McBryde Garden & Allerton Garden

Toured Allerton Garden with Ken as our guide. He gave us an incredible experience, very knowledgeable, professional AND funny, and I couldn’t recommend him more. The gardens were beyond belief, and learning the history behind them brought the entire picture together. And he was quite patient as I lagged behind with my camera.
Mahalo Ken!

My husband and I enjoyed going on the guided Allerton Garden tour, but it seemed a bit long. Doing a self-​guided tour is not an option, so you are committed to three hours, and our guide went a bit longer. There are mosquitoes everywhere and even with our bug repellent, we got quite a few bites. Our favorite part of the tour was the gorgeous scenery and plants, and our least favorite aspect was the really detailed explanation for each stop on our tour. If you love botany and want to know everything about the plants, you will love this tour. If you want to explore nature, wander, and take photos, the McBryde Garden may be a better option for you. We are happy we did this tour, but would not probably do it again.

When we visited Kauai, the garden isle, we were surrounded by beautiful vegetation wherever we went… but I wanted to come to the Allerton Gardens because of a recommendation from my aunt as well as the fact that the famed Jurassic Trees (fig) live there… so we came, and we were thrilled that we did!
I absolutely love gardens… the variety of plants you get to see in a focused area, learning about them, history and culture… everything about them. This one in particular is awesome because they only show them by guided tour. We had a gentleman who was quirky, but very knowledgeable of the garden and it’s history. The tour starts with some history, moves to a bus to take you back to the garden (with narration all the way), a walking tour, then bus ride back to the welcome center. It’s not too pricey and is well worth it. I especially loved that our guide let us sample a few of the fruits along the way, like bread fruit, miracle berry, lemons/​limes/​grapefruits (after having the miracle berry, of course), etc. If you’ve never heard of miracle berry, google it — its a tiny red berry that alters your sense of taste for a few hours so that everything you eat tastes sweet. Now that’s my kind of berry!
Check out the pics for some highlights. The fig trees, italian fountain, film spots just to name a few. The guide talks about how multiple films have used the garden, like Jurassic park and Pirates on Stranger Tides.
Visit here if you are on Kauai!

Make sure you get Ken as your tour guide. Yesterday we toured the Allerton Garden and had a brilliant time. Lush and extensive would sum up this masterpiece of Botanical Kauai.
We made a reservation for the 2 ½ hour tour. A shuttle bus takes you from the store (now being renovated) down to the beginning of the tour. Ken started things off with a brief history of the local people who were gifted the land which now nourishes Allerton Garden. Very interesting and fun. Botanical Bob was the driver who happened to also be a botanist! They answered all our nerdy questions and were patient when we got a bad case of the giggles.
$ 45 for the tour or you can book a dinner at the Allerton house with the tour for $ 85. The McBride tour is also a self guided tour of a larger piece of property just inland from Allerton Garden.

This is a unique experience literally not available anywhere else. The gardens are an attempt to save unique species of tropical plants that are being driven out of existence by a variety of environmental factors. Combined with that effort is an impressive display of landscape architecture that offers living proof to the vision that Allerton and his partner Gregg had (and not to forget the physical efforts of the head gardener, Hideo, for making it all a reality).
My wife and I have done the self-​guided tour of the Bryce garden, the guided tour of the Allerton garden and the Allerton tour with dinner at the Allerton house on the private beach. All are worthwhile but I recommend the guided tours over the self-​guided tour in order to get the insights from the volunteer tour guides, all of whom bring a passion to their roles that is impressive.
Others have mentioned the mosquitos, which can be plentiful. Our bug spray has been up to the job for all three tours; perhaps we were luckier than most but I don’t think that should deter anyone from seeing this gem.
Oh, during migration season, be sure to look for whales offshore during the bus ride to and from the valley.

