Nani Mau Gardens

The garden is pretty ghetto. The little ponds in center of the garden have all but dried up and the small pond near the restaurant that had a model of the Hawaiian Islands was overrun by tadpoles and toads when we went.
The buffet food is pretty standard, nothing fancy. The staff members aren’t too friendly. Neal, who works as the greeter and cashier is friendly and accommodating. The rest of the staff will make you feel uncomfortable. The kinda tall, older haole lady that works in the dining room is the worst. So unfriendly. Avoid asking her for anything regarding your needs as a paying customer. She will snarl at you. Seriously.

I highly recommend Nani Mau Gardens. We moved from Washington State 2 years ago and have visited most of the garden experiences on the Big Island and we like most of them. Nani Mau offers uniquely beautiful and expansive views of a large variety of well organized gardens. If you want to see nearly all of the palms that grow in Hawaii and be able to learn their characteristics, you have only to view the detailed placards of information posted on or near the plant. Nearly all of the edible fruit plants are on display. The buffet features a wide variety of freshly prepared and delicious foods. The chef is highly attentive and very friendly and obviously proud of his work. The front desk staff and the servers are friendly and accommodating and they have a well stocked and friendly gift shop. When you buy the buffet, the garden visit is free. Either one is worth the asking price by itself. Some of the reviews I believe reflect the previous ownership and operation. Things look very good now, that’s all I can say. The food alone is worth the trip and the garden is a free «icing on the cake». You won’t be sorry!

Update from another visit. This place is just great. The entrance fee is a little bit steep but you can spend all afternoon wandering through just getting lost in the feel of the old growth. The trees are huge, as evidenced by the size of the broms and elephant ears growing on them. The orchid pavilion has excellent diversity and is well laid out.

Had the buffet lunch. It was very reasonable and good but the food is secondary to the gardens. They are included in the $ 15 price. Beautiful and expansive. Most plants are labelled so you learn as you stroll. We we on Monday. It was empty. Tour buses brought people for the buffet but they didn’t go out into the gardens! We had them to ourselves.

Let’s start off by saying the garden was nice, could be up kept a little better, but still beautiful. The garden is probably why I give this place an extra star. Went to a buffet here that was supposed to start at 11, didn’t open until after 1130. The lady in the gift shop was working really hard though, because guests kept pouring in. The staff were walking around and yelling throughout the building while getting ready for the buffet. It was really unprofessional. The food was decent, but the dessert looked like left over cake from the night before. They kept saying they were running late because of a party they had, and that people had called in sick, which I thought was TMI. Another thing is when we called to make reservations we were told we didn’t need them, then when we got there the lady told us we were lucky because there was one more table that wasn’t reserved that could fit our party of 6… Just need to work on management and I think this property/​business could be so much better.

We had a going away party for my mother in law and the food was great and we had a good time walking the gardens. That being said, the management for this place is by far THE WORST customer service I have ever personally dealt with. They made us pay upfront even though we weren’t sure how many guests we would have, they said they would refund the difference if we over paid. We counted up all our guests and only 22 of the 30 people we invited came. They now refuse to refund the $ 130 difference they owe us. It has been 3 weeks and Susan who answers the phone is rude, condescending and has a complete lack of respect for her customers. You will be made to feel as though you have come to steal, when all you want is a nice lunch with family and friends. I would tell anyone who considers eating here to GO ELSEWHERE. Major management issues!!!

The gardens are neat. They’re a little back yard-​y and still tatty in places, but have some really cool specimens and are enjoyable for strolling. There’s a shady tunnel full of orchids, some very interesting trees, and manicured expanses of lawn, which make a very pleasant overall experience. You can learn a bit about the different plants and trees via some informational placards, but I suspect a guided tour would be much more informative. The specimen labeling isn’t consistent.
The gift shop is kinda goofy, but they do have frozen novelties and cold soda, which is nice on a warm day. There’s an assortment of jewelry and other random stuff, not especially related to the garden itself.
If you visit on a tour package, they might have a buffet luncheon set up for you. Not amazing, but they have thoughtfully included a variety of choices for folks with diet limitations, which is nice.
Bathrooms are clean and capacious.
NOTE: if you want a really top-​flight garden to tour, you might check out the Allerton & McBryde Gardens (National Botanical Garden) on Kauai.

Well. I haven’t gone into the gardens because you need to pay for US $ 5.00 for admission ticket if you DO NOT purchase the meal from the café. I just DONT like the manager over there, Her name is Susan if I’m still remember, we joined the tour to go here, but you can have a choice whether you buy the lunch or not, and when I talk to this manager, Susan, I said I just paid the lunch for my friend, and I will not having lunch here. She told me if you do not buy lunch here, you can’t sit here, and you have to wait outside, and she told me i have to buy the US. $ 5.00 ticket for entry the garden. I just DON’T like her altitude, I know that’s her job, but can she talk to customer softly and more respect to her customer. My tour guide also does not like her altitude. Since she treated all her customers isn’t that friendly. We are Chinese, and I hope this is not the main reason to cause this issue.
If susan changes her behavior alittle bit, that will be alot more better.

Oh dear. I want to write to the Big Island Revealed team and tell them they should remove this from the book. Maybe this used to be worth stopping in, but when we were there in July 2011 the garden looked pretty pathetic. Fortunately we didn’t have to pay the admission fee because a family was setting up for a wedding and said they didn’t mind if we walked through. That was good because otherwise we would’ve demanded a refund. Go to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden if you want to see a lovely garden.