We got upgraded to the “VIP” tour which was well received on face value. We were told that our hotel pickup would arrived at 08:45, but after calling at 09:10 we were told it was a mistake and should have been 09:20 (it arrived at 09:30).
The bus was comfortable and was about 1/4 full, complementary water and banana bread was offered by the driver.
The Pearl Harbour tour started with the USS Missouri battle ship. This was our favourite part of the tour, but we had to rush as we weren’t given enough time.
The next part was a sit down meal at a “military yacht club”, it was fine. Thankfully they sold alcohol.
We then returned to the Peal Harbour tour for the USS Arizona video (this was enough basic background) and a boat trip around the memorial. Unfortunately we couldn’t land on the memorial due to some structural damage. There are other exhibits to see afterwards, but they are somewhat underwhelming. We had far too much time on this part of the tour and we’re ready to leave with 45 mins to share. This could have been more interesting if entry to the Blow Fish submarine was included in the tour.
A surprise was a trip to the national cemetery and historical sites in downtime Honolulu, but we were done before this was announced. The “luxury” bus also played some videos that were pretty arbitrary, they need something extra to bring them to live.
This was a new tour and was too long in our opinion (09:30 - 17:30). The driver (that I will not name) was trying too hard to be funny, but became clearly irritating to many of the passengers over the tour. We managed to jump out early as we’d had enough! Refinement is needed to make this good value for time and money.