The next port is Hilo. In the Hawaiian ports you have three main choices for tours … chopper, bus, or car rental. The people who took chopper rides had a good time, but we just preferred to be on the ground close to the sights. The bus tours cost about $60-80 pp, and the people who took them said they stopped at too many shops, and too many bathrooms, and there are some sights the bus can't get into due to size. Car rentals were about $25-40/day, depending on size, and if you booked ahead on the net. We used Alamo, who rent a full size for $34 on the net on any island. When you leave the ship, walk into the terminal, turn right and walk along the yellow fence to the right hand side of the terminal, and that's where the rental car shuttles are. Alamo has a rep at this port with a cell phone, and he lets you know when the next shuttle is coming, and checks your name on his clipboard. Our name wasn't on it, but he wasn't concerned when we showed him our res number, and the office had a car for us (whew!). All the car rental companies had shuttles at each port which ran every 10 minutes or so, but when you're anxious to get going on your sight-seeing it seems like hours to wait, and some reviewers jumped in a $6 cab to the rental site, but we waited and tapped our feet. We didn't hear of anyone who reserved a car who didn't get one. We docked at 6:45. On this island the main attraction is Volcanoes National Park, and it's truly amazing. It's a 40 minute drive straight up hwy 11 into the 4000 foot mountains, 4 lanes most of the way. Turn left into the park entrance, pay $10/car and they will hand you a great map of the park. No need to stop at the visitor's center a bit further on unless you want to talk to a ranger about something. Then you take Crater Rim Drive, several miles, around Kilauea Caldera, an area containing various volcano craters, stem vents, dead lava flows, sulphur deposits, and volcanic landscapes. There are view stops every couple minutes, and it will take your breath away to stand on the edge of these craters, half a mile to a mile wide, looking 100's of feet down at swirls of dead lava and colored deposits, imagining them blowing sky high. Most of them blew between 1950 and 1980s. If pressed for time you might skip the first stop, the steam vents, where rain gets in, is heated by the magma way below, and comes out as steam. But don't miss any other stops, each crater has it's own character. They aren't currently active, and to see lava flowing you have to drive down the Chain of Craters road to the coast, which branches off this Rim road about three quarters of the way around. Then drive a short way along the coast to the East Rift Zone, where Kilauea has been active since '83, and the road is destroyed by recent lava flows. Then you hike into the lava flows. We compared notes before we left with other drivers, and there was no way we could fit that into the time available. We had time to go down the Chain of Craters Road about halfway, I think we got to Mau Loa Manuna Ulu before we were at our midpoint in time and had to turn back. Back on the Rim Drive you come to the Thurston Lave Tube, a tunnel carved in rock by lava, which you can walk through. It's in a beautiful fern grotto. Then one more stop, Kilauea Iki Overlook, and you're back at the park entrance. We figured we had to leave the park by 11am to make it back to Alamo by 11:40, and get the Alamo shuttle to the ship by 12:15, which we did. All aboard call is 12:30 for 1pm departure. If for some reason you aren't up to doing the volcanoes, there is a short drive to 2 pretty falls near the ship, the Rainbow Falls and the Akaka Falls, and the Panaewa Rain Forest zoo is near, and the Lava Tree State Park with beaches nearby off hwy 137. Interested in becoming a travel agent? Follow this link to find out more. Home Based Travel Agent