Punahou Carnival

Punahou Carnival is an Annual Event usually held the first weekend in February! It usually rains but this past Carnival was sunny blue skies! The Junior class is responsible for choosing the theme, song and booth names and manning the food, drinks, games, plants, and white elephant booths. Of course there are a lot of volunteers helping them including parents, staff and alumni.
This is Punahou's largest fundraiser! And people come to this 2 day event: Friday and Saturday 11am to 11pm.
There are so many booths! Food includes Punahou's famous 1 script malasadas; gyros, corn, noodles, hamburger, smoothies, acai bowl, Portuguese Bean soup, and Hawaiian Plate. There are kiddie games that always is fun for kids because they can win tickets to redeem for prizes! There is the popular white elephant tent that usually has a line! Also, there is a Silent Auction, Art Gallery and plant booth.
You need to check it out next year! You'll be sure to have lots of fun!
Bring lots.of monies and patience for the long lines!

Who can not resist going to the Punahou Carnival, its a tradition here on Oahu and more so if you live in Honolulu. I'm just a sucker for carnival food and willing to wait in the loooong lines for my fix. My fav is the portugese bean soup and i always pray i get the middle or bottom of the pot, its the most hearty soup you will every have. Next is the malasada, something about their malasada that sets it apart, whether it be the texture or sugar coating something makes them irresitible. My next fav is the orange dream smoothie its simple ingredients and not too sweet and just right, then the gyros, hamburger, corn on cob and noodles, yes, I normally have one of each when I go. All that walking and talking in lines makes me hungry.

Their newest booth is a snack booth, if you haven't given it a try, go try it next time, I'm in love with their popcorn (taste like movie theatre kind), and you can add toppings or arare, etc.

Cannot go carnival without checking out the art gallery, white elephant, buff n blue logo store and carnival items, this year they had eden in love carnival bags and amazing circle blankets, got one of each and also they came out with new lunch bags (they were selling at portugese bean soup). Passed on plants this year due to ants they found before carnival. One last stop of the O Men booth they sell the big island produce, if the malasada lines are super long I go to get produce and normally by end of night you get a really good deal.

I ended up at the Punahou Carnival yesterday and it actually didn't rain. If you know about the Punahou Carnival you know that it always rains during that time. It was also a lot less crowded. I could actually walk through the place without being shoulder to shoulder with people.

I don't really ride the rides anymore. I just go for the food. I usually get the fried noodles and chicken plate. I didn't see those this year. I did get their Portuguese bean soup, malasadas, acai bowl and beef nachos.

There wasn't a line for the nachos and acai bowl, but the lines were long for the malasadas and soup. The wait for the soup was an hour and a half. Yes, I stood in that line with everyone else to get soup. The line was backed up all the way to the parking lot. They limited everyone to four containers. It wouldn't be worth it to stand in that line to get just the 5oz. size. I got three of the 32oz. containers. The lines for the malasadas weren't as bad, but they limited each person to a dozen. The hubby had to stand in line twice to get the two dozen, while I was in line for the soup. After the malasadas, he went to get the acai bowl and I was still in line for the soup, lol. Ahhh, fun times!

To my surprise they didn't raise the prices. Scripts were 50 cents each. The 32oz. soup was 17 scripts, dozen malasadas were 10 scripts, acai bowl was 17 scripts and beef nachos was 10 scripts.

Let's do an update for post COVID Carnival 2024!

2024 has rolled around and a few things are different. The theme of course has changed to "Explore the Shore." I guess some coastal theme? Really running out of ideas here kids, but can't blame them after a dozen dinosaur, space/future, music/movie, cowboy, western, safari, etc have all been done. Plus, the theme doesn't really matter, it's about having fun.

And how do you have extra fun? With great tips of course! So here are a bunch!

Alumni booth has been moved indoors so there are THREE places to get air conditioning without being injured, with the other two being art gallery and silence auction.

Art gallery has moved to Bishop, which is the octagon shaped three story building next to kiddie land.

The carnival is going almost cashless in that you can only buy script from the script booths with debit or credit cards. Touchless payments are good to go just like they were in the 2023 carnival. You can still buy full sheets of script from the Dillingham box office with cash, aka the theater where Variety show is held.

Kiddie land now has its own script booth so you don't have to leave the area when your kids burn through $50 in script in 20 minutes. You know, the amount you thought would be good for several hours. Yeah, rethink that and then go buy more script.

Haiku Leis and Jams and Jellies are now on a ticket system. This should reduce congestion and wait times.  It's a bold strategy Cotton, we'll have to see if it pays off for Punahou.

Most of the big EK rides will not be there, however, the centrifugal like Zero Gravity will be making an appearance. A host of other smaller kid friendly rides will be there. EK's big tent of games will also be there but all EK attractions must be paid for by EK fun cards which can be bought and reloaded at the Carnival.

