We just visited Pearl Harbor and the Arizona memorial a week ago as part of our 40th anniversary celebration. It was a wonderful experience! Everything went very smoothly for us so I’ll share a little here. We purchased our passports through this website about 2-3 months in advance. We chose 8:00 am. Prices were much less than group travel sites. That got us into all museums with audio tours at the main site (Bowfin sub was very cool!) and the shuttle out to the Missouri (highlight for us bc Dad & uncle were in Navy in WWII. Uncle drove same class of ship) Shuttle also stops at the aviation museum. You catch it just to the right of the entrance to the Bowfin building.

One important note is that you can’t take bags in unless it’s a small, clear bag. I got one on Amazon. Food and drink are scarce. There’s a small snack shop and a limited food truck, but that’s it. Some other options over at the Missouri.

https://tickets.pearlharborhistoricsites.org/webstore/shop/viewItems.aspx?cg=phhs&c=pass

Now here’s the tricky part: You have to book the Arizona memorial separately on recreation.gov. Those tickets are hard to come by. They release them about 6 weeks ahead of time. (It will tell you on the site when they will be released.) I got on the site right when they were released and there were only 3 tickets left and they were at noon. That worked for us bc we did some museums, Missouri & Aviation, then returned for lunch and Arizona. If you can’t get tickets to Arizona, there is a standby line, but it was about three hour wait and very long line. It seems a lot of people were in tour groups bc their tour guides were telling them to hurry and get over to the “standby” and don’t stop on the way.

If you are booking through the cruise ship, verify that your trip includes the Arizona memorial.

If I were to do it again, I think I might book Arizona first on recreation.gov to see if it’s even available before I booked the Pearl Harbor passport.

Hope this was helpful! Please feel free to reach out.