The 4 Hour Movie Tour: Because 3 Hour Tours End Badly on Kauai

They finished shooting Jurassic Park on Kaua’i in September of 1992, and Hurricane Iniki came ashore on the 11th while the crew was still here. The storm footage in the film is real. The waves breaking on the rocks while Hammond calls for the evacuation were shot at Nawiliwili Bay, right where the ships tie up.

We will see a giant ape, a pregnant woman and a sleeping giant, and I will tell you the Hawaiian stories behind all three. We will look at ancient heiaus, the Hawaiian places of worship, and a royal fishpond that was old before anybody here had heard of Hollywood.

Hear why we don’t do 3 hour tours on this uncharted desert isle. Four hours, one direction, and an early start so the road is ours. Four, not three. There is a reason for that and it is worth the price of admission on its own.

Kaua’i is basically round, like the face of a clock, and I use that to explain where things are. Lihue sits at about 5 o’clock. Kapa’a is at 3. Kilauea is at 1. This tour runs 5 up to 1 and comes back the same way, because there is one highway and no loop road, and there never will be.

We start at the harbor. The Iniki footage in Jurassic Park was shot right there in Nawiliwili Bay, and I will tell you that story before we are out of the parking lot.

Ten minutes on, the Huleia valley opens below the Menehune Fishpond. That is a royal Hawaiian fishpond, built by hand long before any of this, and it is also the jungle Harrison Ford runs out of at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Over the ridge from it is Kipu, where they put the plane down in Six Days Seven Nights and where George Clooney spent a good part of The Descendants. Three films and a piece of ancient engineering, all from one pullout.

Then Wailua Falls, eighty feet straight down, seen from the pullout without anybody leaving their seat. That waterfall opened Fantasy Island every week for six years.

Through Wailua we have Lydgate and Hikinaakala Heiau, a place of refuge and sanctuary, and Coco Palms, where Elvis got married on the river in Blue Hawaii. That film sold Hawaii to America. Sixty years later Jungle Cruise shot on the same river. Above all of it lies the Sleeping Giant, and he has a story too.

Up Kuamo’o Road there is a stand of rainbow eucalyptus, and past it the road that runs toward the Jurassic Park gate. I will show you how far a rental car gets before it regrets the decision.

Then north through Kapa’a, which played San Jose, Costa Rica in the opening of Jurassic Park. Past mile marker 14 the Anahola range comes up on your left and there is no mistaking it. That is Kalalea, and I will tell you what the name means, which is the pregnant woman. Kong is sitting on top of her. Once you have seen her you can never unsee her.

We finish at the Kilauea lighthouse lookout, where Lilo & Stitch is set, and then we turn for home.

Flying out this afternoon? This is a good way to spend your last day. You are checked out by eleven, your flight is not until the middle of the afternoon, and the alternative is four hours in the Lihue Airport terminal. A 9:00 start has you done around 1:00 with time to spare. A 9:00 start on non cruise ship pickups can be negotiated. Just ask.

I can only carry carry-on size luggage. My PUC license covers passengers, not baggage, so the van cannot take your bags. Here is what to do about it, and it works. Leave them with the bell desk at the hotel you just checked out of. They will hold them for the day and you collect them on your way to the airport. I spent years behind a concierge desk on this island and holding bags for checked out guests is routine, so ask and they will say yes. There is no luggage storage at Lihue Airport, no lockers, nothing, so do not plan on that. I bring you back to that same hotel at the end of the tour, so your bags are right where you left them. Or, for an extra fee, I can take you and your bags the short distance to the airport. Just ask.

The fare is $150 an adult and $95 a child 11 and under, and the tour does not go for less than $450. Three adults comes to exactly the minimum. A smaller party can make up the difference, or book and wait to see whether somebody else takes the empty seats, because this is an open tour. I will tell you honestly how a date is looking. A solo traveler is welcome at the $450.

The deposit is $55 a seat and it holds the seat. Fifty dollars toward the tour plus five in tax and card fees, taken by credit card. Two seats is $110, three is $165, on up to seven. The balance is due after the tour, and I will explain how when I answer your Booking Request(opens in a new tab).

Cruise guests are back aboard well before boarding. From an 8:00 start you are back at the pier around noon. A lot of people do Waimea Canyon on Thursday and this one on Friday.

Pickups are on the east side. Lihue, the Sonesta or the Marriott properties, the Walmart in Lihue, or Kapa’a, and dockside at Nawiliwili for cruise guests. If you are staying in Poipu or Princeville you are welcome on this tour, you just have to meet me on the east side. On a 4 hour tour the drive out to get you would come out of your four hours, and that is not a trade I would make for you.

We stay in the van. Four hours and this much island means restroom stops and photo pullouts, not a walking tour. Nobody has to get out who does not want to, and nobody has to keep up with anybody. For a lot of my guests that is the whole appeal.

There are no movie clips on this tour. I tell you what was shot where and what the crews did to the place. No screens, no video.

We do not go to Moloa’a Bay. They shot the Gilligan’s Island pilot there in 1963 and people ask about it. The folks who live around that beach have made it plain they would rather not have tours coming through, and that is their call to make, so I tell the story from the road and leave the bay to them.

I will text or email you the morning before to confirm the time, the pickup spot and the fare.

The famous Jurassic Park waterfall is not on this tour, and it is not on anybody’s driving tour. Manawaiopuna Falls sits on private land in the back of Hanapepe valley and the only way in is by helicopter. I get no compensation for my recommendations. I just know the island.

Waimea Canyon is not on this tour. That is the 6 hour, and it deserves its own day.