Eight hundred and eighty-seven feet (270 m) of gray steel, and the first thing everybody photographs is a bronze plaque about the size of a doormat. That plaque marks the spot.
On September 2, 1945, Japan signed the surrender that ended World War II right there, on the starboard side of the USS Missouri. Today you can stand on it in your slippers.
Every time we bring visiting family to the Mighty Mo, the same thing happens. Somebody budgets 45 minutes for “the big ship,” and three hours later we are still coaxing them down a ladder from the flying bridge.
This is our full guide to the Battleship Missouri Memorial. What tickets cost in 2026, how the Ford Island shuttle works, which tour to take, and what you will see on board.
Plus how to fit it all into one Pearl Harbor morning without losing your mind at the parking kiosk.
Related: Pearl Harbor Guide: Arizona, Missouri, Bowfin, and the Aviation Museum, Pearl Harbor Beyond the Arizona Memorial, and Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
📍 Battleship Missouri Memorial: 63 Cowpens St, Ford Island, Honolulu, HI 96818 (reached only by shuttle from the Pearl Harbor National Memorial Visitor Center, 1 Arizona Memorial Place, Honolulu, HI 96818)
Why the Mighty Mo Deserves Its Own Half Day
Most people think of Pearl Harbor as one stop. It is really two bookends. The USS Arizona Memorial marks where the war began for America on December 7, 1941. The Missouri, moored just up Battleship Row from her, marks where it ended.
The Arizona is a place you visit quietly for fifteen minutes. The Missouri is a ship you climb.
You walk her teak deck, duck through her hatches, and sit in the captain’s chair. You look down the barrels of guns that could throw a shell the weight of a small car 23 miles (37 km).
She was the last battleship the U.S. Navy ever commissioned, and she served in three wars before the Navy handed her over in 1998. The memorial opened on January 29, 1999, and welcomed its ten millionth visitor in September 2023.
So yes, it gets busy, and yes, it is worth the shuttle ride.
Tickets and What They Cost in 2026
Let’s talk money first, because nobody likes a surprise at the ticket window. General admission runs $44.99 for adults (13 and up) and $19.99 for keiki 4 to 12. The price list starts at age 4, so the little ones ride along free.
That ticket includes the 35-minute guided tour, which is the best deal on the ship. More on that below.
Here is the good news for anyone who has stared at a sold-out recreation.gov page at 3:00 a.m. The Missouri does not run out of tickets the way the Arizona boat does.
Buy online through the Battleship Missouri Memorial ticket page, which sends you to the Pearl Harbor Historic Sites store to pick a date and time. Or just walk up to the Missouri booth at the visitor center on the day.
Kamaʻāina and military discounts happen at the booth, not online, so do not panic when the website only shows full price. Bring your Hawaiʻi ID or military ID. Every adult claiming the discount needs their own card in hand.
Traveling with keiki? Add Chuck’s Quest for $8. It is a 14-stop scavenger hunt led by Chuck the Iguana, the ship’s mascot, with signal flags to find, coded crew messages, and real sailor stories.
Finish the quest and your kid gets sworn in as an Honorary Mighty Mo Crewmember, keepsake included. A child ticket with the quest is $27.99, and adults who want to play too pay $52.99.
Then there is the Passport to Pearl Harbor at $99.99 for adults and $49.99 for keiki 4 to 12. It bundles the Missouri, the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum (the USS Bowfin), and the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum.
You also get the visitor center audio tour and one virtual reality session, and the pass is good over two consecutive days.
Run the math before you buy it. If you are only doing the Missouri, skip the Passport.
Bought one at a time, the three museums add up to $100.97 per adult as of September 2026. So the Passport is a wash on admission, and a win once you use the audio tour and the VR session it throws in.
One catch, and it burns people every week: the Passport does not include the Arizona boat. That reservation is a separate $1 booking at recreation.gov, and no museum ticket will get you on that boat.
