should i do the Helicopter tour?

i will visit big island on june 30 to july 7th with my wife, we want to know should we do the helicopter tour in hawaii. special price is around $350 per person, if we do which tour company is good. thank you for your recommend.

should i do the Helicopter tour?

Paradise out of does the tour for 340.. out of Kona, Blue Hawaii does a shorter tour for 400 to 475.. when last I checked.

The best deal is the fix wings which I think do a better job and show you the entire island for around 260.

The 45 min flight to the volcano from Hilo is a very poor value as it shows the visitor very little for a lot of $$$$$$, Pennywiise and pound folish in my book

should i do the Helicopter tour?

Hawaiidan, I know you have answered my questions about the fixed wing tours before. So here goes: Can you take descent pictures from the windows? Is there any one company you would recommend? Should we book this on the internet or wait until we get there? I am sorry this is lengthy. We are getting very excited and want to make sure we do things the right way.

I%26#39;m going to be on the BI in May and am trying o figure out which heli operator is best for us. I am seriously thinking about taking Tropical Helicopter trip from Kona on the 2 hour trip - has anyone done this before? Is the Bell 470 comfortable enough? Do you get enough time over the volcano since they have to fly across the island to get there??

$350 per person is a lot of money to me... I just want to make the best decision possible.

If you get over to Hilo, here are some of the prices that were available when we were there two months ago:

Safari Helicopters ';waterfall %26amp; volcano'; 45 minutes for $149; if you call them direct @ 808-969-1259.

Sunshine 45 minutes @ $160 if booked online at sunshinehelicopters.com

Tropical $157 for a 50 minute ';Volcano-Waterfall Adventure';; 808-961-6810.

Have departed from Waikoloa once and Hilo numerous times. They both spend the same amount of time over Volcano National Park.

The northern route from Kona to Hilo offers nice scenery; once you reach Waimea which is a great place for lunch, shopping and several museums.

We were there last Dec. and took Tropical Helicopters out of Hilo. It was awesome. My husband still raves about it and says it is one of the best things he has done in his life. I am sure if HawaiiDan says you see more by fixed wing, you probably do....but you don%26#39;t feel the heat of the volcano in a fixed wing like you do with a doors off helicopter tour. Our pilot was great going over everything multiple times for everyone in the helicopter to view it. We had some awesome views!

Paradise is the only helo out of Kona.. no tropical. Big Island air runs the Kona fix wing that is best. I cant see paying 200+ for the doors off tour for 40 min(of which 30 min is over residental Hilo) when for $40 to $50 more you get 1:20 min more .....and see the best sight here the Kohala Mt falls. region ... the 2800 footers that roar not trickel down. The volcano is a warm up act ( no pun)

As much as I hate to question you Dan, (you%26#39;ve been a great help thus far) on Tropical%26#39;s website, it says ';kona adventures'; and gives a map of their location out of Kona Intl. (tropicalhelicopters.com/kona_adventures.php)

I respect your opinion on the fixed-wing tours, but I worry about visibility out of the windows. How does it compare.

Thanks again for all your guidance in these forums...

Hei guys,

thanks for all your help. is any chance do you have fix wings phone numebr which i can contact with it? and also which tour company is proive most good price and detail tour around lava and also we can taking good pictures on the trip. thanks for the help....

Could be wrong on this... but I never saw torpical..so I checked......... ooops the are here.

The deal with Fix wing is there are no middle seats to get stuck in and the aircraft has as big or bigger windows than most helos. Another porblem is if you tip the scale over 240... you have to pay double and there are NO kids discounts..

The airplanes all offer a one price adult and offer a kids fare.... everyone gets a window

There are no tours that will take you to see the lava... it is in a closed section of the park too dangerous to enter...

You could find I guess some one to try to sneak you in. Remember if you do, you will be entering a '; no rescue zone'; that neither the Rangers or any other help will not enter to assist you or rescue you. Break a leg and you will stay where you broke it for the rest of your life... that shouldnt be more than a few days however due to hypothermia alone

On our Tropical tour I felt like we got right out of Hilo and on to Volcano. We got amazing views of lava in the Volcano which we would have never have got on ground. We also got to see the lava flowing into the ocean from amazing angels. We did walk out the night before and saw it hitting the ocean, but not like this. The volcano was definately the highlight of the tour and by no means did we feel it was too fast.

Our tour was the doors off tour with volcano and falls. We didn%26#39;t really get a great view of the falls, basically just a fly by, but the volcano views more than made up for it.