I absolutely LOVED touring the Allerton Gardens with our wonderful guide Bob. I would generally balk at paying $ 45 for a guided tour, but this was so worth it. I am biased in favor of fruit-​bearing plants, and this garden did not disappoint because of the wide range of tropical plants. We also got to try tropical fruits including breadfruit, star fruit, coconut milk, tumerac, ginger, monstera deliciosa (poisonous skin and tongue-​tingling fruit), and my favorite gigantic citrus — pomello! If fruit-​bearing plants aren’t your thing, the gardens are also gorgeous! You can see a beautiful bamboo forest, pulsing fountain, estuary, and many statutes that will make you wish you had a lot more land and money to replicate these designs in your backyard. There are also several scenes from Allerton Gardens that appeared in movies.
If you have the flexibility, I’d try to catch a tour with Bob. He has been working for the gardens for over 20 years, and has been in the gardening business for over 40 years. He was a fount of information. As an example, someone asked him what kind of tree something was and he gave the common name, Hawaiian name, and the scientific name! He should really consider being on some type of Survivor show — he had great information on which plants were edible and delicious, edible but not delectable (survival foods), and poisonous. He even pointed out which plants could be used as water collecting devices or to create clothes. I could only dream of one day knowing as much as Bob about plants.
Logistical notes —
–Guided Allerton Garden tours leave every hour on the hour (e.g., 12PM, 1PM) and last 2.5 hours.
–Unguided McBridge Garden buses leave every 30 minutes (e.g., 12PM, 12:30PM, 1PM).
–Bring bug spray — you will get bitten!
–If you have a Hawaii drivers license, you get free admission on Sundays!

Don’t let the label confuse you… this is no garden. Allerton is a botanic architectural experience in a hidden gem of a valley near Poipu. Our tour guide Ryan had the perfect demeanor for sharing the historical and artistic history of this special place. I visited on a very difficult day for me personally and I found the rooms to be peaceful and healing. On my next trip, I plan to do the sunset tour and have dinner on the beach. This is a so not miss for your visit to Kauai.

The tour guide was awesome and the place beautiful (Allerton tour). That said, they have wicked mosquitoes that were not stopped by mosquito repellent. I was bitten 12 times even though I came fully coated in 7% deet. Half of our tour group was scratching bites and reapplying bug spray and Still. Getting. Bitten. I had been on the island 7 days and not gotten bitten once before this since I used bug spray religiously. I wish they had made some particular note of this since it’s obviously a longstanding problem. Really, half our group was just trailing miserably along and you can’t go back by yourself as they bus you in. Welcome to 2.5 hours of feeling like a helpless target.
It was definitely not worth the discomfort, especially if you react strongly to mosquito bites like I do. If you still want to come, go with the 30% deet or more and do it the last day of your trip just in case you are still mosquito lunch. That way it won’t impact all the other fun things you want to do.

Take the guided tour. You know what you are looking at, right? Kama’aina discount avail on Sunday’s only.

The guided tour of the Allerton gardens was absolutely wonderful! Our guide Ryan was fantastic and you can tell he loves his job! I would highly recommend this to anyone visiting Kaua’i. Don’t forget the bug spray!

We did the guided tour of Allerton Garden and it was incredible! David was our tour guide and he was the best– try to get in on one of his tours. The garden is breathtakingly beautiful and was my favorite activity we did here.

I feel kind of misled about what this place was going to be like. As we entered we saw a picture of a waterfall on the sign that said McBryde Garden. In fact, some of the tour brochures had the same picture. When we paid for our tour, I asked if McBryde was the tour with the waterfall and one of the employees told us it was.
After the shuttle dropped us off, I asked which trail went to the waterfall and was told there wasn’t one but water does flow over a small damn if that’s what we wanted to see.
The trees and flowers were very pretty, but it is not even close to being worth $ 30 a person. Save your money and see the beauty of Kauai on your own!

I’ve been to so many gardens in my life, but I’ve got to say these gardens hands down win over each and every garden I’ve ever been to, in terms of beauty, tranquility, creativity and staff.
My tour guide whose name I forgot (an older lady with short gray hair) was beyond amazing! You could totally tell she loved her job. Very articulate and knowledgeable about her work.
This garden and even the scenic drive prior to reaching the actual gardens, will be like heaven to you, they were for me at least!
Going up the narrow road and seeing the coast and a private beach and seeing all those colorful trees and flowers in bloom only reminded me of heaven, paradise or just the most beautiful place on earth.
Amazing tour and amazing staff.
Will be back. Hopefully the sunset tour :) love it