EK fun pass CANNOT be bought with script, only cash at the EK fun pass booth.

Chicken plate is still on hiatus (insert sad face here), but you can still get a full meal at Hawaiian plate north of the Carnival grounds.

Bring sun screen and your reusable water bottles, which can be refilled for free with chilled filtered water at several  locations on campus.

Check out my earlier review for more still relevant tips!

This review applies to the 2024 carnival on Saturday night. No rides, and long lines for food because of the strong winds which I believe damaged the burger tent. Basically there was a ton of people but nothing to do and 40+ minutes wait for mediocre food. End of night we were left with script and the only other viable place to use them was the logo store. Definitely if you go on Saturday night don't overbuy script. The lack of adult rides save one or two is a big problem for the future of the carnival.

I have to admit, it's been a bit since I've been to the Punahou carnival. I was talking to my friend Keoki, an alumni who made me want to go a. We were talking about malasadas. Since he was pulling a shift there, I decided to check him out.

Yay!!!! No rain!!!! We found parking right across the street, too. We hit some good deals on the plants-50% off! They had will call, too! That was nice.

Got into the express line for malasadas and was pleased to find out you could buy up to three. So, duh! My husband and I got three each.

Then into the teri cheeseburger line. Yum!!! The Portuguese bean soup line was a bit too long for me. Maybe next year. The gyro line moved very quickly.

Then, it was on to the games. I liked that they had a "players card" system, but the games were quite expensive. Also, as we stood in line to buy the card, an employee walked down the line with preloaded $50 cards; do you didn't have to wait. However, that was less than 10 games.

We still had lots of fun - nice date night plus I'm supporting my niece's school. Will see you next year!!

First time ever to the Punahou carnival and it's getting better and better as the night went on. We arrived around 6pm on a Saturday night. First parking was a challenge, but we managed to find some space at the church parking lot at least for $10 but it was not the closest to the school.

Then the Scrips booth by the entrance had huge lines! So glad we found out about the other booths and the lines were significantly shorter. Except for the soup and malasadas, the wait for other food was not ridiculous. For carnival food, the burger and beef nachos were pretty good. I wish the corn was grilled. The malasadas were hot and fresh but personally I just don't care for malasadas but prefer a Chinese or an Okinawa donut instead. I love the cheese and ground beef on the nachos that I ate two plates myself lol.

I was pleasantly surprised by the very reasonable prices, usually carnival and fair food are ridiculously overpriced with poor quality with a long wait. Their rides and games were also very affordable!

For the rides, I went on the helicopter one with my toddler son and he absolutely loved it. We all went on the carousel too and had fun. It's my son's first time holding a golf club and he enjoyed the range a lot!

Aside from the somewhat crazy, at times unmanageable crowds and parking situation, overall it's a fun night for all of us!

Too expensive for what it is but was nice/different afternoon for sure I wouldn't come back just for the prices

Attended the 2023 punahou carnival for the first time and I was blown away impressed!

The food was sooo delicious for carnival food. Loved the Portuguese bean soup: it was full of meaty goodness. The gyro wrap was very delicious that I got 2 extra wraps to-go. The smoothie was yummy.
The price was so fair that I had extra scripts to buy food to take home.

I would love to go back every year just for the delicious food!

Living in Hawaii for the last 39 years, I've only heard about the Punahou carnival but I have never attended it. My family and I actually had the chance to go yesterday.

We decided to go at 8pm hoping that it would not be as busy and that their would be ample parking. Parking was a challenge. There was no street parking. We were able to park at Mary knoll. It was $10 for 4 hours. It was a quick 5-10 min walk to the carnival which was fine.

Upon entering there were booths to purchase scripts. The carnival was cash less so you have to buy scripts in order to obtain food, play games, and ride the rides.

Each script is 50 cents so a page of scrips is $10 for 20 scripts. The food booths rage from 9-17 scripts. My favorite booth was by far the Portuguese bean soup. I even got extra to bring home. I was trying to find the Hawaiian plates but was unsuccessful. The booth with the longest line was defiantly the malasadas. It was 10 scripts for a dozen and there was 1 dozen max per person. I brought my son and daughter in line with me in order to get 3 dozen.

The games were much reasonable. Each game was about 2 scripts. My son enjoyed them so much. He didn't want to leave. My son even joked that he wants his own book for scripts the next time.

The rides were about 8 scripts. My kids rode the big slide first and then ended with the swing. It was perfect for my kids who are 6 and 8 years old.

I was told that the white elephant is something that people stand in line for hours before the carnival even open up. Next year I'm going to do the same lol.

Overall, it was a great way to spend a Friday night. We bumped into family and friends that we haven't seen for months and even years.