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Big Island: Volcano House or Kilahuea Lodge? June 2015

Egret1986

Egret1986

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Currently, there is availability at both. What would the advantages be staying inside the Park at Volcano House over Kilahuea Lodge just outside? Sounds like a lot of folks really like Kilahuea Lodge for dining, as well as lodging. However, if there are real advantages to being right there in the Park, I'd just as soon do that.

We fly into Hilo from Kauai at 2:30 pm. We want to spend the evening seeing things at night in the Park, have a good meal that night or prior to going into the Park, rest and spend all day at the Park and surrounding areas before driving to Kona.
 
The town of Volcano, where Kilauea Lodge is located, is maybe 5 minutes away from the park. It really doesn't make that much difference at which hotel you stay. It is very dark in the park, and you should be very careful venturing out at night. It is easy to drive in, and look at the glow of the lava lake from the observatory. It would be a lot more dangerous to try to hike around at night.

When we went last year, we found a place through VRBO.com. We stayed at Enchanted Rainforest Cottages, and liked them very much. We preferred the seclusion of being right in the middle of a fern forest to being in a larger hotel. We did visit the hotel in the park, but didn't feel we wanted to stay there. After a cursory look, we spent the rest of our time hiking and exploring both the park and the town.

When we go back, we will definitely stay more than one night in the area. We planned on spending 3 nights, and ended up adding a fourth night before heading to the airport in Kona the last day. There is a lot of hiking at the park. We also took our time going down the Chain of Craters Road, exploring most of the marked turnouts. The Volcano area is one of our favorite parts of the Big Island. We like the beaches on some of the other islands better, so on Hawaii we like more the inland activities.
 
I agree that there isn't much difference between the two places, and they're minutes apart. Take your pick.

But while you're choosing, consider Hale Ohia B&B. We've stayed there and it's a a charming place to spend a few nights. www.haleohia.com

Are you by any chance military, or retired military? If so, there are very affordable accommodations right inside the Park. http://kilaueamilitarycamp.com

Dave
 
We stay at the military camp, inside the park. We like being able to take hikes right from the front door of the cabins. We have lunch at the lodge.

If you are going to do a full day visit, start all the way at the end of the chain of craters road down by the ocean and work your way back up. The buses start at the top and work down, so you miss the crowds at the various stops / overlooks.


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Great info!

SmithOp said:
If you are going to do a full day visit, start all the way at the end of the chain of craters road down by the ocean and work your way back up. The buses start at the top and work down, so you miss the crowds at the various stops / overlooks.


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Makes sense to do it that way, but we probably wouldn't have thought of it.
 
I know it's definitely too short to only stay for one night.

emuyshondt said:
The town of Volcano, where Kilauea Lodge is located, is maybe 5 minutes away from the park. It really doesn't make that much difference at which hotel you stay. It is very dark in the park, and you should be very careful venturing out at night. It is easy to drive in, and look at the glow of the lava lake from the observatory. It would be a lot more dangerous to try to hike around at night.

The Volcano area is one of our favorite parts of the Big Island. We like the beaches on some of the other islands better, so on Hawaii we like more the inland activities.
Click to expand...

The most we could really stay would be two nights and that would mean cutting into our time by a day in Kauai (there 7 nights) or our time in Kona and surrounding areas.

First time to the Islands.

Good info about venturing out at night. One of the draws of staying at the Volcano House was the reviews about being in the rooms with the crater views and being able to see the glow at night from your room or being able to observe it from the "meditation room" at night when there are no visitors, only guests, at the Lodge. These rooms are considerably more expensive than what is available in the Village.
 
Sounds good. I've got other places to use that saved cash.

SmithOp said:
Volcano house is a loooong way from the glowing lava lake, not worth paying a premium. Drive to the Jagger Museum overlook for the best view of the glow.

http://www.nps.gov/havo/planyourvisit/jaggar_museum.htm


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We stayed on The North Rim of the Grand Canyon in one of the Park's cabins a few years ago. Nice walking out.....and there you are.

However, I appreciate the advice and will plan to take it. I believe the Village will be close enough.

We will be eating out dinner, breakfast and lunch while visiting this area. I will do more personal research, but if you want to throw some favorites out, I would appreciate it.:hi:
 
This really looks like a great place.

