Flight of a Lifetime! A Helicopter Tour of Oahu

Do you know the best and most exciting way to see the island of Oahu? Helicopter. That's right, helicopter. If you haven't experienced a helicopter tour before, you may not appreciate the exhilaration of this ride, but it is quite fantastic! Our helicopter tour was with Makani Kai Helicopters of Oahu. This was a first class tour and a first class operation. Let me back up just a second...We booked most of our excursions before we left the mainland through using Hawaii Activities. However, we wanted to do a helicopter tour but was a little leery of booking and paying in advance for a certain time when we were unsure of the weather. So, after spending the morning at the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet we returned to our hotel in the early afternoon.

The weather was gorgeous and we didn't want to spend the afternoon hanging around the hotel. So, before we went back to our room we stopped at the activities desk in the lobby of the hotel. We asked the attendant to see if we could book a helicopter tour. She made a phone call and said that two seats were available if we could leave in 10 minutes. It was that simple and 10 minutes later the shuttle arrived and took us to the heliport.

We boarded the helicopter and we had the two front seats. There was a party of three in the helicopter with us and they took the back seats. The entire flight was video taped. These are availabe for purchase at an extra price. The weather was perfect as we lifted off from the heliport near the main airport on Oahu. The scenery was beautiful as we basically covered a majority of the island by air. We flew just past Diamond Head with a fantastic view of the crater. We saw several waterfalls, Pearl Harbor, and the huge waves of the North Shore, home of fantastic surfing.

The views of the pineapple fields and downtown Honolulu were unbelievable as well. If you go to Hawaii I highly recommend that you budget for this experience. The tour we were on was called the Hidden Oahu Tour and cost approximately $175 per person for a 45 minute flight. I'm fairly conservative when it comes to spending (my spouse would say I'm so tight my shoes squeak) but let me tell you, I wouldn't swap that experience for anything!!