Hana, Black Beach, Bamboo Forest, Waterfalls & Turtles Tour from Kahului

Short bamboo forest hike was fun but no guide in the forest was a little unnerving. Could not understand our guide. Saw no turtles. Made no stops at waterfalls. Guide took no pictures for our group. Not worth the time and money.

We had such a fun time exploring on the Road to Hana! Oscar did a great job giving us history of the island, but also played music to sing to! Every view he took us to was absolutely breathtaking! Kudos to Oscar for making our day trip so memorable!

This tour was the only terrible experience we had on our honeymoon. We feel ripped off and out of a lot of money. The tour guide Oscar repeatedly told all 10 people in the van that we weren't happy enough if we didn't do what he wanted. Instead of a relaxing drive he started the your by blowing a damn whistle in a closed car with a microphone on. He had squeaking pigs that we were required to squeeze. He also had loud Mexican music blasting. We wanted off this tour in the first 5 minutes. Not a nice honeymoon excursion. The tour guide drove crazy. He was always purposely riding other cars and honking at them. The description of this tour did NOT match our experience. He would hardly turn the air conditioning on and we had to ask several times. We were roasting and so muggy. The drinks and chips provided were a joke. Not cold, brands we've never heard of with Chinese labels and handed to all of us in a garbage bag to choose from. While in the Bamboo first, he hit a child with a hiking pole for not listening/ paying attention and hit me in the butt with his pole because my pole wasn't in the position he wanted me to have it in. Not okay!!!!!!! We want our money back. Seriously. Do not go on this trip.

The area Wasson beautiful. Walking distance to beach. The house was just perfect for the size of family will be back.

Firstly, We were led to believe that the Pipiwai Bamboo trail was part of the tour. Instead we were taken to a tiny trail through some bamboo marked by a wrecked car surrounded by signs warning of heavy fines to park there. In other words, it was an unofficial bamboo trail. Our driver even hypocritically scolded others who were parking to go on the trail for parking where he’d just parked for 20 minutes. There were very few stops, skipping a lot of great spots on the Hana road. The excuse from the driver was that those stops were not good which MIGHT fool first timers but anyone who’s done the Road to Hana before knows a lot of amazing things were skipped. The few stops that were made felt very rushed, usually a 20 minute time limit. The driver typically honked the horn around 17 minutes for everyone to return which made us feel like grade schoolers on a school trip. We were given an hour at Black Sand Beach. We were told that an hour was the maximum time Maui allowed at the beach. This is not true. Reservations and choosing of time slots are required but there is not an hour maximum on time slots. The Black Sand beach reservation was another excuse the driver kept using for skipping a lot of amazing stops and for rushing the tour through the scarce stops that were made. Our reservation was at 10:30 a.m. with the reason for the early reservation being that there would be very few people at the beach that early. This was sold to the tour as having Black Sand Beach to ourselves was worth missing all the skipped stops. Alas, the beach was very packed and even if it wasn’t, more stops would have been better still. I understand that tour drivers have drive times that they cannot exceed, and our driver’s limit was apparently 8 hours. This is really not an efficient amount of hours to complete the Road to Hana with a fair amount of stops. The tour I’ve done in the past allowed the driver to drive for 10 hours and that two hours really made a difference. That tour went the entire road with a plentiful amount of stops and sufficient time at each. This tour stopped at Hana Bay (in all fairness, the back road to Hana is currently closed and that is not in Maui Fantastic Tours’ control)and turned around for a non-stop two hour drive at way too high of a speed through the twist and turns of Hana Road. Our driver literally told us it was time to take a nap, which was impossible considering the driver never laid off horn the whole drive back.. For the money, I’d rather take a nap on a Maui beach for free instead. This tour went beyond the realms of disappointing to the point you just want it to be over once you realize you’re wasting a whole day on Maui trapped in a van with an uncharismatic driver with an intimidating and intense personality who barely qualifies as a tour guide. Also, the driver prefers the Top 40 of 80s New Wave hits played at max volume…a uniquely strange backdrop soundtrack for the Road to Hana.

This was the worse tour we have ever taken. Oscar was in a hurry, rushing us through “the road to Hana.” He told stories that were offensive , like asking an older gentlemen what he did for fun and if he was ever caught messing around on his wife. He called Oprah “La negrita.” All he did was play music in Spanish, even after I asked him to play some Hawaiian music. Very stingy with the drinks. One water bottle per person for 8 hours and he only gave out a sofa can to a couple of people. There was not any tourist information. To top it off, he almost ran out of gas and took our tour time to go to the gas station. He was grumpy. He drove like a maniac on the way down the the road because he said he was tired. Oscar said the regular guides were on vacation and he was the boss. So he had to step in and complete this tour. What a waste of nearly $1,000.00 for 5 people. Will never book with this company again.

The tour guide used a lot of disrespectful language to women 😒 trying to be funny and call other tourists on the road "stupid tourists" not taking under consideration that we are one of them too. I didn't take it personal, but my team did.

Seeing the big turtles sunning themselves on the beach. I have never seen turtles that big before. Driving the road to Hana, parts were narrow and cars coming towards us looked like it would hit us!

Hawaii’s nature is beautiful and the tour guide was good. The whole trip was very kid friendly as well.

I went on a trip with my family, I’ve been to Maui before I’ve done the road to Hana before so I know what it has to offer with that being said I was very disappointed with the trip. My tour guide “Oscar” was very confusing, he would say one thing and do another. He also kept saying how the other competitors were not as great as he was. He also said all they give you is nasty sandwiches and snacks . Well we didn’t even get that . We got a 1 bag of chips and a water, there was one juice option and a can coffee option and I don’t think anyone got the drinks because everyone on the trip bought their own stuff. The tour guide made inappropriate jokes and was very rude . It also didn’t make sense that when we stopped at the bamboo forest it was through a side of the road and someone had to stay in the van to “keep watch of cops”. I’ve been to the bamboo forest before but my family has not and they didn’t get the chance to because they “didn’t look flexible” . The only good thing about this trip was the other customers and the black sand beach .