I love going to Hawaii even if the kids are now older and don't align all the time. But this time around, the "new" thing was ability to see Lava flows. Lava eruptions are uncertain, so I wasn't sure if luck would favor us or not, but even without that, I felt that kids are big enough now to do the Caldera (Kilauea Iki) hike which we missed the last couple times due to various reasons. Last time we did see the smoldering Lava but not the flows.
As usual, we spent a 3 days on the Kona side and 3 days on the Hilo side. On the Kona side, this time we stayed at the Hilton Wailokoa Village for a few days and kids had a blast. The highlight was kayaking into an artificial waterfall which we all enjoyed. We also loved the dolphin show, ate some great food an saw turtles and beautiful fish at the lagoon.
Once in Hilo, we went to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We did the Caldera Hike and it was breathtaking! From there we went for late lunch and then were contemplating whether we would see lava flows in the night when some visitors told us that lava was erupting and we could easily see it from one of the view points. We rushed to that view point and the scene was breathtaking, we were in the midst of vapors from the lava flow and once we got to a point where those vapors were a bit away, we saw a clear eruption of lava in the caldera. It was breathtaking and even though it was getting cold, we watched for roughly 45 mins.
The final day we went back to Kona where I snorkeled in King Kamehameha beach with beautiful fish around. But the highlight was parasailing undoubtedly! The kids loved it! Surabhi got to go twice because the group was uneven and while bringing us down, we could dip our feet in the water.
