After 15 Months, Pearl Harbor Memorial Will Reopen This Weekend
The USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor will reopen Sunday, Sept. 1, after a 15-month restoration.
The memorial has been closed to public foot traffic since May 2018, when damage from exceptionally high tides in 2017 required repairs of more than $2.1 million.
The USS Arizona sunk on Dec. 7, 1941, after a surprise attack by Japanese bombers killed 1,177 crew members on the ship. More than 330 crew members survived, but approximately 900 sailors and Marines remain entombed in the ship.
Considered one of the top tourist attractions in the country, the Arizona memorial is located on the southern end of Oahu in Hawaii, and can only be accessed by boat from the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center. The visitor center is accessible to the public and admission is free, but mandatory time-stamped tickets are available on a first-come, first-served walk-in basis. Tickets can also be reserved online up to 60 days in advance.
Visitors will experience an approximately 75 minute-long tour that includes a 23-minute documentary on the history of Pearl Harbor, as well as a short boat ride to and from the memorial.
The Arizona memorial is part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument; the monument has additional sites in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands as well as California's Tule Lake Unit.
If you've never been to Hawaii, this is a great time to consider planning a visit. The memorial's reopening coincides nicely with a slew of recent sale fares to Hawaii. Southwest has been offering low fares both from the mainland to Hawaii as well as intra-island flights starting from as low as $49 one-way. Rare lie-flat seats from New York City to Hawaii were available for this weekend, from just 12,500 Turkish miles one-way. And United has been offering discounted fares for elite and cardholder MileagePlus members of late: This week, round-trip fares from the mainland to Hawaii began at just 25,000 miles.