How to get USS Arizona Pearl Harbor tickets FAST the day before! + standby tickets

ALOHA!

I’ll let you know below what it was like for me to book USS Arizona Memorial tickets online in July 2025 the day before I went to Pearl Harbor.

I got an email at 3:05pm Hawaii time confirming my online reservation for the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

This is 5 minutes after the 3pm time in which new online tickets go on sale the day before. I’ll let you know below what the booking process is like so you can be quick too. This was actually being slow, because at the payment section, it said that the ticket was secure, so I took a little extra time. So all you need to do is be ready at 3pm and click for your time slot quickly! The USS Arizona memorial ticket costs $1 to reserve.

I checked the availability of tickets just after my reservation was made, and it showed that all tickets were sold out. So if I wasn’t quick, I wouldn’t have gotten the ticket.

 

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It used to be possible to make your USS Arizona Memorial reservation as early as 8 weeks in advance. But right now, as of July 9, 2025, you can only make reservations a day in advance.

So you’ll need to try for your USS Arizona tickets the day before you want to go to Pearl Harbor.

 

The actual page you need to go to in order to make your USS Arizona Memorial reservation is: https://www.recreation.gov/ticket/233338/ticket/16

Also check this page to confirm that you can still only make reservations a day in advance, and not 8 weeks.

For example, I wanted to go to Pearl Harbor on Wednesday, so my ticket-buying day and time for the USS Arizona Memorial was 3pm on Tuesday.

 

👆 I received my confirmation email for Pearl Harbor’s USS Arizona memorial tickets 5 minutes after they went on sale the day before I wanted to go.

 

 

The USS Arizona Memorial is the icon of Pearl Harbor that you have seen in pictures. This is the thing that everyone goes to Pearl Harbor to see. That said, it is NOT all there is to a visit to Pearl Harbor! But it is something that you want to go to, and what’s most commonly done alongside the free things to do at Pearl Harbor.

 

You must have a recreation.gov account in order to make a reservation for the USS Arizona Memorial.

I didn’t realize this until 3pm came and I tried to make a reservation. Luckily, I had previously used the website for national park camping reservations, so I already had an account. Even more luckily, I remembered my password… after one failed attempt. 🤣

 

Things to do to speed things up when it’s time to buy the USS Arizona tickets if you are booking the day before:

• Make sure you will be ready at 3pm Hawaii time! Tickets really did sell out quick on the day I made my reservation, so it’s a good idea to be ready to go at 3pm.
• Create a recreation.gov account.
• Know the time slot you want to go for… along with alternatives just in case. You are told to get to Pearl Harbor an hour in advance of your reservation (and to allow extra time if you’re driving because parking might take longer than you think). If you are late, you will be put on stand-by and there’s no guarantee you can go.

 

👆 If you’re looking to buy tickets for USS Arizona Memorial the day before, tickets can go quickly. But even if you check at 3:05pm and it shows up as sold out, it’s worth checking again in a few minutes in case people didn’t complete their payment. You can also see that in this case (which was when you could book tickets 2 months in advance), tickets that went on sale way in advance were still available with a little less than a month to go. So, if you are planning a month in advance when that starts up again, you might be able to get tickets!

 

 

Stand-by tickets on the day-of

There are also a limited number of stand-by tickets available if you show up to the Pearl Harbor visitor center with no reservations.

I actually showed up late for my reservation and ended up on stand-by and got in quickly. This was in the afternoon. So you can try for stand-by, but there’s no guarantee. I imagine the afternoon had less people compared to the morning, so that helped.

 

👆 There are stand-by tickets if you show up to Pearl Harbor without reservations.

 

 

 

Pearl Harbor tours

Or if you don’t want to deal with making the reservation the day before at 3pm, and you want transportation taken care of for you (from Waikiki), then you can also book a Pearl Harbor tour.

Along with the USS Arizona, the USS Missouri is another one of the most popular things to do at Pearl Harbor. The USS Missouri is globally and historically significant as the site where WWII officially came to an end with Japan’s formal surrender. It’s common to combine the USS Arizona and USS Missouri in one visit.

Be sure to take a look at the Pearl Harbor Remembered Tour or the WWII Pearl Harbor Heroes Deluxe Tour. These come with transportation from Waikiki.

There are also basic tours to Pearl Harbor from Waikiki like the USS Arizona and Honolulu city tour.

 

The process of making online reservations the day before

So right before 3pm, you’ll want to load this page: https://www.recreation.gov/ticket/233338/ticket/16

This is the page you will reload profusely when you see it’s seconds before 3pm! 😂

Make sure you log in!

Once it’s 3pm, refresh the USS Arizona reservations page, and tickets for tomorrow will show up as available. Click on your date. Click on your time slot. REQUEST TICKETS! At this point, if you’re not logged in, you will be prompted to log in.

Then, your tickets are secure and you can rest easy!

There was a message saying that my ticket is on hold, and there was a clock at the top with a countdown.

So I took my time to read, and I received my confirmation email for my USS Arizona Memorial ticket at 3:05pm!

All the need-to-know that you’ll see after you request tickets is also included in the confirmation email.

 

👆 Once it’s 3pm, tickets will start to go!

 

👆 Your ticket is secure after you choose a time slot and your “request” for tickets goes through. So be ready and logged in at 3pm and you have a good chance of getting tickets the day before! You just need to do a couple of clicks. You don’t even need to fill anything out!

 

Don’t give up if you check at 3:05pm and it shows no availability!

Since the payment countdown represents that your ticket is secure for that amount of time, then it could also be that more tickets could show up as available in a few minutes, as there may be people who don’t complete payment during that time or abandoned their ticket request.

So if at 3:05 it shows no available tickets, I would continue to refresh the page in hopes that there are people who don’t complete the payment.

 

Official info

The USS Arizona Memorial is a part of the Pearl Harbor National Memorial and is managed by the National Park Service.

Be sure to read up on the official information from the National Park Service so you know you’ve got current info to visit the USS Arizona Memorial: https://www.nps.gov/perl/uss-arizona-memorial-programs.htm

Also be sure you know about the Pearl Harbor bag policy. (No bags allowed.)

 

GOOD LUCK!

 

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More of must-do Oahu

• Free things to do at Pearl Harbor
• Oahu things to book in advance
• Diamond Head reservations
• Hanauma Bay reservations