Valor Tours to Historic Battlefields

From Paul Trusten, a Valor Tours participant:
"

Once before, I awarded a TripAdvisor "sixth green dot" to a business for exceeding the top rating allowed by the TripAdvisor rankings, and it's time to do it again, this time for Valor Tours/Bilikiki Cruises.

As a passenger aboard the MV Bilikiki for its 2014 tour Return To Guadalcanal, I knew I was making a personally historic journey, that of retracing some of my father's steps as a U.S. Army soldier during the Pacific Theater in World War II. But this tour, designed by Valor Tours and operated by Bilikiki Cruises, proved to be an existential adventure of the highest order, an intimate journey among South Pacific islands that time and a busy world forgot, a facing of rough seas and a challenging tropical climate, and an experience shared by 17 other passengers who would all become fast friends in the process.  Some of the passengers on this trip were previous customers of Valor Tours. 

The tour participants met in Honiara, Guadalcanal, capital of Solomon Islands,  after a flight together from Los Angeles, and there boarded the MV Bilikiki, a 10-cabin, 20 passenger boat, for a voyage across the Solomon chain to visit various venues of the Guadalcanal Campaign of 1942-43, first U.S. offensive of the war. We visited and hiked along roads and jungle paths, discovering the litter of war (old tanks, rusted gun turrets, vintage Coke bottles, forks from mess kits), and we walked on old airfields that were a part of the struggle. But that wasn't all. The ship's crew treated us like kings and queens, regaling us with sumptuous, on-board meals three times a day(often includiing freshly caught local fish such as kingfish,  expertly guiding us in and out of the "tinnies" (transfer boars) to visit each of the islands, and finally, educating us on the various phases of the battle with videos and with the expertise of the tour leader, Prof. Andy Giles of the University Of Maine. In addition, on-board diving experts and what I am told is one of the world's premier diving boats (the Bilikiki itself) added to the adventure for those passengers with diving and snorkeling experience. 

By its nature and in its per-person cost, this tour is not for everybody. But I think all of us who invested in it and finished it agreed that the experience was worth every turn, and the cost was worth every cent. It seems we all felt that it was worth the planning and the expense. I shall remember those days in the Solomons for the rest of my life,  and I believe I am one name on a long list of past Valor Tours happy customers."