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Hawaii Maritime Center
2 reviews for Hawaii Maritime Center
As of now, the price of admission is $8.50 for adults and $7.00 for residents, and a resident can bring a guest. Parking is that at Aloha Tower Marketplace. You can get validation at the Hawaii Maritime Center, but the price even with validation depends on the day of the week that you go.
With the admission price, you get a tape recorder and headphones to use and follow along while walking around, like a tour. It's very old tech, but it works. It goes through everything pretty briefly so you don't really get the chance to read all the accompanying text on the displays if you follow the "tour." You're probably going to have to walk around again to do so, but I'm sure most people don't want to go through it again.
It's not a really big place, but does have some interesting things about Hawaiian history. However, it doesn't justify the price you're paying for it. Even though I had the tape recording running, I wasn't really paying attention to it much and just went at my own pace. I think if they reduced the price of admission, at lest for residents, it would be more worth it. Even the huge zoo where you can spend a few hours at cost only half the price for residents.
The museum has some cool things for ship buffs, but it's fairly small and the exhibits are a bit random. May not be worth going out of your way.
Highlights include
- a massive Humpback whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling (died of natural causes,fyi)
- an exhibit on the history of whaling and its importance to the Hawai'ian economy in the 1800s. Includes two cool videos: one of an actor re-telling the story of an islander who went to sea on a whaling ship, and a 1912 silent film showing an actual working whaling ship (viewer discretion advised)
- exhibit on Matson Line, the cruise line that opened Hawai'i to tourism in the mid 1900s -- though it was disappointing that the museum didn't bother to cover any modern passenger ship operations
- exhibit on Polynesian navigation
Although the museum has the only four-masted, full-rigged ship left in the world (the Falls of Clyde, built in 1878 and a national historic landmark), it is currently closed to the public.
Admission includes an audio tour that's worth using, though it's on a creaky old tape player so you have to follow their prescribed order and it's hard to skip around.
