We were up at 6:15 to get all of our stuff together and make sure nothing was getting left behind. Despite not liking the Aloha Cafe we decided to go back, but we had a plan. We were going to grab a table and then take turns getting food. This worked out OK and we were done with breakfast with plenty of time to get to the Hollywood Theatre, which was our tour meeting place. Departure was fine, though one of the escalators was broken which slowed things down.
We boarded our bus and our driver was good, he explained that we would not be able to go to the cemetery, which was closed for the Memorial Day weekend for only family of military. We were dropped off at 9:15 and had a 10:45 tour of the Arizona Memorial. We decided to first go to the area with the rockets by the Bowfin. I got some pictures of the rockets and there was an area with little monuments for all the ships lost at sea with their story and a list of the lives lost, it was really nice. Next we walked back over to the main museum.
For a $5 donation you can get the audio tour. I recommend this for 2 reasons - first, you hear good info about the museum and the events surrounding December 7, but even better is that you are making a donation to the museum. The museum did
seem a bit crowded at times and in different spots, but they are building a new one which should be ready next year. There are a lot of good displays and I enjoyed the tour. On the tour for the Arizona you first see a movie, which was very good, and got me a bit misty eyed. You are reminded to be quiet on the tour which now takes a boat to the site of the Arizona and the Memorial there. I was surprised at how quiet people actually are. I've been to a lot of places where you should be quiet and peoples ability to do that varies greatly, until the end when we were boarding our boat back everyone was very quiet. The memorial was really nice. From the sides you can see parts of the Arizona that are near the surface. In the middle there are diagrams of the ship as it sits today. In the middle there is a cut out where you can see the oil that is seeping out of the Arizona. In the back is a wall with a list of the names of all those lost, and a list of those who survived but were later buried at the Arizona. I really liked it and the experience.
Next we took a shuttle over to the Missouri Battleship, where the armistice was signed. This was pretty good too, though not nearly as good as the Arizona Memorial. If you're not into looking at military ships then this might not be the best use of time, but it's still interesting. Tara seemed to find this a form of torture, and it was quite hot and it's not really something I'm that interested in, so we did a more abbreviated tour. It would have been nice to do a tour just to hear about the armistice, but as for looking at the mock ups of what crew areas
looked like, not so much. But then, I have seen several military boats in the past so I know some of what would be said. On the Missouri they do have the US and Japanese copies of the armistice, which was really neat to see. After we looked around the ship we had lunch, shopped, and then waited to leave. I felt like we had a little more time here then we needed, but that's better then not enough time. After the Missouri we did a little tour of Honolulu. We visited the downtown area
with the Palace and the oldest church in Hawaii, which Tara and I had already seen. We also took a ride through China Town which apparently isn't a safe place to visit after dark. Since we couldn't go to the cemetery we made a stop at Nuuanu Pali Park which had more beautiful scenery. We were dropped off at the airport a little after 4 and had to kill 4 hours before out flights back home.
