Hawaii April 23, 2015

Suegeo

As I look at my thermometer at minus 15 this morning, I cannot wait to go to Hawaii. Does anyone know if we tour the Dole Plantation? I will be arriving one day early and wonder how easy it is to get there from the Royal Hawaiian if this is not a stop on the tour.

Kathy18

I did this tour a few years ago and in reading the itinerary, it sounds as if it is the same. We did not go to the Dole Plantation. I do not know if it is easy to get there and am not even sure if it is on Oahu or another island.

On the free time in Kauai, we booked a tour, I believe through Greyline, that went out to Weimea Canyon which Mark Twain called the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific". It was quite interesting to see, if you wanted something to do there.

It was a great tour. You will definitely enjoy it particularly after the minus 15 you have today!

smarks50

I believe the Dole plantation is on the northern end of Oahu and I think you can purchase day tours in that direction from the hotel concierge or on-line. Not sure about the timing of those tours vs. your free time. There used to be a very interesting tour that visits movie/TV sites on Oahu (and a similar tour on Kauai) if you are interested in that topic; you will have to check whether that is still offered.

AlanS

The Dole Plantation tour is on Oahu, but there isn't much pineapple being cultivated there, or anywhere else on the islands for that matter- too costly (land & labor)- The Hawaiian industry began to collapse in the 1960s. Delmonte closed completely and almost all other cultivation except some by Dole and the Maui Pineapple Co. has moved offshore and many of the former Hawaiian fields are now business parks, housing developments, strip malls, and golf courses. Of the 300 billion pineapples farmed worldwide, only 400 million come from Hawaii. That’s only .13 percent. Hawaii which used to be #1 doesn't even make the top 10 on the list of producers. The state’s pineapple industry currently exists primarily to satisfy local demand. Here is the link to the Dole Plantation website

jdurkin

How interesting! Thanks for the question, Suegeo, and for all the answers. I found your post, Alan, sadly depressing. It's a very familiar tale for Australia, too. Not specifically for pineapple production, but I bet my bottom dollar the story is very similar.

Cheers,

Jan

AlanS

jdurkin wrote:

How interesting! Thanks for the question, Suegeo, and for all the answers. I found your post, Alan, sadly depressing. It's a very familiar tale for Australia, too. Not specifically for pineapple production, but I bet my bottom dollar the story is very similar.

Cheers,

Jan

I learned some of that during our trip to Hawaii last year, but got the latest from the web. It is the same story for sugar cane! It wasn't that long ago we were bombarded with sugar commercial jingles on TV- "C&H, real cane sugar; growin' in the sun; in Hawaii . . . . . ." There are still some isolated cane (and beet) fields, like right next to Kahului Airport on Maui, but I suspect it is also primarily for local consumption. On Maui you can take tubing trips on the old cane field irrigation canals (and, through low tunnels!) that were dug in the volcanic soil and rock by hand. More acreage is devoted to sugar cane than pineapple but the islands of Oahu and Hawaii saw their final sugarcane harvests in 1996. Today, sugarcane is still grown on about 40,145 acres on Kauai and Maui of which 21,735 acres were harvested yielding some 252,342 tons of raw sugar, The refinery at Crockett, California refines, packages, and markets all of the output from Hawaii's two remaining sugar mills. You can see a number of rusting abandoned old mills on the west side of Kauai. Coffee plantations are proliferating however. In case anyone wanted to know.

TauckTim

Hi AlanS,

The Best of Hawaii does not include a tour of the Dole Planation, no. I can, however, tell you that you will be driving past sugarcane fields on Day 6, and will have a tour of a coffee farm on day 11.

I hope you have a great time on your trip!

-Tim