This was our 4th trip with Tradewinds Charter and I anticipate coming back next time we are in…read moreOahu. The experience was super relaxing and very memorable. The boat is clean, comfortable, and very spacious; the crew has been exceptionally amazing every single time (which is why we keep coming back!). The service truly is top notch, and the crew takes every step to ensure each passenger is comfortable and their experience is the best possible. This time we got Captain Ken himself and he was lovely to meet and converse with. I highly recommend supporting this family owned business.

I highly recommend Tradewind Charters! If you're on the fence about booking a charter, do it with…read morethis company! They kind of have a choose your own adventure approach, so my group and I elected to snorkel for a bit and then sail for the remainder of our 3 hour charter. The wind made the sailing a bit spicy so it was truly a blast! Gehrig and Wes were awesome! Gehrig was super helpful and jumped in the water with us while we snorkeled to point out a few fish and turtles. Captain Wes was great as well--he chatted with us about his time in Oahu and answered our incessant questions about sailing. We will definitely be back!

We had the best time on this cruise! The whole Crew was so nice and friendly. My friend got engaged…read moreand they let us decorate the boat which was such a nice surprise for her. When you see other boats they are big with a bunch of People but we like How intimate this was. The dj was killer and it was fun to not just have a playlist but an ACTUAL dj live mixing. Everyone was dancing. On the boat it was raining a little so the fact that the boat was covered in some Areas and open in others was so clutch. Can't recommend them enough.

Great time!! Beautiful view Wonderful customer service. We will definitely come againread more

You will see two other companies with similar names to this one, but they are not the same as this…read moreone. Make sure you are booking with Dan! Dan is the guy who runs The Real Hawaii. I found him through TripAdvisor when I was seaching for a private circle tour. We were a group of two, and I wanted something small, custom and personal, over an impersonal group tour. If you are looking for the same, Dan is your man. Booking through the external sites is easy, but I recommend calling Dan and booking through him directly. He is polite and prompt in his service. He has a fleet of three vehicles: two jeeps and a van. We took a tour in one of his Jeeps. We scheduled a pickup at our Waikiki Beach hotel the day before. He picked us up promptly at 7am for our tour on the scheduled day. He was very professional, fun and a great conversationalist. He took us to some very beautiful spots of places with names I have trouble pronouncing. He will point out the spots of simple beauty, but also take you to places you never knew you needed to visit. Every place he goes, he has a story or experience there. He seems to know everyone, which makes your tour very efficient. He also adjusts your tour's pace to you, and you will never feel rushed. Some of the lookouts and beaches were so breathtaking. The Pipeline Beach area is a must. You would think places like that do not exist, but WOW. Even if you are not a surf fan, you will appreciate a stop there. The restaurants he takes you to are great! We stopped at Fumi's and Aoki's and I was impressed by both. The shopping area we went to on the North Shore was nice. Lots of photo ops, and Dan will even show you some filming locations from movies and tv shows. We got lucky and even saw quite a few whales during our tour! Overall, this is probably one of the best private tours I have been on in all my years of traveling. Dan knows his stuff, and we were super happy with our experience. Customer service, excellent. Driving, excellent. Tour stops, excellent. And Dan, excellent. Thank you, Dan!

Shannon who was are driver was awesome. We had a great time and showed us a lot of local things had…read morereal knowledge of the island he is a local and grew up there. Also he did a awesome job of staying ahead of other groups so basically at all our stops we where the only ones around. I booked 3 different activities while I staying in Hawaii and The Real Hawaii by far blew the other groups out of the water. I will recommend this tour group for anyone visiting and I have friends coming soon who I recommend to you. Wish you nothing but the best and hope to see you again. If you are planning on going to the north shore book through this guy and save your self the headaches he knows his stuff. Mahalo my friend.

Our family trip to O'ahu with five adults and one child was magical in so many ways, but arranging…read morea sunset sail was definitely a highlight that made us feel like we were in a different tax bracket even though it was reasonably priced. My husband and mother-in-law have sailed Hobie Cats and other small boats before but to have this Gulfstream 32 footer to ourselves was such a cool experience. Our captain was gracious and entertaining and we've already told everyone who might be planning a North Shore O'ahu trip to make sure to book a charter with this crew.

My family had a wonderful time sailing around Haleiwa. The view of the coast from offshore is…read moreawesome. We saw rainbows and Humpback whales. A special day for all of us. Get out there and have some fun. Easy no brainer, we will be back.

