Pearl Harbor Tour and Dole Plantation

MimiDee905

Mouseketeer
Joined
Apr 24, 2016
Asking for suggestions, please!

I'm looking at booking a tour through Pearl Harbor that is an all day tour and includes Pearl Harbor, the Dole Plantation, and the Poly Cultural Center. There are two problems I am having, which are causing me to hesitate in booking.

1. The tour includes transportation and picks-up from several Waikiki hotels. We are staying at Aulani, obviously, and I know that they do not pick up there. The option of driving straight to Pearl Harbor to begin the tour is not allowed, according to the person I spoke to from the company. Does anyone have any suggestions of somewhere to park in Waikiki near a pick-up hotel that would be free/safe to leave our rental car for the day? It would stink to have to pay for a parking garage all day or to park at a hotel all day, so I am looking for any other options or ideas.

2. The tour only spends 30 minutes at the Dole Plantation. Is this really enough time?? I had originally thought of spending half a day here, but maybe I am over-estimating how much there is to do there? (It also spends 3.5 hours at Pearl Harbor and 3 hours at the PCC, which I think is fair?)

Thanks!
 
You can park at the Zoo, for pay parking it is the cheapest. I am sure that there would be a pickup hotel on the south side of Waikiki. Just be aware of the pickup time. If you catch traffic, it could take you 2 hrs to get to the zoo from Aulani in the morning depending on traffic. Shoots, just remembered, for free parking, there is a lot by Hilton Hawaii at the marina that is free. I'm sure the HHV is a pickup spot.

Depends on what you want to do at Dole. To me 30 is fine, but I've been there many times. If you want to ride the train you won't have time. But if you just want to look through the store and get a Dole Whip then 30 is plenty IMO.
 
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the drive to the PCC is very long. Its a good hour away from Pearl Harbour. You are going to spend a lot of time driving. The dole platation isn't that interesting. Pearl Harbour is very interesting. PCC is ok. I would just do pearl harbour for the entire day and then go back to the hotel personally
 
We will have our own rental car so we will drive ourselves to those three places. Could you drive yourself? You can take your time, stop wherever you want, etc.
 


Hi!

Pcc is a long drive from Aulani. If you google map it, it would take 1 hour and 12 minutes to get there without traffic. If you go in the morning, let's say 7am on a weekday, it will range from that to 1 hour and 50 minutes due to traffic. Traffic going to Waikiki from Aulani can be bad so be prepared.

Personally, I enjoyed both PCC and Pearl Harbor. If you're going to PCC to experience the atmosphere and Luau, I would have to say it's definitely bigger, maybe better than what you can get at Paradise Cove or at the Aulani Luau.... you could stop over to Dole Plantation if you're heading up that way and spend maybe an hour or so. Really depends on what you want at the plantation. There's a train ride that goes through some of the plantation, food ( there is dole whip at the lava shack in Aulani too), maze...

Pearl Harbor is a must. Not much needs to be said.

Driving with google maps makes things easier. Parking should be ok, there are lots at both Pearl Harbor and in front of Dole Plantation.

Best of luck!
 
Asking for suggestions, please!

I'm looking at booking a tour through Pearl Harbor that is an all day tour and includes Pearl Harbor, the Dole Plantation, and the Poly Cultural Center. There are two problems I am having, which are causing me to hesitate in booking.

1. The tour includes transportation and picks-up from several Waikiki hotels. We are staying at Aulani, obviously, and I know that they do not pick up there. The option of driving straight to Pearl Harbor to begin the tour is not allowed, according to the person I spoke to from the company. Does anyone have any suggestions of somewhere to park in Waikiki near a pick-up hotel that would be free/safe to leave our rental car for the day? It would stink to have to pay for a parking garage all day or to park at a hotel all day, so I am looking for any other options or ideas.

2. The tour only spends 30 minutes at the Dole Plantation. Is this really enough time?? I had originally thought of spending half a day here, but maybe I am over-estimating how much there is to do there? (It also spends 3.5 hours at Pearl Harbor and 3 hours at the PCC, which I think is fair?)

Thanks!
We are booking a tour that includes Dole Plantation too but we are also including it on our Pearl Harbor day, which we will drive to ourselves. Our plan is to do Pearl Harbor in the morning with 11 am tickets and getting there early so see most things including taking the Missouri tour (which is 90 minutes). Our 60 days isn't up yet so I can't get our Arizona tickets nor have I purchased the Missouri tour tickets (Heart of Missouri pass). I know we will be spending a good 5-6 hours at Pearl Harbor. Afterwards we plan to drive up to Dole Plantation and do the train ride (which I know we wouldn't be able to do on the tour we will book). I know people say Dole Plantation is one and done but we have never been and I don't want to be rushed through.