BMWguynw said:
I agree that there isn't much difference between the two places, and they're minutes apart. Take your pick.

But while you're choosing, consider Hale Ohia B&B. We've stayed there and it's a a charming place to spend a few nights. www.haleohia.com

Are you by any chance military, or retired military? If so, there are very affordable accommodations right inside the Park. :hi:http://kilaueamilitarycamp.com

Dave
Click to expand...

My dates are fully open for all units at this B&B.
 
Egret1986 said:
The most we could really stay would be two nights and that would mean cutting into our time by a day in Kauai (there 7 nights) or our time in Kona and surrounding areas.
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I wouldn't shorten Kauai. However, I don't particularly like the Kona area and would prefer to stay an extra day at Volcano. There's just not that much that excites me in Kona. The beaches are not really comparable to the other islands. The city is not picturesque. They often have vog (volcanic fog) that is very bothersome to eyes and throat. Waikoloa has some nicer beaches, but is basically a large resort. For beaches, I'd prefer Kauai or Maui. There's nothing like Volcano on the other islands. The green sand beach is not that far from Volcano. I also like orchids and the Akatsuka Orchid farm is interesting. Get the Hawaii The Big Island Revealed book and look for things to explore on that side of the island.

Going between Volcano and Kona, make sure you stop at the Punalu'u Bake Shop and try their malasadas.

By the way, I just noticed the Kilauea Lodge is for sale! $5.9 million gets you a pretty cool property with an income stream!
 
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Egret1986 said:
We stayed on The North Rim of the Grand Canyon in one of the Park's cabins a few years ago. Nice walking out.....and there you are.



However, I appreciate the advice and will plan to take it. I believe the Village will be close enough.



We will be eating out dinner, breakfast and lunch while visiting this area. I will do more personal research, but if you want to throw some favorites out, I would appreciate it.:hi:
Click to expand...


My wife and I like to hike, we were there this past May and hiked down to the crater floor from Volcano Lodge. The paths out to the inner crater were all closed due to high levels of gas, but you can skirt the edge and go up and link to the Thurston lava tube trail. We ended up back at the lodge and ordered from the bar menu, excellent food there. KMC has a chow hall, about what you would expect from a military kitchen. We did not dine in the area you are staying.

In Hilo we always like to visit Original Kens near the airport and the BI cookie factory around the corner for samples.

We stayed in Kona before the park, Keahou area, Sam Choi's above the shopping center was excellent, make a sunset reservation for dinner. In Kona we like Kona Brewery restaurant and Bite Me at the marina. There is a nice beach at the marina, park at the far end away from the restaurant, there is a short path north, its a cultural heritage site.

http://www.fodors.com/world/north-america/usa/hawaii/big-island/review-486370.html

The best beach in Kona is at mile marker 87, south entrance to Hualalai, ask for a guest pass at the guard house and they will direct you.

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For quite a few years we'd spend at least one night in Volcano Village, sometimes more. We've always stayed at Kilauea Lodge. We love it.
 
Not trying to hijack the thread, but I could also use some Big Island advice!
Our first trip there is in 2015: we are booked into the Bay Club at Waikoloa for a week, then Volcano House for 2 nights. We will have 2 more nights on the island...I'd love some advice on where to stay ? Back to Kona since we'll be flying out of Kona....or is there somewhere else better/more interesting ?
Thanks!
Deb from NC
 
Deb from NC said:
Not trying to hijack the thread, but I could also use some Big Island advice!
Our first trip there is in 2015: we are booked into the Bay Club at Waikoloa for a week, then Volcano House for 2 nights. We will have 2 more nights on the island...I'd love some advice on where to stay ? Back to Kona since we'll be flying out of Kona....or is there somewhere else better/more interesting ?
Thanks!
Deb from NC
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Deb, our "perfect" trip to the Big Island was a week in Kona, a week in the Waikoloa beach resort with a night or two in Volcano.

I love Kona for it's funkiness and all of the restaurants. Waikoloa is definitely more of the resort feel. And while there are restaurants at the resorts, we never found any of them to be all that great [in our opinion].

Now, if I could afford it, I'd spend time at the Four Seasons Hualalai. :D
 
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Egret1986 said:
We want to spend the evening seeing things at night in the Park, have a good meal that night or prior to going into the Park, rest and spend all day at the Park and surrounding areas before driving to Kona.
Click to expand...


