Ugly Travel Moments: Helicopter Tour of Kaua'i, Hawaii (2010)

We had QUITE the adventure on our first trip to Hawaii. I know I've probably mentioned in every recap of Hawaii (both verbally and on the blog) how our first trip to Hawaii was seriously jaded by the fact that three days before we left for our trip, my husband tore his achilles tendon playing basketball.

We would have been out thousands of dollars, so the doctor gave him an orthopedic boot and pain killers and sent us on our way. There are SO many stories about this trip (none of which I believe I've ever disclosed on this blog), but the best (by FAR) was the helicopter tour of Kaua'i.

The hubby and I aren't light people, but Blue Hawaii's website stated that anyone weighing over 250lbs would have to pay an additional $100 due to having to give up a seat for balancing purposes. Well, the hubs was right around 248 before we left a week prior, so he was freaking out that he would be over the weight limit and have to pay more (especially since we had just spent 3 days gorging ourselves on Oahu), so he skipped breakfast that day. Did I mention he was on some serious pain killers (that say they are to be eaten WITH food) and had a torn Achilles tendon? Well, what I hadn't mentioned was that the doctor had recommended stool softeners, since the intense pain killers had been known to stop a person up, if you know what I mean.

Everything seemed to be going well. The pain killers had kicked in, we weighed in easy peasy (him at 235 - nothing to worry about at all!), and we sat down to watch the pre-flight video. Mark scarfed down a few granola bars, since he was in the clear weight-wise, but was pretty darn hungry still.

We finally boarded the helicopter (and those things seem WAY too tiny, btw), and got our headsets on and were ready to go. Our pilot, Kevin, introduced himself and explained how the headsets worked, and before we knew it, we were off!

We took in some INCREDIBLE views (seriously - nothing will likely top the views here!):

We also discovered that Mark gets sick in helicopters. Oh my goodness was it the worst experience ever. He was drenched in sweat from head to toe, his stomach was turning knots, and he felt nauseous the entire time.

The poor guy was elated when we finally landed!

We spent another couple hours back at the hotel after that so his stomach could get back to normal before we went on with our day.

That is one experience we will NEVER forget!