The scenery was beautiful but overall the trip was a bit disappointing. Firstly, the “stops” are, for the most part, just stops. Meaning the van stops, you take a picture out the window, then it goes again. Of the six times we actually stopped and got out, two were for shopping only, one was for lunch (where you’re forced to listen to a sales pitch before your driver serves you lunch) and only three were for actual sights. The stops at the black sand beach and the seven pools were very rushed. Less than forty minutes at each. We barely made it in the water and it was time to go. We were constantly threatened that if we didn’t hurry, then stops would be taken away. Our driver David spoke non-stop which got a bit tiring by the end. He spouted a lot of information, some of which was false. Here are a few of his erroneous tidbits: 1. We were repeatedly told that it takes 1000 gallons of water to make a pound of sugar...Most experts put the figure at 270 gallons 2. He told us that SPAM stood for “Special People American Military”...Hormel states that they have never revealed what spam is an acronym for, but a closer guess would be Spiced Ham. 3. He stated that he wasn’t aware that Beatle George Harrison had an estate in Hana and that I must be wrong about that!...George Harrison is a famous past resident of Maui and his estate is included on many tours. 4. He stated that C & H brand sugar was defunct and if we came upon a pack of it we should “frame it”...False, it’s still widely available and was even plentiful in our hotel room! Yes I realize these are trivial items...but the point is, he shouldn’t talk just to talk. I had high expectations for this tour and while it was good, it just wasn’t all I had hoped for.
Одговор домаћина
Jun 2019
Mahalo for this review, we really appreciate the feed back. There are a few celebrities on the road to Hana, all of them have asked that we don't share this information, we have had people going out and visiting homes to see if they can find the celebrities, we prefer to honer their requests with the deepest respect. Plus some don't live there very long and we don't keep track of the movements of people. So it is not something we feel we need to know or share with others.
C & H Sugar, very few people know that C and H Sugar is a processing plant, they process Beet Sugar Mexican sugar as well as sugar in Hawaii (at least before the mill closed down.) Many in Hawaii believe C and H was part of the Hawaiian Sugar that closed a few years ago, as you correctly pointed out, David was not correct, but he is now. We had a long discussion and he now has more info than most, Thank you for making that Happen.
As far as SPAM goes, he told me where he heard it and I about fell over, from another student in our local college gave a talk about ti, I cannot believe that the instructors did not catch that, we had a good laugh, he thought he learned something new, because we all tell tell our tourists Hormel deny's ever naming it, but growing up in Hawaii we jokingly called it Specially prepared army meat, they tasted like the what we found in the army c rations left in Pupukea.
A thousand gallons of water to a pound of sugar is true, back in the 50's there was an article based on the
sugar plantations sugar yield and it stated a 1000 gallons of water to a pound of sugar in the 50's I looked up on the water Foundation's web site and it says it takes 7 gals of water to get a once of white sugar, a little bit of math and its not a thousand gallons, but like the article in the 50 's you add the waste, evaporation and
seepage and a thousand gallons make more scene.
We do have GPS on our vehicle and we do monitor how long our drivers stay at each stop and how many stops they make.
Thank you for the review, it does help us keep things in check, and we have discussed this we David and he does appreciate it too. You have made us all more aware what we need to do and accurate our information needs to be. I do see many of our drivers getting out the old books and studying the information they present.
Ray