Trip Report: First Timer at Aulani

[DCPhotoGal]

Loved your report! We are going to Aulani at the end of July. We plan on doing a Pearl Harbor/Swap Meet morning as well. Can you tell me how much time you spent at Pearl Harbor, and when you arrived at the Swap Meet, was everything still open? I've read that some of the vendors at the Swap Meet close up in the early afternoon and although I wouldn't want to cut my Pearl Harbor touring time short, I don't want to arrive at the Swap Meet too late either.
Thanks!

Our Pearl Harbor tour was 9am, and we arrived before 8am, so we did a lot of our looking around before our tour. We did not do the other two tours, just the Arizona. My girls haven't really studied WWII in school yet so we didn't want to overdo it with them. I think we ended up at the Swap meet at 11am and everything was open and in full swing. It was Easter Sunday when we were there. We walked all the way around the stadium and there were tents set up all the way around and they were all still open when we left.

 

[DCPhotoGal]

How was the 9 am time for the tour? I'm planning on booking my ticket in advance, and that's what time I think I'd like to get. Any earlier and I'm getting up way too early for vacation, and I still want to be able to have time later in the day to do other things. And how was it on the weekend? Right now I'm looking at going on a Sunday, but I've read to avoid it on weekends, where you had apparently read otherwise.

The 9am tour time was perfect. There was no traffic getting there, and when we arrived at Pearl Harbor we got a pretty close parking spot. We also got to see the flag raising ceremony at 8am, which was nice to experience.