Kualoa Ranch

The last venue I have to post is Kualoa Ranch.  This is also the last venue we toured and it also happens to be the venue we like the most.  We are deciding between this location and Waimea Valley.  They are both beautiful and Waimea Valley is less expensive and would be less work, but we were more wowed by Kualoa on our site tour. Kualoa is a 4,000 acre working cattle ranch which offers educational and recreational activities as well as a location for filming television and movies.

The reasons we like this location are its beauty, the option to use on-site or off-site catering, it is very private and intimate (Charles described it as cozy), the variety of locations (garden, fish-pond, mountains, beach), the location rental is 12 hours, and Jurassic Park was filmed here (one of Charles' all time favorite movies).

The main drawbacks to this location are: there is no coordinator on-site, we would need to rent tables and chairs and plates and everything, and it is muggier and hotter than Waimea Valley because it is right on the water.

There are several reception/ceremony spaces, but the location we would choose is Hale Moli'i.

 Hale Moli'i is located on the 800-year old fish pond and from the venue, you can see the Southern portion of the Koolau Mountains that run along the East side of O'ahu.  The location is comprised of the lawn, which goes right up to the edge of the fish pond, the surrounding gardens, which contain many tropical plants as well as coconut and monkey pod trees, and a building with a staging area, kitchen and bathrooms.  You can actually see this building in several episodes of the show "Lost."  The images below show the view out from the building to the fish pond.

The huge monkey pod tree next to the building is really the focal point of this location. It is really awesome.  When we were on our site tour, the event coordinator told us everyone who books this location is in love with the tree, and I think we just might be too.





 
 

 One option for this site is to take a boat ride across the fish pond and have a ceremony on the Secret Island. The boat ride was my favorite part of the tour.  As you are crossing the pond you get another stunning view of the Koolau Mountains. It is breathtaking!

 After you disembark on the other side of the pond, you walk through this really cool area full of crazy trunks and branches before you emerge on the beach of the Secret Island.

The sand is white, the ocean is calm, clear and blue.  The palm fronds sway gently in the breeze and you can see Mokolii Island just off shore. You can see the Koolau Mountains from the beach as well.

Waimea Valley

Now the venues we are deciding between.  The first of our top two choices is Waimea Valley. Waimea Valley is a nature preserve, botanical garden and historical/cultural center. A non-profit organization is the steward for the 1,800 acre valley. I like the fact that the proceeds of our event would be going to a worthwhile cause.

The reasons we like this location are its beauty, the on-site coordinator and caterer, the reception site equipped to host a wedding, the temperature is cooler and less muggy than right on the water, and it is one of the least expensive sites we looked at.

The three main draw backs to this venue are: there is no view of the mountains, when we toured the site we got a bunch of bug bites and it is open to the public until 5pm so if our wedding was earlier than 5, it wouldn't be very private.

Above is the visitor's center and vegetation surrounding the parking.  Too bad all parking lots can't look this good.

Just on the other side of the vistor's center you come out on the main lawn.  There is a huge monkey pod tree and gardens surrounding the lawn.  There are also metal tiki torches that are lit in the evening.










The reception space is a covered open-air pavillion which is connected to the vistor's center via a walkway and composes the East side of the main lawn.

Some of the flora and fauna from Waimea valley.








It does seem like a peacock would be a nice addition to a wedding party (as long as it is not too loud).











The ceremony space we would use is the Upper Meadow.  It is about 1/2 mile from the main lawn towards the waterfall on a paved road.

 These pictures were provided by the event coordinator at Waimea Valley.  You can either use the benches they already have in the valley for seating, or you can rent white chairs.

The Upper Meadow has a beautiful tree canopy covering most of the space.

 The waterfall is just 1/4 mile from the ceremony site, so any guests who want to see it could easily walk to it. We can hire the golf carts to shuttle people to and from the ceremony location, but we would encourage anyone able to walk to enjoy the beauty of the valley.

This is the backup ceremony space in case of rain. It is surrounded by tropical plants including bamboo (which Charles loved).

 If we want pictures on the beach, Waimea Bay and Sharks Cove are located just outside the preserve.

Venues

We toured 7 venues when we were in Hawaii.  We are deciding between our top two at the moment, but I thought I would post the other 5 we looked at as well.

Loulu Palm Estate
This was the very first venue we looked at. It was nice but it had the most expensive site fee and it would be a lot of work because everything has to be brought in to the site.

There is a little house to get ready in which includes bathrooms, but there is no back-up space or commercial kitchen for the caterer. The yard was nice with plenty of space and you could walk right out on the beach.

The beach was not as nice; it was small and had lots of debris on it like rocks and leaves and seaweed.














Ke Iki Bungalows
This location is a beachfront property with a number of small vacation rentals on the site.  I think this would be a very nice place to stay while in Hawaii, but we didn't want it for our wedding. The beach was amazing, but that was the only asset. I wanted something with more of the lush Hawaiian vegetation.

 The beach was really big, and there were not very many people there when we visited around noon.






The reception site was the space in front of the bungalows facing the water.  In order to hold an event there, you are required to rent at least the 5 beach front bungalows, if not the whole lot.

The beach is on the Pipeline, so you can see see the migrating whales and huge waves in the winter.



Haiku Gardens
This is our third favorite.  The food is really good, it is not expensive and it is pretty. Plus it has an air-conditioned restaurant to hold the reception in, but you have to be done with everything by 2:30pm.

 There are two fish ponds and a view of the mountains from up in the restaurant. You can not see the mountain when you are down in the garden, which is where the ceremony sites are located.

The food was some of the best we ate in Hawaii. We ordered Luau Pork, Ahi Poke and Coconut Shrimp.












We also looked at two resorts.  Having a wedding at a resort is more expensive, but it is almost no work for the bride and groom because the catering managers take care of everything.  We looked at one resort on near Waikiki and one on the North Shore.


The Kahala Resort
This resort was beautiful and it is located on the other side of Diamond Head from Waikiki so it was much less crowded. All of the resorts were about the same price for their wedding packages, but this one has really expensive rooms.

 The two ceremony sites were gazebos on a grassy lawn. They were in picturesque locations, but not what we were looking for.

There are 5 dolphins that "live" at the Kahala, so they offer Dolphin Adventures for children. The dolphins are in these pools right next to the buildings. The trainers were feeding them while we were on our site tour.










Turtle Bay Resort
This is the only resort on the North Shore and is much less expensive than the resorts on the South side of O'ahu. The ocean and beaches at the various sites were beautiful, but we were not impressed with the reception sites.  They were all basically grass lawns with palm trees. We have grass lawns and palm trees in Tucson.

 The one location I liked, but Charles did not, is the one shown above. It is called Bay View Lawn because it touches the sand of Turtle Bay (left). We went snorkeling in Turtle Bay and I was swimming with a sea turtle!

 Most of the reception sites were located right next to the 6-story main building. It felt like the building was towering over us.

 The Stables Lawn was further out, so it was more secluded, but you would have to rent portable toilets and you can see how bland it looks.

 The 18th green had the nicest landscaping of the reception sites at Turtle Bay. We didn't consider it as an option, though, because it has a site fee of $5,000 which doesn't include the required generator and portable toilets.

The 18th green also had a beautiful little cove on the beach adjacent to the lawn.