Would you rather have somebody else hold the tickets and the clock? This full-day Pearl Harbor tour that covers all four sites plus Punchbowl starts at 6:30 a.m. and carries a perfect rating across 832 reviews. It is a long day, but you will not miss anything.
Getting to Ford Island: Park, Check Your Bag, Ride the Shuttle
You cannot drive to the Missouri. She sits on Ford Island, part of an active Navy base. Everyone without base access parks at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial Visitor Center and rides a free shuttle across the bridge.
From Waikīkī, take H1 west toward the airport and follow the “Pearl Harbor” overhead signs, then Exit 15A for Arizona Memorial/Stadium.
Do not take the Naval Base exit! People do it every single day, and the gate guard sends them back around while the rest of the family sighs in the back seat.
Parking is $7 per day, and you pay by credit card through a QR code posted in the lot. There is no cash option, and you will need your license plate number, so snap a photo of the plate before you walk away from the car.
The cell signal in that lot is fine. Your patience with the pay.gov form may not be.
Now the bag rule, which catches somebody on every shuttle. Bags are not allowed anywhere in the Pearl Harbor Historic Sites. Nothing bigger than a small clutch or wallet, roughly 1.25 by 2.25 by 5.5 inches (3 by 6 by 14 cm), gets through security.
Clear stadium-style bags are the exception, so pack one before you leave the hotel. Forgot? Do not sweat it. There is a bag storage building to the right as you enter, $7 per standard bag and $10 for luggage or oversized bags.
Cameras, phones, wallets, and a water bottle you carry in your hand are all fine.
The shuttle itself is easy. Buses leave the visitor center every 15 to 20 minutes starting at 8:00 a.m., stop at the Missouri first and the Aviation Museum second, then loop back. Give yourself about 30 minutes each way for the wait, the ride, and the shuffle.
The last bus leaves the Missouri at 4:05 p.m. Miss it and you have a very awkward conversation with base security ahead of you.
Two more things for the shuttle. Security may ask for a government photo ID when you board, and international visitors should carry a passport. And no photos on the bus, which is a base rule, not a tour rule.
No car? Uber and Lyft can drop you at the visitor center but not at the ship. TheBus Route 42 runs from Kūhiō Avenue in Waikīkī straight to the USS Arizona Memorial stop.
Skyline’s Hālawa station at Aloha Stadium is the closest rail stop, roughly a 12-minute walk from the visitor center gate. Our Skyline guide covers fares and how to connect from there.
Staying out at Ko Olina? The morning crawl into town on H1 is no joke. This small-group Pearl Harbor tour with pickup at the Ko Olina resorts handles the drive, the Arizona reservation, and the Missouri ticket. It carries a 4.9 rating across more than 1,200 reviews.
The Free Guided Tour, or Wander on Your Own
Take the guided tour first. It lasts 35 minutes, runs all day between 8:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., and needs no reservation. Guides work in English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, and they are the reason the surrender story lands instead of reading like a plaque.
After the tour you are free to roam. The ship is laid out in three self-guided routes, and you can scan the digital map once you are aboard to follow them.
The Main Deck route hits the famous stuff. The Below Decks route is “life at sea,” where the crew ate, slept, and got their hair cut. The Above Decks route climbs to the bridge, the flying bridge, and the captain’s at-sea cabin.
Most people spend an hour and a half to two hours on board. The memorial is open 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily, closed only on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, and last admission is 3:00 p.m.
The staff say to arrive an hour before closing. We say be on the 1:30 p.m. shuttle at the latest, because that flying bridge climb takes longer than you think.
About those ladders. Navy stairs are steep, narrow, and pitched at an angle that makes your knees file a complaint. Face them going down, keep your hands free, and hold the rails.
Slippers are allowed, but closed-toe shoes make the whole day less spicy.
