My wife and I took this our on October 7. It really is two tours combined into one so I will review them separately.
1. The zipline tour is the Skyline Akaka Falls tour. You can also do this as a standalone tour as four people in our zip group did. Guides were Kuleo and Alan. Very personable and friendly. Very safety conscious. Took time between each line to describe an aspect of culture or plant life. First three lines were short and very basic. Lines got longer as we went on. Last line was very long (1/2 mile?) and you took off from a high platform, went over a beautiful waterfall (not Akaka Falls.) This zipline is relatively basic as I have found most of the lines in Maui and Kona to be. But if you are new to ziplines or just like ziplines of any kind(as we do) this is a fun excursion.
2. The rest of the tour is the main part in terms of hours. We were staying in Kona so we were the first pickup (8:20am) and the last drop off (10:15pm.) Our driver/guide was Jonathan. He covered everything except the zipline. Jonathan was very pleasant and knowledgeable. He took us first to the zipline, After that we would have gone swimming in a waterfall but there had been a lot of rain so it was deemed to be too dangerous. After the zipline we went to Akaka Falls where we had lunch and took a short walk to view the falls. Beautiful! Actually higher than Niagara Falls. We then proceeded to Volcanoes National Park. While there we visited several craters, the Thurston Lava Tube, Sulphur Vents and Steam Vents. We had dinner at Kilauea Military Camp which was quite good-we ordered off a menu of about 10 choices. By the end of dinner it was dark out so we went to see the molten lava by the Jaggar Museum. The glow was quite a sight!
We have been to Volcanoes National Park twice before, once on our own and once on a tour. This was definitely the best way to go for several reasons. First, Jonathan had an amazing knowledge of the park and the best places to visit and when to visit. For example, we went by one large crater and it was very foggy so we skipped that went to several other sites and when we went back the fog was gone. I don't think it likely we could have moved around this successfully on our own. Second, unless you are staying in Hilo, if you want to see the lava glow it makes for a very long day. I would not have wanted to be driving back to Kona after that long day.
Another plus for the tour is the van. It is a van that could seat 13 people-four rows of three plus one person in front. However, they only booked 8 so each couple had their own row. We weren't crammed in or part of a huge group.
If you haven't been to Volcanoes National Park I would definitely recommend this tour, keeping in mind that it takes a full day. We had a great day, even though we had been to the park twice before.