Visiting Pearl Harbor is a bucket list item for many folks planning their first Hawaii vacation. It is truly worth the effort and quite a moving experience.
We’ve taken different day trips to tour Pearl Harbor from Maui. The first time, we took a organized tour with Polynesian Adventures. The second time, we did all the planning ourselves. We had very memorable days with each of those island hops.
Each method has its pros and cons. We like the independence of doing it ourselves and saving money in the process. On the flip side, the biggest advantage of the organized tour was that it’s free from stress. And, who wants stress on their vacation? Not me!
We used to encourage our friends and families to plan their own day trip, but we no longer recommend independent planning. The biggest reason is that the USS Arizona Memorial Program’s reservation system makes it challenging to secure a day and time for tickets. (Note that prior to the reservation system, USS Arizona Memorial Program tickets were issued daily on a first-come, first-served basis.) The system limits the number of tickets per time slot and during holidays and summer months, there can be more demand than the ticket supply. Overall, it’s much more complicated to get tickets for the USS Arizona Memorial Program and plan around it for flights and other Oahu exploration.
By taking a day trip guided tour to Oahu from other the other islands, the tour company does all the ticketing and driving for you. It’s more expensive, but it is truly a time and stress saver.
We’ve created three new pages with more details about planning day trip, island hops to Oahu to tour Pearl Harbor. Here are links to those pages:
- Day trip from Kauai including USS Arizona Memorial
- Day trip from Big Island to Oahu, including USS Arizona Memorial
- Day trip from Maui to Oahu, including USS Arizona Memorial
Have you taken a day trip to Oahu from one of the other islands to see Pearl Harbor? Which method did you use? How was your visit?
Sheila Beal