Originally I was going to only allow a couple hours at the end of their day for PCC but have since modified that day to arrive earlier and spend more time before heading further up the North Shore. Our plan for that day is to cut through the island, do a Kualoa Ranch tour very early then head to PCC. I regret not doing the luau there but I guess that means we will have to return to Oahu :)
 
We will have a rental car, so we could drive ourselves. I suppose I'm just overwhelmed and don't understand exactly how to do Pearl Harbor. I 100% know it's one of our must do's, but I'm having a hard time researching how to do it.
There are several different components and places and they are all separate tickets? And you have to line up very early in the morning to get these tickets because they sell out?
If anyone could give me a basic explanation of how to go about doing Pearl Harbor without booking through a tour company, I'd greatly appreciate it. I just assumed a tour company would be easier and would guarantee my entry.
 


The Arizona Memorial is the only thing people suggest prebooking. 60 days out from your date they release the first wave of tickets - they are free however have a minimal online booking fee. These tickets are for tours that start at 11am and they go very quickly. Then 24hrs our they release another wave of tickets again starting at 11am. If you miss out on either of those two waves the last option is to physically go to Pearl Harbor on the day and get tickets (again free for Arizona Memorial). The gates open at 7am and the tours commence at 7.30 - I went April 2018, arrived at 7.04am and was approx 150th in line - we got tickets to 7.45am. This varies with how busy the Memorial is.

There are other sites - located at the same area is the Bowfin Submarine whilst a (included) shuttle ride away on Ford Island is the Missouri battleship plus the Pacific Aviation Museum. These three need separate passes which incur a fee. We purchased the passport which included all three however you can choose one or two or three - up to you.

The shuttle goes from behind the Bowfin area firstly to the Missouri then the Aviation museum then back to Pearl so it makes sense to do the sites in that order otherwise you are wasting time.
 
1. The tour includes transportation and picks-up from several Waikiki hotels. We are staying at Aulani, obviously, and I know that they do not pick up there. The option of driving straight to Pearl Harbor to begin the tour is not allowed, according to the person I spoke to from the company. Does anyone have any suggestions of somewhere to park in Waikiki near a pick-up hotel that would be free/safe to leave our rental car for the day? It would stink to have to pay for a parking garage all day or to park at a hotel all day, so I am looking for any other options or ideas.
You can park at Ala Moana Center which is a shopping mall. I believe its free. From there, you can either take the pink line trolley to pretty much any hotel in Waikiki (exact change required, cost is minimal) or you can even walk over to Hilton Hawaiian Village from there. Its about a mile. Alternatively, you could take Uber/Lyft to any hotel in Waikiki from Aulani, but I think this option would depend on the time you have to be there. You may run into traffic.

2. The tour only spends 30 minutes at the Dole Plantation. Is this really enough time?? I had originally thought of spending half a day here, but maybe I am over-estimating how much there is to do there? (It also spends 3.5 hours at Pearl Harbor and 3 hours at the PCC, which I think is fair?)
You would not have time to do any attractions at Dole with only 30 minutes. You would have time to visit the gift shop and maybe grab a Dole Whip, and that's it. For some, that's enough. We did the train only (in addition to the gift shop and Dole Whip) and it was just ok. We got there right at opening and were advised to do the attractions that were most important first before the lines got long, because it can be quite a wait later in the day. We ended up being there about 2.5 hours just doing the train, gift shop, and enjoying a Dole Whip.

We will have a rental car, so we could drive ourselves. I suppose I'm just overwhelmed and don't understand exactly how to do Pearl Harbor. I 100% know it's one of our must do's, but I'm having a hard time researching how to do it.
We liked doing Pearl Harbor as part of a tour because they facilitated getting our tour tickets with an ideal tour time. If all you're interested in is the Arizona tour, you can either log onto the web site exactly 60 days out to get tickets (I believe there is a couple dollar processing fee) OR you can arrive at Pearl Harbor early in the morning (7am-ish) and wait in the standby line for tour tickets. Tours are assigned in order, so if you are far back in the line, chances are your tour will be later in the day. But however you secure a tour time, that's all you have to do. They have parking on-site, and its recommended not to leave items in your car because of theft. Bags cannot be brought into Pearl Harbor, but they have bag check for $5 per bag outside the gates. There is a free memorial/museum there that anyone can visit at any time, no tour time needed. When your Arizona tour time comes up, it will be clear where you queue and they have you watch a 20 minute movie, then you ride out to the memorial on a boat. You have maybe 15 minutes at the memorial, and then a 5 minute ride back. There are other tours like the Missouri that are offered, but we opted not to do that so I can't speak to it.
 
If your spouse is retired military, or in the National Guard or reserves there is another option for touring Pearl Harbor. You can send me a message and I will explain.
 

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