Stay wherever you choose - as we've said, there are several places that are nice. Kilauea Lodge has a great restaurant, if a tad spendy. The atmosphere is pleasant.

After dark, if you go to the Jagger Museum Overlook inside the Park, you can see the glow from the crater. You can't get close enough to see inside the crater, but the reflected glow is pretty awesome.

And while you're exploring the Park during the day, here's a very cool tip from an insider: Along the Chain of Craters Road, (exploring in reverse order as mentioned by SmithOp), there is a stop for the Pu'u Loa Petroglyphs. You need to follow the path to get to the area where the petroglyphs are plentiful - it's maybe a ten minute walk. You'll know you're there when you come to a wooden walkway that turns into a circular loop and comes back onto itself. Here's the tip:

At the far end of the circular walkway, step off the walkway and continue walking straight ahead, and come around the back side of a small hilly area that is plainly visible. It's only a couple hundred yards, at most.

On the back side of that small hill are THOUSANDS of petroglyphs, many more than you can see from the trail or the wooden walkway. It's quite dramatic, and very cool to see. If you do a bit of research ahead of time so you know what the petroglyphs mean, it's a very meaningful stop.

This tip was shared with me by a Park Ranger. She said it was okay to do this, but to be cautious where you step as you're walking - don't step on any plants, and don't walk on the carved rocks. It's well worth the side trip. :)

Second tip: As you're leaving the Park and heading toward Kona, roughly 20 minutes down the road, DO NOT miss the Punalu'u Beach Park. It's a black sand beach that often has turtles sunning themselves on the black sand. Make the left turn off the highway at Punalu'u Road and follow it to the parking area at the beach park. Look for turtles on the sand. Also be sure to check in the tidepools along the rocky area of the beach. They are often in the tidepools, eating algae off the rocks.

Have fun!
Dave
 
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Luanne said:
Deb, our "perfect" trip to the Big Island was a week in Kona, a week in the Waikoloa beach resort with a night or two in Volcano.

I love Kona for it's funkiness and all of the restaurants. Waikoloa is definitely more of the resort feel. And while there are restaurants at the resorts, we never found any of them to be all that great [in our opinion].

Now, if I could afford it, I'd spend time at the Four Seasons Hualalai. :D
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Thanks! I have some Wyndham points available so I might see if I can get a couple of nights at one of their resorts in Kona ! (4 Seasons is out of my price range..LOL!)
Deb
 
Advice and tips are greatly appreciated.

As an East Coaster and someone who needs to keep checking out new places, this may (or may not) be our only trip to the Islands. Originally, it was going to be Kauai and Maui. However, I recently changed things up to the Big Island. Back in the day, we would try to see "everything" when we went somewhere, but have found in the last few years that "everything" just isn't possible, and that's okay. Whatever we see and do is more than we had seen and done.

We love hiking and the National Parks. I have always been a beach person and my husband indulges that. We both love snorkeling and are excited to see black and green sand beaches. Tidepools have always been a favorite of mine. Any type of wildlife is always cool. Botanical garden are also a favorite. I know the Big Island is huge and a lot of time can be spent in the car. However, at this point, we're only going to focus on the Park and the Kona area, with relatively close beaches and best snorkeling we can find in that area of the Island.

I don't see us "cutting" any time off Kauai. If we "cut", it will be off of Kona, staying an extra night in the Hilo area.

Thanks again, all. :wave:
 
Egret1986 said:
I don't see us "cutting" any time off Kauai. If we "cut", it will be off of Kona, staying an extra night in the Hilo area.

Thanks again, all. :wave:
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I don't see that you'd need an extra night in Hilo, unless you're talking about staying in the Volcano National Park area. (Hilo is about 45 minutes down the highway from the Park. Kona is at least 2 hours from the Park, but could be much longer with traffic.)

Since you enjoy National Parks, you'll find good snorkeling can be done from Two Step, which is adjacent to the City of Refuge, also called Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park. Definitely a fascinating place to stop on your way to Kona. The fact that they have great snorkeling is a bonus. :) http://www.nps.gov/puho/index.htm

Dave
 
How common is it for there to be VOG issues in the Kona area? :ponder:

DW is asthmatic....:(
 
We were at Volcano Park in December and the Jager overlook is the best spot to see the lava glow. Imo, the park isn't so far away from even Hilo. We stayed with friends about 20 minutes away from the park.

