Repeat after me: There’s no such thing as a stupid question.
While some questions may give us pause, the only way we ever learn anything is by asking, right? Those who work in the visitor industry get pelted with questions of all sorts. They’re thrilled that people want to learn so much about their surroundings and the activities they’re taking part in, but some questions can and do make us here in Hawai‘i chuckle.
It’s certainly no different than when a Hawai‘i resident visits the U.S. mainland or another country for the first time. The questions we may ask, the pronunciations we jumble, and the geography or historical facts we simply get plain wrong, are no different, really, than what we encounter here regularly from our visitors.
So with all that in mind, we thought it would be fun to ask some of our friends who regularly work with tourists about some of the questions they’ve been asked. We’ve compiled 15 of them below. Some are innocent, some perhaps odd, and some may have even been asked tongue-in-cheek. We think you’ll agree that many of these are outright hilarious.
We’ll leave it up to you to decide which is which, while you consider how you would have answered. Who knows, you may even see a question here that you’ve been meaning to ask but were afraid to!
Q: Does the water go all the way around the island?
Q: What altitude will we be snorkeling in?
Q: What keeps the island from floating away?
Q: What if our boat hits an iceberg?
Q: How long are the bridges to the other islands?
Q: Have you ever traveled outside of Hawai‘i?
Q: Can I swim under the island?
Q: Are the fish real?
Q: Why are the submarine decks wet?
Q: Do you add dye to the ocean? This water is bluer than my ocean.
Q: Is Diamond Head real or is that a background screen for our photo?
Q: Do you need scuba gear to ride in the submarine?
Q: Does the sun ever set in front of the clouds?
Q: Is the lava indigenous to the island?
Q: How many jars of water do I need to capture all the different colors of the water?
Remember: If you don’t know, ASK! Asking questions—any question—is the first step towards learning something. So ask away!
