What's the best luau to go to in Oahu?

SAM · August 12, 2008

I've been to Germaine's and The Polynesian Cultural Center.

Germaine's is okay, after a few Mai Tai's I really didn't care. The food was okay, entertainment was good but not worth the $$ we spent.

The Polynesian Culural Center is really cool but away from Honolulu. The food was good and the show was also good. I think they don't serve liquor.

azhuskergirl · August 12, 2008

I've always had a great experience at Germaine's. Great customer service. One night we were rained out 1/2 way through the show (we had already eaten) & they gave us tickets to go back another night!

Island Princess · September 7, 2008

Anyone been to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel Luau??

I know it is currently closed for renovations but was thinking we may have our reception there.

jajajaja · June 29, 2010

Old thread- but we are going back to Oahu and I was looking at different stuff.

Anyways, last Oct (2009) we went to both PCC and Paradise Cove. My hubby surprised me with PC as a gift (actually the whole trip to Hawaii, but that's besides the point.) I'd never been to a luau and he'd been to Germaine's and PCC's before so he picked PC based off reviews. Here's what we thought:

Beautiful location! Actually quite breathtaking, as is nearly all of Oahu.

I didn't like the pre-luau activities because I thought they were kinda lame, but I could see how children would really enjoy them. I just didn't like walking around with 100+ people from location to location and I couldn't really see or hear much.

Food was mediocre- the guy next to us actually found an earing in his food. He was sitting here eating and spit out a earring. Quite disgusting to say the least.

Hubby bought the upgraded seats (I don't remember what the package was, but we sat in the very front and had extra drink tickets.) I do not recommend the upgrade. We had extra tickets, but the lines were so long and half the time our servers forgot our drinks so we had like 4-5 tickets left over. It was a flop.

The show itself was fun- I think the performers are age range 18-20ish. They looked like they had a great time and I enjoyed that aspect. However, at the end we didn't really feel like it was worth the money and I was disappointed since it was the first luau I had ever been too.

Pictures from my shitty camera phone because I broke my digital camera on the trip!

So we decided to to go PCC- they had the show "Ha- Breath of Life" running. It's not really what you would think of as a "luau" per say, but more of traditional luau dancing in a more theatrical format. I LOVED IT!! We had a blast and I was just so enchanted with the show. Beautiful story and 110% professional. I would recommend this show to anyone.

Food- it's basically a buffet (at least the package we bought... we didn't buy an upgraded one after we were disappointed with PC, we didn't want to spend more money!) The food again was alright.... but I think we only paid $70-80 per person for the dinner and show so it wasn't a huge deal. We spent double that for PC and it had the same caliber of food, except at PC our meal was plated (because of the upgrade) so we didn't have the freedom to choose like you can at a buffet.

Yes no alcohol, but frankly, we didn't really notice since we barely got any at PC. THe luau is not on a beach so it's not really the luau you would picture in your head. BUT I would still recommend it over PC any day. I simply loved the show!