What You Will See On Board
The Surrender Deck comes first on the tour, on the starboard side one level up from the main deck, under the guns of the second turret. The plaque is set into the teak, and a copy of the surrender documents is displayed right beside it.
Stand there a minute. Sailors packed every railing and gun mount above this spot to watch it happen.
Then look up. Turret Two carries three of the ship’s nine 16-inch guns, each one able to send a 2,700-pound (1,225 kg) armor-piercing shell 23 miles (37 km). The turret faces are 17 inches (43 cm) of armor.
Your keiki will stand under those barrels for the photo everyone takes, and you should too.
Walk aft along the starboard rail and look for the dent below the main deck. On April 11, 1945, off Okinawa, a kamikaze pilot hit the Missouri right there.
The next day Captain William M. Callaghan ordered the pilot buried at sea with full military honors. His crew argued about that decision, and history has admired it ever since.
One deck down from that spot is the Divine Wind exhibit, built with the Chiran Peace Museum in Kagoshima, Japan. It holds farewell letters and poems that kamikaze pilots wrote home, alongside trench art from the Missouri’s own crew.
It is the quietest room on the ship for a reason.
Below decks is where the ship starts to feel like a floating town. You pass the mess decks, the galley, bunks stacked three high, and the Chief Petty Officers’ Legacy Center in the old chiefs’ mess.
Give yourself time down here. The passageways are narrow, the overheads are low, and every doorway has a sill waiting for your shin.
The Wardroom on the main deck holds fragments of the USS Arizona, plus displays on the ship’s silver service, presented by the state of Missouri in 1948.
Two newer exhibits are worth your time. Pathway to Peace opened on September 2, 2025 for the 80th anniversary of the surrender. It tells the ship’s World War II story through the sailors’ own belongings and archival film.
The Boys Are Back in Town, in the forward mess on the second deck, covers the 1986 recommissioning crew and runs through May 2027.
Climb the Above Decks route and the ship changes centuries. The bridge and the flying bridge are pure 1944, right down to the armored conning tower with walls 17 inches (44 cm) thick. Amidships sit the armored box launchers that fired Tomahawk missiles in 1991.
From the bow, the USS Arizona Memorial sits dead ahead. The two ships were moored that way on purpose.
Captain’s Tour or Chief Engineer’s Tour
The memorial sells two upgraded tours, each $32 on top of admission. We think at least one of them is worth it for anybody over ten who is steady on a ladder.
The Captain’s Tour runs 45 minutes. You visit the wardroom, Radio Central, and the captain’s in-port cabin, where President Truman, Bob Hope, and Marilyn Monroe were once hosted. Then you climb to the Combat Engagement Center, where the Gulf War missile launches were run.
The Chief Engineer’s Tour runs an hour and goes the other direction, down. You walk Broadway to Fire Room Number 4 to see one of the eight three-story Babcock and Wilcox boilers, then head aft into Engine Room Number 4.
You finish in the aft plotting room, where the analog fire-control computers live. And yes, they let you pull the trigger.
Both tours cap at ten guests, are limited to ages 10 and up, and sell on a fixed schedule that fills early, so book online before your trip. Check in 15 minutes early at the Missouri ticket window.
They are non-refundable, and they involve two-foot (61 cm) hatch sills and low overheads. Nobody with a bad knee should sign up just to be polite.
Our pick: the engine room for anyone who likes machines, the Captain’s Tour for anyone who likes stories.
Sixty Seconds of Ship History
The Missouri’s keel was laid at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on January 6, 1941, eleven months before Pearl Harbor. Margaret Truman, daughter of a then-senator from Missouri, christened her on January 29, 1944. She was commissioned on June 11 that year.
She tied up at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve 1944. Then she spent 1945 screening carriers off Tokyo, pounding shore positions at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and taking that kamikaze hit in April. On September 2, in Tokyo Bay, General Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan’s surrender on her deck.
She carried President Truman home from Brazil in 1947 and fired on Korean shore targets in two deployments during the Korean War. She also ran hard aground off Virginia in 1950, which the Navy does not like to talk about.