I had wonderful time on Golden Dragon. A crew 5. we caught 3 Marlins in under 4 hrs. I hooked one…read more77 inches . The one 72 inches third we let go. Fighting a fish in fighting chair, is better holding in rod holder. They 6 lines and each two numbers.If bite any lines. Mate know who fishing in chair. I reeled my in by myself. On down motion reel in raise catch breathe. My

DO NOT BOOK WITH SANDY'S. IT WILL SCREW YOU AT THE LAST MINUTE AND YOU WILL NOT FIND ANY OTHER…read moreBOAT THAT CAN TAKE YOU. I will try to make it as short as possible. This fishing activity is the biggest reason for our Hawaiian trip because my 10-year son really wanted to try and was looking forward to it. We booked 2-3 months ago with Sandy's, and it was all good and confirmed then. The day before the fishing day, at 5 pm, and the boat is to leave from the port 6 am next morning, I received an email from Sandy's that our trip is cancelled. The same day in the morning, Sandy's even sent me an email that everything is confirmed and on the schedule. Around 7:30 pm, we called Sandy's multiple times but no one picked up the phone and no one called me back - we sent our phone number via SNS messenger. Voicemail box was full. Our hotel was only 10 minutes away from Sandy's so we decided to drive to Sandy's to ask but we could not find the office. At the port, I asked other fishermen if they knew Sandy's and one fisherman said Sandy's is out from the water for months. Sandy's knew our fishing trip was not going to happen and kept quiet about it until the last day. This place is dishonest and it will ruin your plan. P.S. my experience is just same another reviewer, Steve L.

Ian at Hawaii's Best Activities arranged a tour on Molokai for us to see the Fr. Damien's…read moresettlement and other places of interest. We chose the "fly in, fly out" option for this tour. The tour and the tour guide were over the top of our expectations. The tour was extremely interesting and the plane rides to and from Kaluapapa were totally awesome. It was a great way to see Molokai from the air. We would highly recommend this tour and this company. The trip was perfect. Thank you, Ian, for arranging this tour for us. Definitely worth it!

What a great experience - my first with a charter flight…read more A group of us chartered a plane to Kalaupapa to tour the peninsula. I did not book the flight, so I can't speak to that process, but our experience from airport to airport and back again was excellent. There isn't a big sign for Pacific Air Charters, but the building is clearly marked with the address, so we knew we were in the right place. Lots of parking out front on a Saturday morning, even though the spaces are not all striped. Lucy met us and escorted us up to the office and restrooms. We hung out with complimentary tea/coffee while our pilot finished up his final checks. She was very gracious and welcoming. Lucy then escorted us down to the aircraft, and I was pleasantly surprised - twin-engine Piper Super Chieftain. Some in our group were a little nervous about such a small aircraft but it was a lot nicer than some commercial planes I've been on. No TSA theatre, no lines. Our pilot came out to greet us - his name was Ace and he was a total Captain-Sully type. Very professional and left me feeling like we were in capable hands. He did a quick safety briefing for us, then placed us row by row for weight and balance. Every seat had headphones, which was good for noise reduction, but aviation geeks will enjoy listening to the radio communications with the tower and other aircraft. We had a quick taxi and takeoff, and we had such a smooth ride. Visibility got worse later in the day with vog, which was a bummer, but we even got to chase a couple whales in the morning on our way over to Kalaupapa. Fast flight - 25 minutes, max. Ace hung out at the airport while we did our tour, which was surprising; I figured he'd run back to Honolulu or at least go topside Molokai. But, when we were finished that afternoon, we did a repeat safety briefing, sat back in our assigned seats, trundled down the runway and we were off. We had a lot of sea-breeze convection and lightning over Oahu, but it wasn't a problem, thankfully - we stayed out to sea and came in from over the water instead of a town-side approach. The headsets were a bit static-y on the return, I suspect as a result of the weather, so I couldn't hear as well. An overall great experience. We filled the plane with 9 of us, and I thought the price was very reasonable per person, considering we had charter service to an isolated airstrip. Will definitely consider them again if travels warrant!

The pilots and staff at Pacific air charters are what makes this experience so smooth an enjoyable…read more I regularly use them to travel interisland to avoid waiting around and having to deal with TSA. They are always on time and do everything they can to make my travel plans work and are incredibly flexible to my needs. Thank you Lucy for always looking after me so well.

