Taikobo Hawaii

we weren’t with this tour but got ran off the road coming DOWN Mauna Kea on the gravel road at the top by one of these van drivers. if your concerned about your safety i suggest choosing another tour or if you want to risk your life rolling down the side of a mountain then go ahead. Just thought ya’ll should know the people driving these vans are not cautious at all.

I took their Mauna Kea Summit tour over the weekend and it was awesome.
Our tour guide, Andy, picked us up from the hotel and we headed to Mauna Kea. The tour shuttle was a typical tour van sized vehicle, seating about 9 people.
We stopped at the Vistor Center where we were provided a deluxe meal and also a chance to acclimate to the environment. The meal was a very delicious Japanese boxed dinner, which had the traditional Japanese items and also included lobster!
Afterwards we headed to the summit, where it was pretty cold. Fortunately, Taiboko provided parkas and gloves for everyone. The sky wasn’t very clear, so that took away from the sunset view, but we still managed to see a nice red haze through the clouds. There were also patches of snow, which I got a kick out of, since I have never seen snow in Hawaii.
We also checked out the moon and Jupiter, since those were the only two objects visible in the sky. The tour had its own telescope for us to use. Pretty stellar.
Just so you know, the tour is mostly in Japanese. I went along since my gf is more comfortable with Japanese than English. Even so, our tour guide did speak English to me, letting me also enjoy the tour.
At the end of tour, our tour guide gave us some omiyagi.