Same-day tickets to Pearl Harbor -- Experiences, please?

We are planning a visit to Pearl Harbor the day before our POA cruise next month. I am fully aware that the USS Arizona Memorial tickets are "free" and can be reserved in advance; however, let me just say that the recreation.gov website advertising the day they are available as 60-days prior is actually inaccurate, as I discovered when I logged in at promptly 7am HST on that day only to discover they were already sold out! (Official response when called: "It's really more like 61 days I guess." Grrr.)

Anyway, this is an important part of our trip, but I really don't want to fork out hundreds of $$$ for the 4 of us to do a tour guide tour just to be assured of a timed Arizona ticket. There are supposed to be 1,300 same-day tickets issued starting at 7am. What I'm wondering is what other people have experienced when purchasing same-day tickets. If we are there at 7am, are we more or less assured of getting in? Or even at that hour, will there be people who arrived to stand in line well ahead of time?

Any first-hand knowledge would be much appreciated.

They make another batch avail the day before at 6am. (or it might have been 7am). Last june I was in HI on a land vacation and like you found out NOTHING was avail at the 60day mark. (and i was only looking for 1 ticket). Went online the day before and got my ticket...by 6:05 (or 7:05) they were all GONE. If you want a day of.. you will need to be at PH before they open and wait in line. There will be a line and they go fast.

Keep in mind that the tickets like this are only for the Arizona memorial (and movie) it self. You can still visit the Missouri, air museum, sub museum, Bowfin, and the PH displays. These other things are not capacity controlled.

Been to Pearl 3 times in the last 5 or so years. Each time arrived by TheBus, without tickets, around 8:15ish. Collected tickets...never reserved. Longest wait was about 45 minutes.

Unfortunately I cannot find the thread but it may have been TruckerDave...I remember recently someone got online the day before they wanted to go and got some of the tickets released in the Next Day batch of tickets. This might be worth the effort so you do not head to PH early if that is not when you want to go. I do not remember how many are released the day before or what time they become available. These are in addition to the Day Of tickets. PH is such a great experience. And, I have said this before, but my favorite time to visit is one of the last tours of the day when most tourists are gone and PH is very peaceful. Have a great time, cherie