Vavoom Volcano Tours

I hope this feedback on Lori, owner of Vavoom Tour will help you in your selection. I booked this tour on Thanksgiving day because my husband mistakenly booked our rental car at Kona airport and our flight was arriving at Hilo airport about 3 hours away. Realizing this on thanksgiving day, the day before our flight, I found Vavoom Tour after not being able to find a rental car. She was available to do the tour for $ 130 pp +$ 80 for child. Total cost $ 610 for a private tour. Then when we arrived Friday am, there was a rental car and I asked if we could cancel and she said no and that there is a 48 cancellation policy even though I booked it 10 hours before and this was not said to me. She said this was on their website which I did not go on the night before. She was not flexible despite my situation and also tried to add two other people even though she said this would be a private tour the night before. Because she was going to charge, we went ahead with the tour and everything went downhill from there. First, She missed the turn for the waterfall and we had to reverse. She told us that it would take 30 mins to walk the waterfall trail when in fact it took 15 mins. She kept saying to my family (my mother and father inlaws are from Japan age 68 and in excellent health) that the walk is not for this with health issues. She said this also at the volcano which was really insulting. We collectively decided as a family to do this tour and she kept insinuating the tour walk will be difficult for people with health issues. It was as if she did not want to do the walk and just wanted to take us around in the vehicle. She also forgot to bring bottled water for us even though it was suppose to be included. Then at the end of the tour, she took us to the macademia plant which closes at 5pm. We got there at 5:20 pm and it was closed. How could a tour operator not know the closing time? Then the last insult was she tried to charge $ 120 additional for going over the tour time. I had explicitly told her that our flight was at 7:30 pm and we had to be back at the airport by 6:30 pm which was the time she dropped is off. She said her tour is 6 hours and additional time over that would be charged. I told her that was not explained to me at the beginning. To throw this at the end of the tour is sneaky and not acceptable. I would avoid using this tour company. To me it felt like Lori was all about money and not focused on the customer experience. You are better off renting a car or another tour with a better reputation, or going with a taxi company.

Lori is born and raised in Hawaii, she obviously has a love of the Islands that comes across when she is giving her Tour. I highly recommend this tour if you are coming to the Big Island

My parents recently went on a Hawaii cruise and one of the ports of call was Hilo, HI. My parents were excited to see the Volcano National Park but I know that cruise lines cost a little more for book excursions compared to booking directly. I stared doing research and found Vavoom Volcano Tours. This was my best find to date!
Lori was very responsive in the booking phases of the tour. I told her that my parents, in their 60s, were coming in from a cruise ship and that they wanted to explore the Volcanoes. After some discussion, she understood what my parents were looking for in a tour and gave out one of her packages as the recommended package in which my parents would do. We both agreed and my parents went on their cruise.
On the day of the tour, I called my parents to see how the tour was going and I can tell you that they had a blast! Lori had originally suggested that they go down to a part of the volcano where they can roast marshmallows but it turns out that my parents were not comfortable hiking a steep incline/​decline to get there. I was happy though, not because they couldn’t do the hike, but because they had the option to do it and declining was my parent’s choice (instead of just being restricted).
The best part of this is that, I found out later that the only people that we on Lori’s tour that day were my parents. This was good news from our perspective since my parents got a personalized tour but not so good news for Lori since she took a loss. She could have easily have cancelled the tour but did not simply because she knew that my parents were really looking forward to this trip and did not want to cancel at the 11^th hour and disappoint them.
My parents came back from the cruise and it turns out that the Hilo tour was the highlight of their vacation. THANK YOU LORI!
Thanks for NOT cancelling the tour, thanks for taking my parents to places they requested, even if it wasn’t in the itinerary, thanks for awesome customer service, and THANK YOU for showing my parents a wonderful time in Hilo! We’ll definitely be seeing you soon!

There have been some glowing reviews of this operator on tripadvisor and here which led me and my wife to book this tour. However, we were highly disappointed. The tour is probably good for cruise ship visitors who want a crash course on the Volcano Natl park in less than half a day. However, if you are spending more time on the island, explore it youself and do not miss the ranger tours offered at the Natl Park. It might be a good idea to get a first person narrative from a native of this beautiful island. however I think we got much more insightful and friendly information from our wonderful B&B host. Overall, we found this tour to be a waste of our time and money. It was rushed, business-​like, not useful at all. We signed up for the «full day» tour which lasted all of 3 hours. Misleading and a rip-​off.

My wife and I had a fantastic time on this tour! The tour guide was a lot of fun and super informative. I recommend this experience to anyone — young and old. Thanks, Vavoom!

Lori Alana is a great tour guide, and willing to accommodate special requests.
My girlfriend & I wanted to spend some time at the Volcano Winery after the tour without holding up everyone else, so we decided it would be best if we drove up separately in our own car, right behind Lori’s van. To ensure we didn’t miss out on her explanatory narrative during the drive up, Lori allowed us to initiate a cell phone call to her and listen in on her in-​van presentation.
Lori is very proud of her Hawaiian heritage and it shows, as she is very eager to share her deep knowledge of Hawaii with you. After experiencing her half-​day tour of the volcano, we completely understood why she’s so popular in Hilo on TripAdvisor.