My other observations were that I thought the food was mediocre and over priced at the Volcano House. At the the park, the night time viewing at Jager Museum is really the main event. Getting to this event to hear the park rangers narrative is a plus.

If you are considering driving to the Jager overlook and waiting until after dark to leave it really isn't a hard drive to the Hilo area. There are many restaurants and things to do here. Not so much at the park.

Another observation is if you stay at a b&b you may experience the real Hawaii. This could be good or bad depending on air conditioning and type of construction the b&b is. The tropical rain forest is really noisy with coqui frogs all night and roosters in the morning.

The best advice I received was wait until you arrive to decide to go to Volcano Park. Its very common for this to be a very rainy trip. We arrived in Kona and checked the weather before deciding to go to Kilauea and Mauna Kea. We had a very clear night at both but the day before Kilauea was a hard rain.

Other Big Island areas that were on our must see list were the Black Sand Beach, Green Sand Beach, South Point and Mauna Kea.

Mauna Kea sunset was great. We had a fairly clear day. We drove to the top in a Dodge Charger and came back to the park for star watching. This was really cool. :D

Black Sand Beach was ok. Its a beach with black sand. :eek:

Green Sand Beach was ok. Its a fun 4x4 trail ride or a two mile walk. Its just a small beach with greenish sand. :eek: The locals run an old 4x4 shuttle here. Im not sure what it costs as our buddy had a Jeep.

South Point cliff. Its a cliff with a jump off into the ocean. Its an easy jump with a metal ladder climb back to the top.

Best beach within 30 minutes of Kona is beach 69.

Our favorite snorkel beach in Kona is Kahaluu Park. The resort, Kona Town and this park is all a person really needs, imo.

Bill
 
BJRSanDiego said:
How common is it for there to be VOG issues in the Kona area? :ponder:

DW is asthmatic....:(
Click to expand...

On our recent trip there was vog or mist in the mountains above Kona Town. You can actually see the vegetation line where the mist stops. No vog in Kona but we did get a light sprinkle on one day.

Bill
 
Deb from NC said:
Not trying to hijack the thread, but I could also use some Big Island advice!
Our first trip there is in 2015: we are booked into the Bay Club at Waikoloa for a week, then Volcano House for 2 nights. We will have 2 more nights on the island...I'd love some advice on where to stay ? Back to Kona since we'll be flying out of Kona....or is there somewhere else better/more interesting ?
Thanks!
Deb from NC
Click to expand...

We love Waikoloa and the Volcano area. I would not waste time moving somewhere else for two nights. I would stay in the Volcano area for four nights and enjoy it. There is plenty to do if you like hiking and the outdoors. Spend one day hiking across the volcano by going down the trail across from the Lava Tubes. Spend another day going to Black Sand beach that is about an hour west of the park. Another day can be spent around Hilo and north of Hilo hiking around the water falls, or taking a tour of the Waipio Valley.

Kona town is an easy drive from Waikoloa and spend one day there. Go, diving on the Body Glove or one of the other dive boats that go to the Marine Preserve. Make sure you walk around the Hilton hotel across the street from the Bay Club and see the dolphins, ride the small boats and just hang out. No need to spend time moving.
 
BJRSanDiego said:
How common is it for there to be VOG issues in the Kona area? :ponder:

DW is asthmatic....:(
Click to expand...

We've gone to Kona for years and have never been bothered by Vog. I know there are websites you can go to and check on the levels, but unfortunately I don't know what they are.
 
tompalm said:
Kona town is an easy drive from Waikoloa and spend one day there. Go, diving on the Body Glove or one of the other dive boats that go to the Marine Preserve. Make sure you walk around the Hilton hotel across the street from the Bay Club and see the dolphins, ride the small boats and just hang out. No need to spend time moving.
Click to expand...

Yes, but................

Kona is easy access to the southern portion of the island. Waikoloa is easy access to Waimea and points north. Although you can get from one to the other (Kona to Waikoloa), you don't really spend much time in whichever one you're visiting.

Again, just my opinion, but if you're going to be there for a couple of weeks a week in each area is perfect.
 
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