We scheduled our visit to the gardens Thursday at 3:00. Not expecting much, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip.
Sterling was our guide and he was full of knowledge of the island and the plants. We tried tons of exotic fruit and we were even introduced to the miraculous berry! If u have not tried this berry you must beg your guide to let you!!! Right after we ate it we sampled a lime and it tasted like pure sugar. It has the peculiar property of tricking your taste buds so that sour foods taste as sweet as sugar. Sterling also happened to be an amazing photographer and he was more than eager to share his knowledge, just see how the pictures turned out.
Anyway, go if only to try the berry. It will turn the sourest goo into a sweet concoction as the sugary mixture drips down your throat. Definitely adds the wow factor to any miraculous romp: D

World Class!
Gorgeous!
Breath taking!
We took the 2.5 hour (or so) guided tour of the Allerton Garden today. I took so many pictures! Everywhere you look, it’s simply beautiful! I HIGHLY recommend the guided tour, rather than doing the walking tour. The guided tour is so informative! Our guide, Sam, was so knowledgeable, funny, and just a great guy!
The price per person is $ 40, and it’s so worth it.
Go! You will love the Allerton Garden!

1pm tour on 8−1−14.
Very disappointed but probably would be good for most tourists.
Reqd tour was full of a mix of hawaii history and trivia. Also a bunch on the couple that primarily built the garden. Somewhat cheesy.
Guide got cheesier and mentioned tips at the end.
Very little (15min maybe out of a 2.5hr tour) botanical information.
Guide said we’d get to see the greenhouse but never happened.
If you like tours with bunches of tourists youll probably like this.
If you have a strong interest in learning about tropical plants, conditions, growing, environment, you’ll find this tour very empty.
Any stars because it is a very pretty site and some interesting plants.

Highly recommended as the beauty of this place is really hard to describe. There are fountains and water features and rooms walled by palms, statues and history, etc. There are various entrance fees depending on the experience you want — there’s a self guided tour into McBride for $ 15 and a guided for $ 35 to Allerton garden. We did the latter, being 2.5 hours long.
To be honest the tour was low key, relaxing, and full of history I didn’t think I would enjoy. Our guide had a bounty of knowledge and a pleasant demeanor, answered questions and took his time walking us around the campus. Perfect.
There are two more expensive tours offered here yet I don’t know what else they offered. Really, just access into the place was gorgeous enough and worth the money, but I would definitely consider them next time.
Recommendations: call ahead! Get their information either online or on the phone about tram departure times et al, as two days in a row we missed our tours due to lack of research. ;(.

My Husband and I went on the self guided McBryde Garden tour and we had a wonderful time!
We all packed in a small bus at the beginning of the tour and were driven out to the garden. The drive there was delightful and exciting because the views were just beautiful and the bus driver was funny and knew a lot about the surrounding area.
We were then dropped off in the gardens and were free to roam everywhere by ourselves which was great because we could go at our own pace! Busses came back to pick people up every 30 – 60 minutes so we could stay as long or as short as we wanted.
There was a bunch of different plants here that we had not seen on any other part of the island and they were beautiful! We got a lot of amazing pictures! Many of the house plants we have here in California were growing outside there and there was a bunch of flowers, fields, trees, streams, forests, etc.
This was one of the highlights of our trip and we would recommend it to anyone visiting the island! Definitely worth the time and money… Be sure to make reservations a few days in advance! The tours fill up fast!!!

[This review is for the Allerton Garden guided Tour]
Truly a beautiful garden! Our tour guide was Martin (?) I think that was his name? anyways, he was very humorous and explained much of the history behind the gardens and the Allerton family. During the tour, we were able to sample some of the fruits that were grown in the garden and was even able to take some fruits home. If you’re visiting Kauai, I highly recommend this tour, you will not be disappointed!
Oh, and LAYER on with the insect repellent! if you forget, they have repellent wipes available before you board the bus.

We visited the McBryde Garden and loved it! The variety of plants was amazing and the valley setting incredible. We really enjoyed the native plant area.
A minor complaint is that the paths are not paved and become a quagmire when it rains. Unfortunately we got caught in a down pour but since the driver suggested we grab one of the spare umbrellas when he dropped us off it was not too bad. I guess the rain kept the bugs away.