The Princeville Botanical Gardens tour, step by step

What is the Princeville Botanical Gardens tour?

A guided three-hour walk through a private 9-acre garden of native, canoe, medicinal and rare plants from around the world, with a chocolate tasting break and fruit and honey samples.

The garden climbs up terraces and drops to creek beds and the valley floor. Wikipedia puts the collection at around 600 species; the gardens' own page says over 800. There is a small cacao grove and beehives on site, which is where the garden's own chocolate and honey come from. It is not a chocolate factory or a cacao farm tour.

What happens when you arrive?

You drive to 3840 Ahonui Place in Princeville, park inside the gates, check in from 9:00 AM and pick up a walking stick, an umbrella and a squirt of DEET-free bug spray.

The gardens ask you to arrive about 30 minutes early, and the tour leaves at 9:30 sharp. There is no transport: allow about an hour from Lihue airport on Highway 56, or about 35 minutes from Kapaa.

What do you see on the walk?

Terraces of flowering plants, creek beds, the valley floor and a jungle canopy, with a guide who names and explains almost everything you point at.

The stories are the highlight in most reviews: where each plant came from, what the early Polynesians brought in their canoes, and which plants are truly native to Kauai. Expect ginger, heliconia, palms and fruit trees, and the North Shore mountains above the garden on a clear day.

What is the chocolate tasting like?

A seated break in a shaded outdoor area in the middle of the walk, where you taste single-origin chocolates from around the world and a little of the garden's own while the guide explains how cacao becomes chocolate.

The gardens describe a half-hour tasting, the Viator listing says about 50 minutes, and guests report a break of up to an hour. One blogger describes a numbered blind tasting alongside dragon fruit, coconut and cacao nibs. It is a tasting of small pieces, not a feast: guests describe "little chocolate tastes from around the world", and one called the tasting good but minimal.

What else do you taste?

Seasonal fruit picked in the garden and honey from the garden's own hives, served at stops along the walk.

What you get depends on the season. Guests mention two fruit stops placed through the morning, and several say the fruit was a highlight they had not expected.

How hard is the walk?

Moderate: several sets of stairs, uphill and downhill stretches on loose gravel, wooden bridges that get slick in rain and one cable bridge.

The pace is gentle and most of the route is shaded, but guests call the walk "a little arduous", and one guest recovering from a stroke found it challenging. The tour is not wheelchair accessible, and walkers and scooters are not allowed. See what to wear on the garden tour for shoes and rain gear.

How long does it really take?

Plan on three hours and a little more: the tour starts at 9:30 and ends back at the meeting point around 12:30, and some guests report it running over.

That leaves time for lunch in Hanalei, about ten minutes away. Do not book anything tight straight afterwards.

Hungry after the walk? The Hanalei food walk, ten minutes away, turns two hours of tastings into lunch.

★ 4.8 299 reviews · 2 hours · from $136

Explore the Hanalei food walk →

Is the tour worth it?

Yes if you enjoy gardens and plant stories; less so if chocolate is the whole reason you are booking.

It holds a 4.8 rating from 884 reviews on Viator, and the complaints are about expectations rather than the guides: a tasting that felt small, a price that felt high for the chocolate, and a walk that ran long. For bean to bar on a working farm, read Princeville Gardens vs Lydgate Farms. For the price question, see the price guide.

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