After a pretty big day yesterday, we wanted to spend some more time relaxing. Visiting another beach was on our itinerary and also visiting the food truck park near Costco in Kahului. But we had to earn our food truck dishes by completing another adventure first - The Air Maui Helicopter Tour.
Air Maui
Partaking a helicopter tour is almost a rite of passage for being a tourist in Hawaii. We had visited the island of Oahu a number of times but we never took a helicopter tour. This time, after doing a bit of research, we decided to take a tour with Air Maui on a 45 minute ride through West Maui to Molokai.
We chose Air Maui because the tour price is very competitive. A typical helicopter tour can easily rival the round trip ticket cost to Hawaii from the mainland. Air Maui is no exception but it was the most price competitive companies that I found.
We decided on the 45 minute West Maui and Molokai tour mainly because we would get to see another island - Molokai, while we were here in Maui. This tour is also the most price competitive tour ($252 pp in June 2022) that Air Maui offers.
We booked the tour in late May about two weeks before we traveled. Our check in time at the Kahului Heliport was 10:15 am on Sunday, 6/5 for our 10:45 am tour.
The four of us had breakfast at Wow Wow Hawaiian Lemonades at the nearby Azeka Shopping Center in Kihei while we let Granda took time to get ready.
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| Starting our day at Wow Wow Hawaiian Lemonades |
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| Big Acai bowl to fuel us on another day of adventure |
Air Maui is located at the Heliport adjacent to the Kahului Airport. We had to pay a small parking fee ($5) to park at the Heliport parking for the duration of the tour.
After checking in, we watched a quick safety video and was provided with a life jacket to be clipped onto our waist.
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| MM ready for the ride |
At 10:45, we were led through the back door to the tarmac and our ride was waiting for us. The ground crew had us wait at a white line about 20 yards in front of the helicopter for a quick photo op, and we were soon whisked onto the helicopter for take off.
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| Heading to the helicopter |
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| MM and I got the front seats next to the pilot |
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| The photo op in front of the helicopter |
The helicopter tour was the only excursion that we purchased on this trip and I was quite on the fence before booking it. I would say that this is the type of excursions that you have to expect to do when you come to places like Maui. It was fun, costly, but overall I would say it is worth it.
Costco
We had our mind set on the food truck park next to Costco for lunch. After the tour, we drove down Hana Highway and made it to the food truck park just in time for the lunch crowd.
We tried Thai Mee Up and Geste Shrimp and both were great. Thai Mee Up was grandma's favorite and we would return to the Costco food truck Park again to try other trucks on our departure day.
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| Made it to the food truck park by Costco |
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| Thai Mee Up! |
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| MM enjoying the Pad Thai |
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| Geste Shrimp |
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| GG ready to dig in |
After checking lunch off the list, we made a pit stop at Costco to get gas before heading back to Kihei for a free afternoon. Before heading back to Kihei, we stopped at Ululani's Shave Ice by Costco for our daily fix.
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| MM braving the crowd at Costco Maui |
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| Fresh poke |
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| Shredded Taegu (cod), poi, and pork lau lau |
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| Ululani's on Dairy and Hana Highway |
Wailea Beach
We did not make it to Wailea Beach until well past 4:00 pm. We had tried to go to the beaches in Kihei but the afternoon trade wind was too strong. We were able to relax on the beach beach and left around six pm to pick up Grandma for dinner. Before heading back to our apartment, we stopped by the upscale Shops at Wailea to pick up couple of items.
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| MM arriving at Wailea Beach |
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