The verdict
There are twelve bookable listings on this page and they are not twelve versions of the same thing. One lands. One takes the doors off. Two cross the channel to Molokai. Three never leave the ground. Our pick for the best helicopter tour Maui sells is the seventy-five-minute flight with a landing at $2,303 — 332 reviews at 4.9, and the only one that puts you on ground no road reaches.
Quick answer
Best overall: the Road to Hana flight with a landing, $2,303, 332 reviews at 4.9. Best cheap flight: the forty-five-minute rainforest and crater tour at $396. Best for photographs: doors off at $452. Best long flight: ninety minutes over two islands at $611. If you want the Hana coast without flying at all, the small-group road tour at $282 carries 689 reviews.
Book direct
One for the day itself, one for the budget, one for the camera, one for the distance.
★ 4.9 · 332 reviews
★ 5 · 21 reviews
★ 4.8 · 45 reviews
★ 5 · 7 reviews
Best overall
332 reviews at 4.9, and the only landing that has no road to it.
We keep coming back to a single number. This listing carries 332 reviews at 4.9. Every other flight on Maui sits between one review and forty-five. That is not a small difference in quality; it is a difference in how much evidence exists that the thing is good.
What it does that nothing else does is land for thirty minutes in the Wailua Valley, on a former taro plantation with no road, no trail and no track to it. For that half hour the people from your helicopter are the only people there. Everything else the best helicopter tour Maui sells has to offer — the waterfalls, the black coast, the rainforest — you also get from a cheaper flight. The ground time you do not.
The honest caveat: it is the dearest flight on this page that is not a three-island charter, and if the half hour on the ground is not what you are buying, you are paying a lot for minutes you could have bought at $396.
Best cheap flight
The cheapest way into the air, and a sensible route.
This is the cheapest way into a helicopter on Maui, and the route is well chosen: up to the summit of Haleakala first, then down the eastern flank over the Hana rainforest, the waterfalls and the north shore. You see the two things the island is actually known for, in the order that makes sense.
It carries 21 reviews at 5.0. That is a thin evidence base compared with the landing flight, but it is not nothing, and the route is the same one Maui operators have flown for decades.
Its twin at $396 flies the other half of the island — West Maui and a look at Molokai — for the same fare. Which one to take comes down to whether you would rather see rainforest or sea cliffs.
Best for photographs
The glass is the problem. This listing removes it.
Glass is the limit on what you bring home from any helicopter tour Maui offers. It reflects the cabin, it softens contrast, and it puts a grey veil over exactly the deep greens and blacks you came for. Removing it changes the photographs more than any camera setting will.
Forty-five minutes over West Maui and the Molokai cliffs, 45 reviews at 4.8, minimum age ten, goggles provided. Everything in the cabin has to be secured — that is a federal rule, not an operator preference — so no loose lens caps, no hats, and a wrist strap on the camera.
It is also colder and much louder than a doors-on flight, and about $56 dearer than the same forty-five minutes with the doors on. People who want the memory rather than the file are usually happier in the closed cabin.
Best long flight
Twice the flight, and the cheapest minutes on the page.
Ninety minutes is twice the standard circuit, and it is the only listing that covers West Maui, the channel, Molokai and a landing at Ulupalakua Ranch on the way home. Per minute it is the cheapest flying on this page — about $6.79 a minute against $8.80 for forty-five minutes.
It carries 7 reviews at 5.0, which is a new listing rather than a proven one. If you want the Molokai crossing with more evidence behind it, the fifty-five-minute two-island flight at $2,653 has 188 reviews at 4.8.
What we would not book, and why
They are not bad. They are simply beaten by something else on this page.
Ninety minutes and three islands for more than the two-island flight with 188 reviews. It is here to show you the ceiling of the market, not because we would spend it.
A new listing with a single review, dearer than the forty-five-minute flight that covers the crater as well. Wait for it to accumulate evidence.
Two forty-five-minute circuits cost more than one ninety-minute flight and show you less.
Our pick: 332 reviews at 4.9, and the only Maui flight that lands somewhere without a road.
Check dates for the landing flight→Common questions
The Road to Hana flight with a landing: 332 reviews at 4.9, more than every other listing on this page combined.
It is different. It is the only one that lands somewhere the road does not reach. If that is not the point of your day, $396 shows you the same coast from above.
Doors off for the photographs, doors on for comfort and for anyone under ten. There is no third answer.
Ninety is cheaper per minute and covers two islands. Forty-five is enough if you only want the Hana coast or only West Maui.
The flight shows you the parts of that coast the road never reaches. The road shows you the waterfalls from underneath. They are not substitutes, and most people who do both are glad they did — on separate days.
How we ranked them
Weighted evidence, uniqueness, then price per minute.
Reviews, weighted by how many. A 5.0 from nine people is not better evidence than a 4.9 from 332. Across the twelve listings there are 1,952 reviews, and 332 of them sit on one flight. When we call something the best helicopter tour Maui sells, that asymmetry is doing most of the work.
What it does that nothing else does. A listing that lands somewhere unreachable, or removes the glass, or crosses a channel, is offering something the others cannot match at any price. A listing that flies five minutes longer is not.
Cost per minute, as a tie-breaker only. Useful for comparing two scenic flights against each other, useless for comparing a scenic flight against a landing.
What the reviews complain about. Across every helicopter tour Maui listing here, the complaints are about weather rebookings rather than about the flights, which is a good sign and also a warning to leave a spare day.
The four picks, restated in one line each
Every one of these is bookable from this page.
Seventy-five minutes, thirty of them standing in a valley with no road. 332 reviews at 4.9.
Forty-five minutes, the crater and the rainforest. The cheapest helicopter tour Maui operators sell.
Doors off over West Maui and the Molokai cliffs. Age ten and over.
Ninety minutes, both volcanoes and Molokai, and the cheapest minutes on the page.
In short
Four listings answer every reason to fly.
The best helicopter tour Maui sells is the seventy-five-minute Road to Hana flight with a landing, $2,303, 332 reviews at 4.9 — because it is the only helicopter tour Maui has that puts you on ground no road reaches.
The best cheap helicopter tour Maui offers is $396. The best helicopter tour Maui has for photographs is doors off at $452. The best long one is $611.
Those four cover every reason anyone books a helicopter tour Maui operators fly. The other eight listings on this page exist to show you the shape of the market around them.
Go deeper
Thirty minutes on ground no road reaches, from $2,303.
CostFrom $396 for forty-five minutes, and what the landing adds.
Road or air620 curves and ten hours, against forty minutes of flying.
Doors offWhat changes, and the rules nobody reads until check-in.
BookingWeights, seats, and what sells out on Maui.
When to goThe trade-wind cloud sits exactly where the rainforest is.
Maui: Road to Hana Helicopter & Waterfall Tour with Landing
★ 4.9 · 332 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h