Roberts Hawaii review: 1 Day Oahu Grand Circle island tour

An honest review of my experience with Roberts Hawaii in Oahu

I was in Honolulu for 36 hours by myself on a flight stopover on the way to New Zealand and I wanted to see the highlights of Oahu in the short time I had without renting a car. I was also concerned about driving when I was tired from the flight, so a tour seemed like the safest choice to me. I booked the tour in February 2018 online through Expedia partially with credit card points and the rest I paid for myself, so this is a completely independent review. 

I had some great experiences on this one day Oahu tour, seeing the ocean and coastline views around the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, wandering through the gardens at the Byodo-In Temple, learning how pineapples are grown at the Dole Plantation and watching surfers at the beaches on the North Shore.

You can read a detailed summary of all the experiences I had on this tour or jump straight to my final recommendation at the end.

Go to final recommendation

Keep reading to find out what we did on this 1 day tour of Oahu !

Quick Overview of the Roberts Hawaii Oahu Tour

Destinations: Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, Halona Blowhole, Byodo-In Temple, town of Waimanolo, Tropical Farms of Hawaii, Kualoa Ranch, Oahu North Shore beach, Dole Pineapple Plantation.

Highlights: The shoreline and ocean views around Hanauma Bay, visiting the peaceful gardens of the Byodo-In Temple, the unique landscape around Kualoa ranch, and having ice cream at the Dole Pineapple Plantation !

Who was on the tour: The majority of other travellers were retired American couples on vacation. There was also an extended family with a baby and one single women and her child visiting a family member in the military. I was the only solo traveller and young adult on the bus. People were friendly and I spoke with travellers from Texas and Cleveland.

Who was the guide: There was one driver/guide, who drove the bus and provided commentary over the speaker system at the same time between stops.

How did we travel: This tour used a regular sized 50 person coach bus, it was clean, air conditioned and had all expected safety features. You could leave things like an umbrella or jacket on the bus between stops.

Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve and Lookout  

The Roberts Hawaii bus left Honolulu on time, the meeting points were outlined in the confirmation email and the closest one to my location happened to be just down the street from the youth hostel where I was staying.

Usually there would be a stop at a lookout point at the Diamond Head volcano, but due to bad weather conditions we weren’t able to make that visit in the morning so we drove straight to Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve as the first stop.

Hanauma Bay is a beautiful circular bay which was declared a marine conservation area by the State of Hawaii.

The bay was created by volcanic eruptions and has been used by Hawaiian people throughout history for swimming and fishing.

It is known as an excellent snorkelling spot, however on this tour you will only have time to enjoy the view and take some pictures. Don’t forget that this is a highlights tour of the island so the stops are mostly quite short.

Important note: Hanauma Bay may be closed on Tuesdays, so make sure to confirm whether your itinerary will include this stop.

Halona Blowhole

The next stop was a short visit to a natural attraction called the Halona Blowhole. Like the name suggests, there is a spray of water created by the action of the waves and openings in the volcanic rocks. This area of the ocean can actually get quite rough, so there is a viewing platform with railings for your safety, just don’t drop your phone in the ocean !

Something to keep in mind, especially in the winter months, is that the weather can change quite quickly, it was overcast all day but it started raining quite suddenly right when we arrived.

Check the weather before you leave and remember you can always leave an umbrella or rain jacket on the bus if you don’t need it, several people on the bus had nothing to wear for the rain so they didn’t get off at this stop, which I think is missing out a bit.

Byodo-In Temple and Gardens

We kept driving to the Byodo-In Temple in the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park area, and our driver, who was of Hawaiian ancestry, provided commentary about Hawaiian culture and history.

I was really excited for this stop because I had never been inside a temple before, having never been to Asia. You can learn more about the history of the Byodo-In Temple on their official website here.

This temple is actually a copy of a similar one in Japan which is almost 1000 years old and a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s a non-denominational Buddhist temple in the sense that there’s no practicing monks living there. Their website notes that they welcome people of all faiths to visit.

We had about 40 minutes to walk around the gardens, see the fish jumping in the koi ponds, ring the large peace bell and go inside the actual temple if interested. It’s such a beautiful, peaceful setting with the pond and trees and mountains in the background. 

Tropical Farms Macadamia Farm Outlet

This tour included two shopping stops in the morning. The first one was to an outdoor mall in the town of Waimanolo with a tourist jewellery store selling gold and coral jewellery, there was also a Subway and restrooms. As a backpacker and a student at the time, I had absolutely no interest in purchasing expensive jewellery, but we were only here for a short time as a rest stop and there is no pressure to buy anything.

The second shopping stop was to a place called Tropical Farms of Hawaii which had coffee, chocolate and lots of different kinds of macadamia nuts, there were lots of samples and a garden area.

I actually enjoyed this stop, it was again for shopping, but it’s a nice atmosphere out in the countryside and I picked up a small package of candied macadamia nuts for a snack! I would have liked to buy more but I was flying into New Zealand the next day and I think they are pretty strict about what food you can bring into the country.

Read More about New Zealand : Topdeck North Island tour review or Wild Kiwi South Island tour review

Kualoa Ranch

We continued driving along towards the North Shore and next stop was to Kualoa Ranch. We did two main activities here, a minibus ride around the highlights of the property and we had lunch. 

