Escaping Jurassic Valley at Kualoa Ranch

My brother has always been interested in dinosaurs (enough that he even became a fossil preparator!), which obviously led to a massive obsession with Jurassic Park. And as it seems to go, his obsession with watching the movie over and over rubbed off on me as well. So when we were coming to Hawaii, he told me all about the fact that you can go see the gnarly log that Sam Neill and the kids hide behind during the Gallimimus herd scene. With a little bit of research, I found Kualoa Ranch, home of Jurassic Park and as it turns out, so much more!

We did the Kualoa Ultimate Experience- “spare no expense!” as John Hammond would say, although this was actually a great deal for a full day tour with transportation. The ultimate experience includes the Hollywood movie sites tour, the Jurassic jungle jeep expedition, the taste of Kualoa Farm tour and lunch. There are plenty of tour options, and also lots of stuff to do if you are not a Jurassic Park nerd including horseback rides, ATV tours and a secret beach.

When we arrived at the ranch we had a few minutes to wander the gorgeous grounds before we met for the first tour of the day. They had tons of memorabilia and vintage posters with information about the different movies and tv shows that have been filmed on the ranch.

First up was the Hollywood movie sites tour, which takes you through the famous Ka’a’awa Valley, which is now known as Hollywood’s “Hawaii Backlot” as over 50 blockbuster movies and tv shows have been filmed in the valley alone. We drove through King Kong bone fields, passed the street with the penguins from 50 First Dates, went through the valley with the ATV scene from Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates and assorted locations from Hawaii Five-O and Lost. This is also the tour where you see the Jurassic Park log, and they stop for a good amount of time and let everyone take photos. Our tour guide even had a T. rex toy that she used for silly pictures for people, although I opted for some photoshop magic of my own for our shots! We also saw a portion of a lake that they used as the background CGI base for the scene in Jurassic World that would eventually become the Mosasaurus pool.

Next up was the Jurassic jungle jeep expedition, which takes you through the Hakipu’u Jurassic rainforest on an open back jeep. This tour includes quite a few more movie sites, including the final jewel shrine scenes from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and the Indominus rex paddock from Jurassic World. We also saw some sets from an upcoming drug cartel movie staring Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac and Charlie Hunnam, which turned out to be Triple Frontier on Netflix.

At this point we had definitely worked up an appetite, and were very happy to have a bit of a rest as we sat down and enjoyed lunch. After the break we had our last tour of the day, the taste of Kualoa Farm. This was an unexpected and really excellent tour that gave a lot of history and information about the farm outside of the movie industry. The Moli’i pond is O’ahu’s most well preserved ancient Hawaiian fishpond, which carbon dates between 800 and 1,000 years old, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. We also explored the tropical fruit and flower gardens, got to see pineapples growing, learned how to crack open macadamia nuts, and had a chance to sample taro leaves which are used for making laulau (pork wrapped in taro leaves) and poi which is a traditional staple food made of the underground stem of the taro plant.

We headed back to Waikiki at the end of the day, having gotten our movie nerd fill and exploring the lush grounds of the farm. For movie buffs, adventure lovers and beach bums alike I highly recommend taking a day trip to Kualoa!