MyWorldReviews.com

USS Arizona Memorial

Honolulu, Hawaii, United States

The USS Arizona Memorial is a memorial located in Pearl Harbor that commemorates the attack against Pearl Harbor. The memorial itself is located above the sunken remains of the USS Arizona (which is still visibly leaking oil). There is also a small museum area that has some artifacts from people who were killed during the attack, and information about the history of the event.

Visitors should arrive at the memorial early. The earlier you get there, the less time you will need to spend waiting. We arrived around 10am, and had to wait approximately one hour for our tour number to be called. We spent the time looking at exhibits in the museum area.

When our group number was called, we went to see a 25-minute video on the history of the attack. I thought the video was fairly interesting. We were then taken on a 3-minute ferry ride to the memorial. We had around 12 minutes there to look around. There really wasn't that much to see; it's a memorial, not an attraction. Inside the memorial, there was a wall of the names of the people who died there. It was also possible to see a couple pieces of the ship that were sticking up out of the water, but we couldn't tell exactly what they were.

The Museum

Inside the museum area

I felt that the museum was very one sided. Rightly or wrongly, it made the Japanese out to be heartless individuals, and didn't discuss or mention the US response to the Japanese attacks. I suppose before passing judgment, I should also visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

The museum was pretty small, and didn't really have anything all that interesting or exciting. The exhibits looked a bit old, and didn't offer any interactivity. They were mostly just display boards for people to read, or artifacts for people to look at.

The Irony

Hawaii is definitely a popular destination for Japanese tourists. Many of them make their way over to the USS Arizona Memorial while here. To be accommodating, most of the signs at the memorial are written in both English and Japanese. I couldn't help but think of the irony - if you had told someone 60 years ago that the Americans and the Japanese would be good trading partners, and the USS Arizona Memorial would have signs in Japanese, they wouldn't have believed it.

Cost

This is a free attraction.

Getting There

Another picture inside the museum

From Waikiki Beach, visitors can take either bus 20 or bus 42. The memorial is a fair distance away from the USS Arizona Memorial, and it takes at least an hour to get there (more in traffic, or during peak travel times). On the way back, visitors have to cross the street to catch the bus going the other way. There are many signs to the bus back to Waikiki - just follow them.

The long bus ride is really what lowered the rating of this memorial. Some parts were interesting and it would have gotten a higher rating if it hadn't been such a long time commitment.

Visitors can also drive - there is a parking lot there.

Estimated Visiting Time

The time you spend at the memorial depends completely on the amount of time you spend waiting. We left early, and only had to spend an hour waiting to go over to the memorial. Taking the bus back took around 90 minutes, so we were gone for approximately 5 hours.