I did some searching on here, and hadn't found any data points on this particular tour. I thought I'd share our experience with the Flyertalk community.

Niihau, "The Forbidden Isle", has had a bit of an allure for us for some time. When we first visited Kauai many years ago, we saw Niihau on our trip over to Waimea Canyon. We were told by the locals that the Robinson family owned the island, and that aside from the families that lived on the island and their invited guests, no one was allowed to set foot on its shores. That wasn't exactly true - the Robinson Family runs a couple of helicopter tours over there that are available to the general public. One is a full day hunting "safari", and the other is a half day aerial tour with time at Keamano Beach. We were intrigued by the later, and decided to look into a tour.

The cost of the half day helicopter ride and beach time was $450 per person - definitely not cheap, but was it worth it to step foot on the forbidden isle?

Booking the Tour

This is the part that turned out to require some patience. They only run the tour if they have at least four people interested on any given day. I emailed Niihau Helicopters about a month in advance of our trip. Luckily, there was space available on the morning of Thursday, January 27. We confirmed that we were interested and booked, thinking we were all set.

About a week beforehand, we got an email saying that the other party that was going to fly with us had cancelled, and unless a second party was also interested in taking a trip on the 27th, our booking was cancelled. This was obviously disappointing, but with 10 days on Kauai, we emailed them other dates that we were available, in case another party cancelled on a different date. As luck would have it, we got an email late on the 27th that they received a cancellation for the morning of the 28th. So we acted quickly, booked it, and were confirmed for a flight the next day. We were really excited that things seemed to be coming together!

Prepping for Flight

Niihau Helicopters' office is in Kamukani. If you've ever driven on HI-50 towards the canyon, you've probably passed by Aloha Sweet Delites - a bake shop along the side of the road that serves up excellent donuts, fritters, and malasadas. Niihau Helicopters has an office in that same strip mall, along with the Kamukani post office. We arrived here at 8am in preparation for the flight, along with 5 other guests. The usual pre-flight stuff happened here, including weight/balance calculations, safety briefings, etc. This was led by the office lady who emails with you to make your booking.

Rules were also discussed. One important one was mentioned - no pictures or video were permitted to be posted publicly on the internet. This is why my post doesn't have any of our pictures - they wanted to protect the privacy of the people and the island. To some extent, I get that, although I'm not sure that the vast majority of our pictures would have had any effect on the island's privacy. But, we were guests and I had no issues respecting and following their rules.

After this, we followed her car over to Port Allen Airport to meet our helicopter.

The Trip Over

We boarded the helicopter at 8:45 or so. Dana was our pilot - he has been a helicopter pilot since 1985, and has been working for the Robinsons since 2000 or so. He was great - takeoff was smooth and he started talking about the island and began pointing out some landmarks. One interesting thing on this trip - by flying over the ocean during the winter, we were able to see a number of whales in the water from above. I thought this was really neat - usually helicopter tours in Hawaii focus on the island itself, and leave the whale watching to the boats. However, you get a really neat vantage point over the ocean in a helicopter of the whales, because you can see them while they are submerged and swimming in the water. You don't have to wait for them to breach the surface like you would in a boat.

Dana got us to Niihau in a matter of minutes, and we began touring the island from above. He pointed out a number of interesting features, including the island's lakes, the roads (this island is actually impressively well connected by road, even if they are 4WD roads), the wildlife, and the small village of Puuwai. We didn't spend much time over Puuwai - just a few seconds or so - but it was enough to get a feel for it. Definitely very rustic - no high rise hotels here!

We landed on a relatively flat area on the north end of Niihau, just off of Keamano Beach, near Lehua.

Beach Time

One of the highlights of this trip is that you get to spend roughly 3.5-4 hours on the beach. This was some of the best beach time I've spent on any trip to Hawaii. The beach combing was excellent - my wife found a ton of great shells that had washed up ashore. It was really easy to find good stuff, given that the beach was untouched aside from these tours that happen a few times a week. The beach was excellent for snorkeling - it was calm and the fish didn't have to deal with hordes of people, so they hung out in this area which allowed us to see a bunch of stuff here very easily. The highlight was a monk seal that was lying on a reef offshore - he was putting on a show for us the entire time while he sunned himself. This felt very different from the seals that sun themselves onshore - it was neat to be able to see one while we were in the water snorkeling around that area of the reef.

Dana also hung out with us and was happy to answer any questions we had about Niihau. The living there is apparently as rustic as it looks from the air - outhouses only, and the houses themselves are quite small. Most are about 900sqft or smaller. A supply ship comes once a week or so to replenish the island.

A picnic lunch was included - they give you a few choices of sandwiches when you make the reservation. Drinks, chips, and cookies were also provided. I thought this was one of the better activity lunches that I've gotten.

The Return Back

The 3.5 hours whizzed by, and it was time to pack up and return to Kauai. The trip back was quick, we said our goodbyes to the other guests, and made our way back. Again, it was great to see whales and some of the features of Kauai on the way back from the copter.

So, was it worth the $450? Given everything we did, I'd say yes, but your mileage will vary depending on your interest and how much you value being able to visit Niihau. We got to visit an island typically off limits to everyone, got an excellent helicopter tour of the island as well as being able to see whales from above, were able to visit a picturesque beach with excellent snorkeling, and got to learn a little bit about the island itself. It was a bucket list thing for us, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who thinks they might be interested!