Home Cruise ports Honolulu
Honolulu Cruise Port: What Can You Walk To?
Cruise ships dock at the Aloha Tower in downtown Honolulu, which is not Waikiki — Waikiki is five kilometres east, and the two are nothing alike.
- Can you walk it?
- Partly walkable — partly — Waikiki is 5 km away
- Where ships dock
- Aloha Tower, in downtown Honolulu.
- Pier to town
- Downtown is at the pier; Waikiki is about 5 km east.
- Typical time ashore
- Often an embarkation port; calls vary.
Downtown is the historic and civic centre, and it contains the only royal palace on American soil. ʻIolani Palace had electric light and telephones before the White House did, and it is where Queen Liliʻuokalani was imprisoned after the 1893 overthrow. That story is the most interesting thing in Hawaii and it is a ten-minute walk from the ship, while everyone else takes a bus to a beach.
Build a Honolulu port-day route
Tell it how many hours you have ashore and it plans a route that fits — Honolulu is already filled in.
What to see on foot in Honolulu
ʻIolani Palace
The only royal palace in the United States. It had electricity and telephones before the White House, and the queen was imprisoned upstairs after the 1893 overthrow.
Kawaiahaʻo Church
Built 1842 from about 14,000 coral slabs, each cut by hand from the reef by divers.
Chinatown
One of the oldest in the United States, walkable from the pier, with markets, lei stands and a good deal of history.
Waikiki and Diamond Head
About 5 km east — bus or taxi. The Diamond Head crater climb is a further trip and needs a reservation.
Pearl Harbor
About 16 km west. The USS Arizona Memorial is free but timed tickets go quickly. A half-day at least.
Planning the day
Walk to ʻIolani Palace and Chinatown from the pier — two hours, and the part of Honolulu almost no cruise passenger sees. Then bus to Waikiki, or commit the day to Pearl Harbor, which needs booking well ahead.
What to watch out for
Pearl Harbor timed tickets are released in advance and go fast. Diamond Head requires an advance reservation for non-residents. Waikiki is not walkable from the pier.
All-aboard is not the departure time. It is usually 30 to 60 minutes earlier, and a ship waits only for its own excursions. Plan any route to be back at the pier with an hour in hand.
Questions about the Honolulu port day
Can you walk to Waikiki from the Honolulu cruise pier?
Not really — it is about 5 km east of the Aloha Tower. TheBus runs there cheaply and frequently, or a taxi takes fifteen minutes.
What is walkable from the Honolulu cruise terminal?
Downtown: ʻIolani Palace, the only royal palace in the US, plus Kawaiahaʻo Church and Chinatown. All within a fifteen-minute walk, and far less visited than Waikiki.
What is a self-guided walking tour?
A route you walk on your own schedule, with the commentary delivered to your phone instead of by a guide. There is no meeting point and no group — you start when you want, stop as long as you like at anything that interests you, and skip anything that does not.
How long are the tours?
You choose: 30 minutes, one hour, two hours, or three and more. The route is planned to fit the time, including how long you say you want to spend at each stop.
Does it work offline?
You need a connection to plan the tour and to stream the narration for each stop. Once a stop's audio has played it is cached by your browser, but plan for having data where you are walking.
Other ports
- Juneau cruise port
- Ketchikan cruise port
- Skagway cruise port
- Sitka cruise port
- Victoria cruise port
- All 59 cruise port guides
A 24-hour pass is $6.95 and covers unlimited tours. Joining someone else’s is free.