This tour is way overpriced. There is free stargazing available at Mauna Kea visitor center.
* Tour promises coffee tasting. You get ONE 1.5 oz cup of one type of Kona coffee and a straw dipped in some unexplained honey. I have never been to a "tasting" anywhere else in the world when you only get ONE cup. Then you're explained to buy coffee.
*Tour promises tea sampling. There was NO sampling of tea.
*Tour includes dinner, which was pre-cooked and small in portion size.
* The solar telescope was just set up in the parking lot at the Keauhou shopping center.
* The brilliant pictures in the ad sets unrealistic expectations of the night sky. You CANNOT see any colors like that through the telescope.
* For star-gazing they pull off alongside the saddle road, not far up the base of Maunakea. There is a rest stop on the other side of the road which radiates ambient light, combined with traffic headlights from the road that constantly ruin the experience.
* Overall, the staff were knowledgeable and friendly. However, the tour is overpriced and there is better (in my opinion) free stargazing from the Maunakea Visitor Information Station. The value of this trip is more around $50-75 per person. For the total price, we paid for our group (USD $198 per person), we could have bought our own solar or Dobsonian telescope (USD $800 from Walmart). These telescopes are quality; however, they are hardly "state of the art" as advertised. A better description of the telescope provided is "quality telescopes for serious amateur astronomers".
Одговор домаћина
Dec 2018
Aloha JohnT!
We are disappointed that you did not enjoy your tour with us.
At the coffee tasting, you can have as many tasting cups of coffee as you want and there is no limit, but it clearly is a tasting. The coffee is 100% estate grown, and it is one of the very few, maybe only, coffee farms that is 100% estate, instead of combining the coffee of a variety of growers. There are teas available for tasting as well, and we will look into what happened during your tour. We are very sorry that you were not happy with your experience.
The telescopes that we use are the best for clean optics. The refractor type telescopes used by every other company do not offer the same quality optics. We don’t go to the summit or visitor station which now closes at 5:00 pm.
Thank you for your input!