Salute to Pearl Harbor - from Ko Olina

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Jill a.

October 20, 2025

(Note: I have posted the same review on Viator where we booked this tour) This was a rare bad experience. We booked this tour through Viator. Viator is a third party booking site that connects your reservation with businesses and companies that are offering the advertised adventures. The company that we were booked with was "Aloha Pearl Harbor" and our tour guide was Shelly. When we booked this trip it was advertised as being between 5-6 hours in length. What that turned out to mean was some of that time was picking up people in the morning and some was dropping people off in the afternoon at various locations in Honolulu. Our tour guide Shelly, did a nice job showing us the sights of Honolulu and we learned quite a bit about her husband's surfing prowess. After we had seen the sights in Honolulu we were taken to Pearl Harbor. At the time we went to Oahu the memorial was undergoing renovations and tours out to the memorial had been canceled/were extremely limited. We knew this prior to going on the excursion but expected to have time to visit the museums and other sights at the harbor. When we arrived our tour guide informed us that we had two hours (what??). I asked her what we could do there with those two hours and she suggested we take the free "15 minute shuttle offered by the park to go see the Arizona memorial from a different angle and then either go on the USS Missouri or go to the wonderful aviation museum." We chose to do this and discovered that the 15 minute ride involved waiting in line first, being dropped off at the Missouri, waiting in line again for the next shuttle, getting on the shuttle and waiting while passengers got on, and then going to the aviation museum. By the time we arrived at the aviation museum we realized that we had to stay on the bus and get back to our tour as we only had 1/2 hour left. Upon arriving to our tour bus we heard another couple expressing the same displeasure we had with the amount of time at the memorial and we expressed our displeasure as well. My top complaint was that we had been booked on a trip advertised as 5-6 hours and then only getting two hours at such a significant site. My secondary complaint was being told we had time to go visit one of the museums. Our tour guide took extreme issue with our complaint, asking who we had booked through and taking no responsibility for her bad advice. The other couple had booked directly with the tour company and we had booked through Viator. Shelly informed us that it was the fault of Viator (yet the other couple had the exact same issue with the way the trip was advertised) and told the other couple she would call her boss. While enroute back to Honolulu Shelly announced on the intercom that she had talked to her boss and the other couple needed to talk to the tour desk at their hotel and they would make it right. She then she went on to complain about "another couple" (gee. I wonder who.) and how it wasn't her fault that the memorial was closed and she had told us at the beginning it wasn't likely to happen (we never complained about this). She went on and on, I don't even remember half the things she said but it was clear the microphone and audience were hers and she was going to get her 2 cents in. Let me tell you a little bit about Pearl Harbor (I wish I had known prior to going there. My fault for not researching better). There are several things to see at Pearl Harbor, the first thing you need to know is the USS Memorial and the National Park museums and movie are FREE. There is a submarine museum on site that is not free. The USS Missouri and the aviation museum are on Ford Island and are not free. You have to take a free park shuttle out to Ford Island in order to visit these two exhibits as they are on an active military base. Parking at Pearl Harbor is only $7 or you can take a city bus to get there. You do not need a tour guide to take you to Pearl Harbor.

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Brian

July 13, 2025

Found this company and tour on Groupon. They are wonderful. Great company and experience. Thank you. Everything was perfect from booking to final destination and drop off. Communication was spot on. Easy. Shelly was our tour guide. She was a god send. Wonderful lady. She was detailed, smart, and funny. Safe driver. We loved her. The tour was awesome. Saw a lot. Learned a lot. Tons of American history. I’ve been to the islands over a dozen times and I still learned something new from Shelly. We had a slight medical emergency and Shelly jumped right in and handled business. I want her on my side. Great lady. Great tour. No complaints. Thanks so much.

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Angela –.

July 12, 2025

This was an amazing place to come to really understand the history of what really happened back in 1941. The memorial was very poignant you could really feel for those that didn’t survive. For us it was a must visit to when in Honolulu. .