heaps on website, and am now having to make a decision. I have narrowed it down to Green Tours in Hilo to do Volcanoes National Park OR shoretrips to do same thing.

Shoretrips also offer Road to Hana. OR do I just do NCL Shore excursions. Thanks everyone for your help.

[CaliforniaDreamer]

i researched the green tours in hilo before my trip but i still used the ncl excursion. green includes more for the money but i enjoyed the ncl trip, we didnt see the waterfall however. green tours were very courteous in their email to me. you get a discount for booking in advance at green and there is no minimum # passengers for the hilo excursion.

they appeared to use smaller buses for their tours. i hated the big bus, too long to get on and off, bathroom didnt work anyway, but the tour guide was great.

 

i did Road to Hana on the ship excursion as well. we used a 20 person shuttle. like someone else told me on these boards, sit on the left side to get the ocean views. the waterfalls were mainly on the right, but i think i made the right choice sitting on the left. the waterfalls were pretty small.

 

on the ship excursions, the guides will often make unauthorized stops, making for a much nicer trip. but the main thing is, is that they still have to keep up their schedule to get us back on time.

 

fran

[dagtoking1]

I researched this as well and ultimately made the decision to use an NCL shore excursion in Hilo.

 

Green Tours sounds good until you try dealing with them. By the time I finally was able to set things up with them they sent me a form by email that I was supposed to fax back and it had their old (wrong) fax number on it. Needless to say that was the last straw. I decided to go with NCL's shore excursion to VNP. I'm sorry I won't be seeing Akaka Falls though. At least one person posted a review of Green Tours stating several of the stops they had promised on the tour didn't happen. You can only cram so much into one day.

[Trish Traveler]

Just back from POH 10/2-10/9 and we did the NCL Volcanoes NP & Rainbow Falls. We thought the tour was great with an excellent tour guide. It was very organized and we like the insurance of knowing the ship won't leave without you if something gets delayed on your NCL Tour.

Only negative was a long line for the lunch buffet at Volcano House - but that doesn't always happen from reading other reviews. The lunch was good and the view fantastic. We still made all the stops listed on the tour. You can read my entire review on this board under the NCL heading.