Your Guide to Booking Tours Online
Booking your Pearl Harbor tour online can be challenging. From choosing the right website to assessing the quality, you can quickly become inundated with information.
After 10 years of running our business, we are focusing more on our web presence. The majority of our tours are booked by individuals who are referred to us by friends or other local businesses. Because we saw a dip in the 2018 high-end market for a variety of reasons, hurricane and volcano included, we have evolved as a company by making our tours more available on different platforms.
After a simple web search of companies offering private tours to Pearl Harbor, I was pleasantly surprised to see Keawe Adventures on the front page. I also noticed a handful of other sites that are 3rd party booking sites, rather than tour operators. We use 3rd parties ourselves, partnering with TravelShack to book our group tours.
One quick search for ‘Pearl Harbor Tours’ results in a barrage of listings from tour operators and 3rd party sites that can be confusing to navigate. Here are some tips to help you in your quest to find the perfect Pearl Harbor Tour and all the right information.
Identify the official websites for each attraction at Pearl Harbor.
To gather all of the correct information, you will want to first look at the official websites for each Pearl Harbor Monument. While they are all encompassed under the Pearl Harbor Park, each monument is a separate entity, including the Arizona Memorial, USS Bowfin Submarine Museum, USS Missouri, and Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum. Each monument has their own set of rules and policies. For example, children under 4 years are not permitted on the USS Bowfin Submarine, however they are allowed at other sites. My kids (age 2, 4, and 6) personally enjoy the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum the most. You may want to consider these factors while deciding which sites you want to visit.
Each site provides information on tickets and other services they offer. If you are booking through a tour operator or 3rd party site, tickets will often be included in the price and secured for you prior to the tour. However, if you are planning on visiting the park independently, each site requires a ticket for admission, which vary in price.
It is also worth noting that all sites within Pearl Harbor have restrictions on bags or other items that may provide concealment. Because Ford Island is an active military installation, bags are not allowed within any vehicle entering the site. Being aware of such policies is vital to properly planning your visit and avoiding any unanticipated situations.
Below is a list of official websites for each Pearl Harbor museum or park.
Nps.gov/valr
PearlHarborHistoricSites.org
PearlHarborVisitorCenter.org
USSArizonaMemorial.org
Bowfin.org
USSMissouri.org
PearlHarborAviationMuseum.org
Know the difference between tour operators and 3rd party booking sources.
Tour operators partner with 3rd party booking sites to market and sell their products on a larger platform. Third party booking sites can provide easy organization and marketing tools, as well as a simplified e-commerce interface, making it easier for you to receive direct confirmation with all the appropriate information in one place.
We partner with TravelShack to book our group tours of Pearl Harbor and the Island of Oahu. Their clean and simple website provides guests with an efficient way to gather information and book their tour. TravelShack helps us create a user-friendly guest experience, so we can focus even more on the logistics of planning exceptional tours.
Check out our tours on TravelShack’s website here.
It is often possible to book tours directly through the tour operators, yet sometimes it is a more viable option to book with a 3rd party agent. It is always a good idea to cross check the 3rd party booking site with the company they are representing. This way, you can trust the service you are purchasing is legitimate and worth your time.
When in doubt or overwhelmed, it never hurts to reach out directly to the tour operator to answer some of your questions. At Keawe Adventures, we pride ourselves on offering our personal touch to every tour and we are excited to help you plan your adventure.