Worst tour company!…read more Worst tour company ever. My husband and I thought since we were huge fans of the TV show LOST and going to Oahu that it would be worth spending just over $500 for a tour of lost filming locations. We figured since this may be a once in a lifetime trip that we should splurge on this. We did look up tons of locations on our own, but thought that this would give us the little extras we might miss on our own. We also booked it for our second of 9 days in case we wanted to go back to any of the locations. We were picked up by Tom who seemed ok although a bit quirky. Not long into our ALL day tour, he was straight out rude. He would mumble information and if we asked him to repeat it, he would either quickly mumble an answer we couldn't understand or ignore us all together. Beware, he also took us to Hurley's mental institution and showed us the wrong building. My husband caught this and we walked across a lawn to see the actual site. It was private property so we were unable to go right up to the building. We did tell him that we were going to take a couple of quick pictures and he was fine with it. The botanical garden is where Kate and Sawyer's waterfall is. We had to pay the entry fee which is clearly noted on the website, but it should be noted that it is a long walk to it and there is so much to see that you do not have time to enjoy it all. We rushed to the waterfall and were prepared to swim for about 20 minutes, but it was completely filled with tourists, it was not like it was on the show. They also require you to wear a life vest to swim and it is not a dangerous little area to swim in. Needless to say we sat for a few minutes then made our way back down to the meeting spot in the parking lot. Now, it was time for lunch, the website is misleading. If you go to the burger restaurant formally co-owned by Daniel Dae Kim, your tour gets cut short that time. We opted to grab something quick. There is no vegetarian option according to Tom other than the local grocery store, Foodland. We quickly ate some prepared food inside and went back to the car. Tom said we should have eaten "on the go" because that was the plan. He had a new Range Rover and he never told us this. We did not think we were supposed to. We said we found both vegetarian and meat options and they were great, he replied that he was surprised because it was "it was a dive". We were confused as to why he would take customers to a "dive". We enjoyed our dinner. It found this rude and unprofessional for him to criticize the place he took us to and that we enjoyed. Throughout the tour we would try to have conversations, but it was obvious he did not want to engage. We even offered him a bottle of water since it was a warm day, he declined. During the entire day he would speed, often doubling the speed limit. He was not paying attention as he was on both his phone texting and looking through his iPad. His sporadic driving did not feel safe, but it was out of our control and we paid a lot of money for this so we just had to deal with it. There was one time where we asked to roll down the window to take pictures of the radio tower because he was not stopping as it wasn't part of our scheduled stops and he said it was fine, which later he lied about and called my husband and I rude for rolling down the window. The tour ended and we politely parted ways with Tom. We kept our manners throughout the day even though it was not returned on his end. We even asked if we were taking too long at some spots when taking pictures and he would always say we were good. Although, there were times where he would start to head back to the car without us, or not even get out at all and we felt rushed. My husband and I reflected on what happened during the 6 long hours we spent with Tom. We just were not happy that we spent over $500 for this tour and did not enjoy ourselves and were often made to feel uncomfortable. Since we were picked up at the condo we rented, we opted to contact the tour company after we returned home. We requested a call the call came and the man by the name of Paul Slavik immediately demanded to know what I was hoping to get out of the phone call. He sounded very much like our tour guide Tom, his tone, delivery, and impatient words. I asked he listen to what I had to say before anything because I did not want anyone else to have this experience. He ignored that and said to tell him what I wanted to get out of the phone call then I could talk. I remained calm and did not feed into his attitude, I asked for half of my money to be refunded, as we did were driven around that day. He said "done" and I insisted I explain what happened. I went into details and there was little response to anything I said other than the occasional rushed "yup" that let me know he hadn't hung up on me. The conversation ended and he abruptly got off the phone. About 2 weeks later our refund showed up.

HAWAIIAN ESCAPADES PROVIDE TOURS FOR THE TV SHOW LOST ??? WHAT A LAUGH!!!…read more HAWAIIAN ESCAPADES beware, just because they do tours of the TV SHOW LOST , does not mean they are LOST fans. I even had my guide say he hates the show LOST. The tour guide flat out told us he was not a fan of the show. That may be, but I could not believe he would actually tell us this while we were on a very expensive tour specifically for the show! You could tell that he was not a fan, he was not knowledgeable at all and couldn't answer very many questions. Again, he just stuck to the script he was given. The tour guide was absolutely horrid, he's definitely in the wrong line of work. He kept talking to us as if we were stupid, explaining over and over again how the Lost show used buildings for filming, as if we don't know what filming on location means. He kept saying, "Why re-invent the wheel? They just used what was there and made it their own". He must have told us this at least 20 times. He also kept repeating other phrases over and over throughout the day, which was very annoying. It was like he had a script and did not vary from it. There were very long stretches of driving where he didn't say anything. All in all it was a pretty miserable day and I cannot believe for the amount of money we paid, the tour was so lousy. We are huge fans of the Lost show and were hugely dissapointed. I will definitely NEVER RECOMMEND HAWAIIAN ESCAPADES TO ANY OF MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY VISITING HAWAII.