For lunch there was an option for a set price “plate lunch”, however I’m vegetarian so I just went directly to the counter and got a veggie wrap and that was fine, if you know what you want I would suggest going as quickly as possible to order before a big line up forms. There was also a nice gift shop and I got some pearl earrings designed by a local artist. 

The Kualoa Ranch is a large, privately owned nature reserve area which is well known for appearing in numerous TV shows and movies, like “Jurassic Park.” I have actually never seen most of those those movies so I wasn’t interested in that and I just took the included tour around the nature highlights of the property on a tram minibus.

The tour had commentary about the different geologic and historical features we were seeing, such as the significance of the area in Hawaiian history and a stop to view the Mokoli'i triangular rock formation out in the ocean. This was also the longest stop of the day. 

Oahu North Shore Beaches

After the lunch stop, the Roberts Hawaii bus continued along the coastline towards the North Shore of the island. The stop at the North Shore beach was quite brief, enough time to walk around , take pictures and watch people surf for about 15 minutes.

It was cold and raining so not exactly a day to be lying around on the sand. I’ve tried surfing a few times now in Spain, Bali and Australia and I’ve just never quite gotten the hang of it, so i’m always impressed by watching people who make it look easy !

I know this might sound silly, but I come from a place with no palm trees ( the middle of Canada) so I always love seeing them because it reminds me of being on vacation, and by the end of this tour I was pretty much convinced I was going to move to Hawaii !

Our driver noted that it can actually be very expensive to live in Hawaii even for people who are from there and in some areas people are living in substandard housing. I think often you only see pictures of fancy beach houses and hotels so it’s important to learn about the reality some people experience living in Hawaii.

Dole Plantation Pineapple Farm

I was also extremely excited for the next stop, the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Our driver said that he gave us some extra time here because people enjoy it and gave us the times for the pineapple tasting so we wouldn’t miss it.

It originally opened as a stand selling fruits in the 1950s and now it is a complete experience themed around pineapples !

I went directly to the tasting first and an employee showed us how to properly cut and prepare a pineapple and we sampled it plain and with something called “Li Hing” powder which is like a sour plum sugar. I enjoyed the plum powder, but it is definitely an acquired taste, you can learn more about it here.

Next up I got in line for a DoleWhip dessert, which is like a pineapple soft serve ice cream float, if you are a fan you probably already know you can only officially get it here and at Disney World (as far as I know). I got some little silver pineapple earrings as well and just wandered around the gardens for the rest of our time there taking pictures and enjoying my dessert. Make sure to get your picture taken inside the giant pineapple out in the garden area !

Return to Honolulu

It was late afternoon by this point, and people were getting tired. We had skipped a stop at the Diamond Head State Monument in the morning due to bad weather conditions and the driver offered to take us back up to see it, but the consensus on the bus was that people were ready to return to the city.

The bus dropped people off on the far side of Honolulu near the airport and eventually ended up back where we started in the morning closer to Waikiki.

That ended my day on the Roberts Hawaii Oahu Grand Circle Island Tour. I went walking down to the beach by myself after to see a hula dance presentation at one of the big hotels , but again it was cancelled because of the weather, so I got some sushi to-go and just watched the sunset by myself and did some shopping.

I hope to return someday to Oahu and have more time to better explore some of the areas of the island I saw on this tour. For only having one full day in Hawaii, I think I made the most of it !

Final Recommendation for the Roberts Hawaii Oahu day tour

What I liked: Being by myself in Honolulu on a 36 hour stopover, I had no interest in renting a car or driving while I was still a bit tired so being on the bus was a great way to see so much in one day without the hassle of car rental or the expense of a private tour.

I was also a student at the time, and this was one of the more affordable tours I could find, which I liked. As a first time visitor to Hawaii, I wanted to experience as much as possible in one day and not just stay in the city, I thought we got a wide range of experiences between the nature preserve, the farm, the ranch, the temple and the beach. 

The driver in particular was excellent, he provided commentary that had educational value and shared about Hawaiian customs and traditions which I was not familiar with and would now like to learn more about. The commentary was also funny without being inappropriate or political. 

What could have been better: Several stops were quite short, which is inevitable on a tour that covers so much in one day. The only stop where I thought it was an issue was the Dole Pineapple Plantation, our driver gave us extra time there and advised us to go directly to the pineapple tasting, some people still missed the first one and we weren’t there long enough to do the next scheduled tasting so they missed out. 

Final Recommendation: I think this is a good choice for someone who only has one day to see some highlights of Oahu and doesn’t want to deal with a car rental. It is a full 50 person coach bus tour with a few tourist shopping stops, but there was never pressure to buy anything.  

It was nice to have an overview of the island in one day and if I go back, then I could spend more time in one place. It’s definitely not a backpacker/student tour, I was the only person there in the under 30 age group but I still enjoyed talking to other travellers. I think our driver made a difference for how much I enjoyed this tour with the engaging, informative commentary. 

Overall, this Roberts Hawaii Oahu Grand Circle Island tour provided exactly what it advertised, a full day of short visits to a range of different highlights and attractions on the island of Oahu. 

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