You're not crazy--no wonder it's hard to get Pearl Harbor tickets

[GeneralTso]

A staff person at Pearl Harbor claims hundreds of free tickets are given to tour guides (who in turn, SELL THEM), leaving fewer for walk up tourists.

He was the whistle blower and says he is now being retaliated against.

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/...l&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

[nkereina]

I thought this was common knowledge or practice, or an agreement between the tour operators and Pearl Harbor. We booked our tour to Pearl Harbor through Discover Hawaii tours. One of the reasons we booked it through a tour operator is because they took care of getting our tickets and provided transportation. We had a designated pick up time and got to Pearl Harbor around 7:30am, and then our tour guide handed out our tickets for a 9:15am tour time. We were back on the bus by 11am. I'm not sure how a tour operator could feasibly bring groups to Pearl Harbor without having arrangements for tickets in some way, since they need to communicate pick up times and ensure the group stays together.

 

[Westcoastwild]

You realize that every NPS site does this to a certain extent? Even museums? There are different classifications of tickets- individual ahead of time, individual day of, group, and school group. Probably more that I'm not aware of.

The point is, tickets set aside for groups don't actually affect the number of tickets sold to individuals, just like the number of individual tickets sold online don't affect day of tickets. The day of tickets were never part of the allotment of individual tickets (I recently had this discussion with someone over Alcatraz).

It's a different story if an employee is selling one allotment to a group it's not meant for. (Which is what happened here- kickbacks.)

But disciplining the crooks doesn't necessarily make tickets easier for the public to get. What that might do is bar certain tour companies from operating tours at all and that might help availability. Tour companies can lose permits over this sort of thing, and that could reduce the number of tours substantially.

 

[Westcoastwild]

I thought this was common knowledge or practice, or an agreement between the tour operators and Pearl Harbor. We booked our tour to Pearl Harbor through Discover Hawaii tours. One of the reasons we booked it through a tour operator is because they took care of getting our tickets and provided transportation. We had a designated pick up time and got to Pearl Harbor around 7:30am, and then our tour guide handed out our tickets for a 9:15am tour time. We were back on the bus by 11am. I'm not sure how a tour operator could feasibly bring groups to Pearl Harbor without having arrangements for tickets in some way, since they need to communicate pick up times and ensure the group stays together.

If you read the article, the problem was not that the tour groups were getting tickets. It's that the Pearl Harbir staff member was getting kickbacks for giving the tour groups tickets that were not meant to be given to them.

 

[cgattis]

Does explain how the two days I checked were sold out until 11 and 1, almost instantaneously. I knew there was no way that many people out-clicked me!! LOL Guess we'll just hit the swap meet first, then the memorial, instead of vice versa.

 

[si-am]

I tried to get tickets a few days ago and logged in at exactly the right time... But the website kept glitching and giving me an error message, and when I finally got in, the tix were all gone! I'm not sure we'll even bother with Pearl Harbor now.

 

[blondietink]

In our 3 visits to Pearl Harbor, we have never had a problem getting tickets. Avoid at all costs any day that a cruise ship is docked in Honolulu. then pick a day and log onto the national park website at exactly the 60 day mark at 7 am Hawaii time. You can use the cruise ship timetables website to figure that out. Please note that if you are in a state that observes daylight savings time, Hawaii does not. So, if you are on the east coast, 7 am Hawaii time is 1 pm eastern daylight time. During standard time if on the east coast, you would log in at 12 noon. We have managed to get 8 am tickets all 3 visits using this strategy.

 

[nkereina]

If you read the article, the problem was not that the tour groups were getting tickets. It's that the Pearl Harbir staff member was getting kickbacks for giving the tour groups tickets that were not meant to be given to them.

Thanks for clarifying - the article wouldn't open on my work PC for some reason.