On February 26, 1955, she went into mothballs at Bremerton, Washington.
Thirty-one years later the Navy brought her back. She was recommissioned in San Francisco on May 10, 1986, with Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles bolted onto her 1944 hull. Then she sailed around the world and went to the Persian Gulf.
On January 17, 1991, she became the first battleship to fire Tomahawks in combat. She decommissioned for good on March 31, 1992.
She arrived off Waikīkī under tow on June 21, 1998, and the memorial opened on January 29, 1999. The Association took her into drydock for three months in 2009 and has been restoring her 53,000 square feet (4,900 square meters) of teak deck ever since.
For scale: 887 feet 3 inches (270.4 m) long and 108 feet (33 m) across the beam, at about 58,000 tons (roughly 59,000 metric tons) fully loaded.
Her engines made 212,000 shaft horsepower (158,000 kW) for a top speed over 30 knots (56 km/h). Her World War II crew was 134 officers and 2,400 enlisted sailors.
Food, Sun, Keiki, and Wheelchairs
You cannot eat on the ship, but you can carry a bottle with a cap, and you should. The Battleshop at the foot of the brow sells water, juice, and Tropilicious ice cream from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Hungry after the tour? Slider’s Grill is pier-side with plate lunches and burgers off the grill, open 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The seating looks straight across the water at the Arizona Memorial.
Wai Momi next door does shave ice, pizza by the slice, and a giant churro from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Grab the churro. You climbed enough ladders to earn it.
The deck is wide open to the sky, and teak bounces the sun right back up at you. Bring a real hat, and put on the reef-safe sunscreen in the parking lot, because the bottle only gets through security in your hand or a clear bag.
Pace yourself, drink water, and use the benches on the main deck.
For keiki, Chuck’s Quest turns the whole ship into a mission, and a stroller with a fixed pouch is allowed through security.
The stroller gets you the main deck and the elevator to the Surrender Deck. Everything below and above is ladders, so plan on a carrier for the little ones.
Accessibility is better than you would expect on a warship. Complimentary wheelchairs wait at the entrance, a ramp at the aft brow reaches the main deck, and an elevator runs up to the Surrender Deck. The biggest historic moments are within reach.
The Wardroom is the only interior room a wheelchair can enter. At least one shuttle each day has a lift, though powered chairs have to transfer to a manual chair for the ride. Need an ASL interpreter? Call (808) 455-1600 at least two weeks ahead.
A Pearl Harbor Half Day That Works
Park by 7:00 a.m. The visitor center opens at 7:00, security opens with it, and the first USS Arizona program runs at 8:00. Do the Arizona first if you got the reservation, then walk over to the Missouri booth and catch a shuttle around 9:30.
Take the guided tour as soon as you step aboard, wander until noon, and eat at Slider’s while the tour vans unload their lunch crowds. Ride the 1:00 p.m. shuttle onward to the Aviation Museum if you have the Passport, or straight back to the lot if you do not.
From there, Punchbowl is on the way back to town and takes an hour.
Prefer to let somebody else juggle the recreation.gov ticket, the parking app, and the shuttle clock? This guided Pearl Harbor day with Waikīkī pickup that includes the Missouri and the Arizona has more than 6,000 reviews at 4.9 stars.
Read the itinerary closely, though. Group tours run on a schedule, and the Missouri is the stop people always wish they had longer at.
Two dates to know. The memorial holds a ceremony every September 2 for the end of the war. Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day on December 7 fills the whole harbor with veterans and crowds.
Both are moving days to be there, and both are the wrong days to expect an empty Surrender Deck.
Last tip. Admissions close at 3:00 p.m. and the crowds thin fast after that, so the final hour on deck is the quietest it gets.
Just set an alarm for the 4:05 shuttle, because nobody wants to explain to a gate guard why they are still on Ford Island after dark.
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