horseback riding?

[daniTS]

Hi there,

 

My family will be on the Pride of Aloha from December 17-24th/2006, and my mom and I would definitely like to go riding! We have four horses at home and are pretty experienced riders english, western, and vaulting :), but we love to ride when we travel, so we're looking for a place to go in Hawaii.

 

I saw there was one tour that offered 'open riding' through NCL, has anyone done this? how was it? We'd much prefer to do this kind of riding as opposed to a 'head to tail' kind of ride, and obviously prefer to support places which care well for their horses, trail strings can lead a hard life!

 

Anyway, we're also staying on Oahu for a week after, so we could do a ride there, we don't mind ship sponsored or otherwise if its cheaper/better.

 

TIA!

Dani

[CruisinMK]

Do they really offer open riding? Liability issues for horseriding are already bad even with the head to tail march. I bet liability insurance is a huge percent of what you pay for when you ride here.

 

I think they offer a ride way up on Haleakela crater, sounds like you are fit and experienced enough to try that.

 

There are many good places on Oahu, you might just do that since you have a whole week there.

 

Kualoa ranch@chinaman's hat,

http://www.kualoa.com/horse.htm

 

turtle bay@north tip of island

http://www.turtlebayhotel.com/Activities/Horseback_Rides.asp

 

happy trails@pupukea/waimea

http://www.happytrailshawaii.com/

 

Correa trails@ waimanalo 105 acre ranch

http://starbulletin.com/2000/09/04/news/story3.html

Wednesday-Sunday. Contact Wes Correa: 808-259-0014

 

Koko Crater stables @ inside the crater near sandy beach

http://www.kokocraterstables.com/riding.html

 

There's a bunch more in Waimanalo like hilltop ranch, funny farm, circle C, and they have polo matches on Sunday there too.

[daniTS]

Thanks so much for your help!

 

I'm going to go check out all of those links, and see if anything looks good for us! I'm not entirely sure what they meant by open riding in the shore ex brochure, I'm guessing that they meant you all still in close proximity with each other, but aren't head to tail, which makes it a little bit more interesting!

 

Thanks again,

Dani

[cruisin*tigger]

I see one of your stops is Kauai. We rode with this stable when we did a land vacation in August. Definitely not head to tail - if you do the ocean vista ride, they ride thru these huge open fields, meandering among the cattle. Our guide even told us we didn't need to stay together. Best looking horses I have ever seen for public rides. Very large, must have some draft in them, fat, happy and sassy. In fact, coming back, we picked up two of the other trail horses that were just out in the field, and they wandered along with us, no riders or tack, just keeping us company. too cute. :)

[Bucky3]

What great riding information on this thread. Thank you for posting.

[DonahCBrown]

Hi there,

 

My family will be on the Pride of Aloha from December 17-24th/2006, and my mom and I would definitely like to go riding! We have four horses at home and are pretty experienced riders english, western, and vaulting :), but we love to ride when we travel, so we're looking for a place to go in Hawaii.

 

I saw there was one tour that offered 'open riding' through NCL, has anyone done this? how was it? We'd much prefer to do this kind of riding as opposed to a 'head to tail' kind of ride, and obviously prefer to support places which care well for their horses, trail strings can lead a hard life!

 

Anyway, we're also staying on Oahu for a week after, so we could do a ride there, we don't mind ship sponsored or otherwise if its cheaper/better.

 

TIA!

Dani

 

There are several good open ranch rides in the North Kohala area and they really are open ranch rides, not head to tail. I did a listing back a while of the websites for the better ones. Try a search on this forum. It was a few months ago. There are two along the Kohala Mountain Road, and one on Parker Ranch range land in Waimea. There's also one down in Waipio Valley, but it is a little more traditional, and it is a pretty long haul from the Kona side, given the times.

 

In Kona, there's a ride that goes out of Capt. Cook down to the monument, but I'm not sure how the closure of the Bay will impact that one, and it is more of nose to tail, but the scenery is pretty spectacular and it is closer to the ship.

[zelker]

A great riding operation on the north shore of Maui between Lahaina and Kahului is the Mendes Ranch. I too am an experienced rider and they break you into groups according to riding ability which rocked. We got to canter our horses up to the top of the ranch right to the edge of the rain forest and then road clear down to the water and road along the cliffs there. It is very sparsely populated in that area and the views are breathtaking, clear to Molokai and sometimes even Oahu. Check them out at http://www.mendesranch.com. I even opted to do their BBQ lunch after the ride which was quite tasty! BTW, I think they only offer western. There were people from one the ships there when I road but don't know if they booked through the ship or on their own. In any case, it's worth checking them out.

 

Aloha!

 

PS -- if you book it through these guys or another activity company on Maui ahead of time, you'll probably save some $$ -- http://www.tombarefoot.com/maui/mendes_ranch.html