Waikiki Parasail Hawaii — Local services in Honolulu

We were in Oahu this August. Trip was perfect except for this parasailing experience. The captain of the boat was totally irresponsible. I was there with my 2 kids and we also shared the boat with a Mom and her son. My plan was to just have the kids go up and for me to take pictures. Soon after we left the shore, I was asked by the boat crew if I want to go up with the kids, as it will be safer [ according to them ] as it was a windy day they said. I had no plans on going but I said ok. To my surprise, the ride was way more wild then I remember when I did it some years ago with a different company. When we first got up in the air, things seemed normal at first. But few minutes later, the captain started slowing down and bring us down fast. I thought the idea was maybe to lower us just enough for our feet to touch the water but that was definitely not the case! The 2 pictures I am including in this review show how violent the descent was and how strongly we hit the water. Ironically, these pictures were taken by the captain assistant. I asked around friends and people I knew they did parasailing and everyone confirmed that the only experience they had parasailing was their feet touching the water. That was NOT the case with us. We were slammed hard into the water not once but twice! We went so deep that our heads were below the water! I am certain that is not supposed to happen. I was a bit shaken but did not want to scare the kids. I kept my cool at first. Ride finished, and soon after, I started feeling nauseous and dizzy. I thought for sure that feeling will go away after an hour or so, but that was not the case. That evening, I felt nauseous and dizzy again but this time it was even stronger then before. Had a hard time sleeping. Same feeling at breakfast the next morning and for the rest of that day. I am writing this almost 20 days later and that nauseous and dizzy feeling still comes and goes and not to mention the occasional headache and eye discomfort. It is becoming clear to me now that this captain has given me a concussion!! This is infuriating to say the least. I have never had a concussion or had these effects in my life, well, not until this parasailing ride! In hindsight, the first warning was the captain when he first arrived to the boat that day. His words were not understandable and he spoke real fast, possibly under the influence of something, hard to tell. I asked the other passenger after we got off and she said she thought the same thing. She also said that she was a shook up from her parasail flight as well. She was not feeling well. This captain must not do this to any other passenger! I will be contacting the company to make sure of that! And will see what other steps to take from there. To say this parasail captain was irresponsible and reckless would be an...

We purchased coupons for parasailing at Paradise Water Sports at reasonable rates. The parasailing experience was great as the crew were quite entertaining. However, we were highly disappointed to say the least with the picture package we paid for. We paid an extra $36 for pictures package which included 75 pictures taken from a professional camera. A crew member took pictures while we were in the air and we were given an SD card. When we came home and loaded the pictures on the laptop, it was very upsetting to see that there were barely 5 pictures of us in the entire lot of 75 and the rest were random (not even focussed) pics of water, air, ropes and poles!! It looked as if zero effort was made to capture any pictures at all. Ruined the experience for us. Definitely not going back to this place.

24/09/2019: Thanks for your reply Paradise Water Sports. We were touring Hawaii from Australia and it was our first time ever parasailing. I still stand by what I said about the parasailing experience- it was great. However, we were looking to recreate memories by paying the extra $36 to buy your photo package and that was a complete waste of money. What miscommunication are you referring to? Did you forget to tell me that I was paying you to NOT take my pictures? I have added some pictures from the SD card for you to see. Most of these pics are doubled in the SD card, so more than 40 out of the 72 pics you gave me are useless. Hopefully, this makes you understand the reason for my utter disappointment. The 2-stars I gave you is not for the experience, it is for over-promising and under-delivering your services that customers are paying for. If you cannot give us decent quality 75 pictures, then why make us pay the extra $36? You could've sold me 10 pictures for extra $10 and I would've been happy to pay that. These pictures from the SD card are proof of my "claim" that your crew does not understand value for service. And, no thanks, we will certainly not be returning to a place that does not value...

We did the parasailing activity. I wasn't sure what to expect since it was my first time but it turned out to be an underwhelming experience. While the actual experience isn't entirely about the activity provider - we just thought the cost isn't worth it for what we did. We paid a total of $258 CAD for me and my husband for what was supposed to be about an hour worth of "activity".

In the activity ad from Get Your Guide it said that we will board the boat 5 mins before the reservation time - we started to walk to the boat about 5-10mins after our reservation. I'm not sure if this was because we were with another group who had someone with a walking disability but they arrived early too so I'm not sure who's fault it is that we started late.

The actual parasailing went okay, I was nervous but as soon as it took us up, it was all good. Felt very safe and got an amazing view of the city and beach. We had a couple wind blows (not sure if that's what it's called) that made the parachute move quickly while we were up and I must say that that was the most exciting part of the activity. We expected to be dipped into the ocean a few times but we were only dipped once, about 5 secs only. Then we were up again for maybe 2-3 mins then we were brought down to the boat and started to head back to the port. Total air time was maybe under 8 mins. So from boarding the boat to getting back on the port was all within 30-35 mins only. They offered the photo package but we declined since we felt that we didn't need it and it was a bit expensive for us.

A general tip that should be taken into consideration for anyone going on a boat - take motion sickness meds before and take some with you during the activity just in case. I've been on boats before but for some reason this made me feel very sick after, I think it was the bumpy trip to the ocean. Obviously this one isn't within the provider's control but just FYI.

Overall, the experience wasn't too bad. Just underwhelming and...