Pearl Harbor

This is one attraction NOBODY should miss...an incredible experience. However, before you pay for an expensive tour package, note that you can get there from the Honolulu and Waikiki area on The Bus, good old public transit.

(While I'm on the subject, let me add I've only rented a car one day, on one trip, out of 8-10 trips to Hawaii over the past 15 years or so. You don't need a car--so save yourself the headache and get 4-day bus passes! The service is frequent, clean, safe, starts early and ends late in the day, and no, I don't work for the Honolulu bus company.)

Back to the Arizona Memorial: The only way to get ONTO the memorial is through the National Park Service entrance on Arizona Memorial Drive. (And "The Bus" stops right at the corner.) You will get a numbered ticket when you enter the park service building and then have time to wander around the grounds and a great museum while you wait for your number to be called over the public address system. When called, you will join others with the same entry ticket number and enter a theater near the museum and snack bar for one of the most emotionally charged short documentaries you are ever likely to see and hear. The narrator's voice should make your hair stand on end and your skin tingle if you are alive.

The theater holds the same number of people as the US Navy launch that takes visitors out to the actual white memorial sitting astride the sunken USS Arizona. When a launch returns from the memorial and discharges its tourist passengers, another group is ready to emerge from the documentary film in the theater and board the launch for its return trip to the memorial. Take your camera and some tissues...it's a gut-wrenching, haunting experience out there.

When the boarding call comes, you'll re-board the US Navy launch and return to the dock outside the theater. Another group will take your place.

Be sure to stay long enough to visit the museum and see the big bronze map of Oahu on the grounds out by the water. And remember, tour operators may claim to take you to see the Arizona Memorial, but you'll only see it from a distance if they don't take you to the US National Parks entrance where you receive that numbered token to view the documentary and then go on the motor launch out to the memorial. That is the ONLY way onto the Arizona Memorial.

In the same vicinity, if you're a fan of submarines and not claustrophobic, you may want to go on board the one that's nearby.

Another not-to-be-missed treat for history buffs is the USS Missouri, the ship on which Japan's surrender was signed in Tokyo Bay, ending World War II in the Pacific. It requires a short bus ride from the Arizona Memorial property. Once on board the USS Missouri, you will get a full tour of the ship and see exactly where the paper was signed.

I haven't been to Hawaii for a few years so I'm not sure if there's a charge to go to the Arizona Memorial now, like there is at several of our other national parks here in the "48 states" part of the U.S. However, if there's a charge, it's well worth the price--whatever it is.