Hawaii : Kualoa Ranch... Movie Sites & Ranch Tour

Happy Election Day!!

Welcome to

Kualoa Ranch

, home of MANY movie and TV sets. 

The Kualoa mountain range stands tall behind the main ranch house. The ranch was a sugar cane plantation at one time... until they realized sugar cane did not grow well on the land. Now the Kualoa Ranch is home to lots of cattle and movie sets.

The steers under the tree were featured in the movie Run Down. 

We signed up for the Movie Sites & Ranch Tour as well as the Jungle Expedition Tour.

With a half-full bus and open windows, we began driving down the road where Adam Sandler tried to get Drew Barrymore to stop for him in the movie 50 First Dates. 

First site stop?

Yeah. This will most likely be our 2013 Christmas Card...

Do you remember this tree from Jurassic Park?

Jurassic Park was supposed to be filmed on Kauai but a hurricane hit, so they filmed it on Oahu instead. 

This is the most famous dead tree you will ever see.

Then we drove by Godzilla's footprints...

...and the garage from the movie Mighty Joe Young...

...and then we stopped inside of the Pearl Harbor bunker to see the Kualoa Goes to War / Kualoa Hits Hollywood museums.

The Kualoa mountains are the background from most of the scenes in the film Journey 2. Remember the

Waimea Waterfall

? That was in the movie too. (We watched Journey 2 for the first time on the plane ride home. It was pretty cool to notice places throughout the movie that the tour guide didn't even mention.) 

The view from the Pearl Harbor bunker. We {heart} Hawaii.

The original tikis from the Biggest Loser TV show.

When we say MANY movies were filmed here, we mean it. Here are just a few of the other ones we jotted down from the tour:

TV shows: 

Lost

Gilligan's Island

Hawaii Five-O

Birds of Paradise

Movies:

Aztec Pyramid

You, Me & Dupree

Wind Talkers

Pearl Harbor

Battleship

George of the Jungle

Do you remember any of the scenes from these movies?

Hawaii : Pearl Harbor, USS Missouri

Happy November!! Hope y'all had a wonderful Halloween!

After visiting the

USS Bowfin

, head over to the loading area and take a bus over to the massive USS Missouri. 

This battleship, the site of the Japanese surrender during World War II, is certainly a sight to behold.

The bus ride lasts a few minutes. Oddly enough, the USS Missouri is right beside the Arizona Memorial on the water. 

The floorboards are made of teak wood, making it basically indestructible. Teak wood is rare worldwide. It is mostly produced in India, although there are endangered varieties found in the Philippines and Myanmar. 

Photo Credit to Kamikaze Images

You have to look pretty hard but do you see the fighter plane that is in the top left-hand corner? The Japanese Kamikaze pilot actually crashed into the USS Missouri on April 11, 1945, in Okinawa. There are still dents, to this day, on the starboard side of the USS Missouri.

Chillin' and chattin' in the Captain's Chair.

One of my favorite jewels on this ship was the antique or vintage items lying around. We're fans of Coca-Cola but this Pepsi-Cola dispenser held a retro vibe that I fell in love with!

The "Mighty Mo" docked at Pearl Harbor infinitely on 1992. What made it so significant to Pearl Harbor? The USS Missouri was the gathering place of American and Japanese soldiers as the Japanese chief signed "The Instrument of Formal Surrender of Japan to the Allied Powers", thus ending World War II.

Guided by a Veteran:

You won't find a lazy tour guide here! The only guides on this battleship are retired military veterans who have a passion for history and service to their country.

Time Crunch:

Try to allot a fairly sufficient amount of time to tour the battleship, maybe between 1 to 2 hours. The ship has special nooks and crannies with lots of info about the ship, military officers and history of its fights. 

USS Missouri Stars in a Movie:

Have you ever seen the movie

Battleship

? Most of it was filmed on this ship. How crazy is that!? JD and I had never seen this movie prior to the tour but we watched it on the flight back home. 

Hawaii : Pearl Harbor, USS Bowfin

Welcome aboard the U.S.S. Bowfin...

aka: The Pearl Harbor Avenger

From the USS Bowfin website: 

USS Bowfin (SS-287) is a fleet attack submarine that fought in the Pacific during WWII, and helped to make famous the term, “Silent Service.” Bowfin was launched on 7 December 1942, exactly one year to the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She was nicknamed the Pearl Harbor Avenger, so it is fitting that she is permanently homeported at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

It looks huge from these external photos, but you will learn that it is only a mirage once you get inside. 

God Bless America.

Watch your head when walking into the

entrance

exit. Yeah. We started the tour on the wrong side of the submarine. Whoops! Oh well. JD is rockin' that tour guide headset. 

The USS Bowfin is a super small submarine (I guess all submarines are tiny on the inside though). JD, being the studly tall man he is, would've never been able to work in there. I, on the other hand, strode through that submarine like a pro (being short does have it's advantages after all).

The door was half the size of JD. Would not have bode well in an emergency.

There is something I just love about these meters. They look so classy, vintage and cool. Don't you love them? Maybe I'll enlarge one of these and frame it. 

Keys to the chief's quarters.

Tour Tickets:

You can buy combo tickets for the USS Bowfin and USS Missouri. The Aviation tour is included but we didn't have time to go there.

Audio Tour:

A headset and handheld tour guide is included in the price of the package. There are two versions you can listen to - an adult and a family-friendly version. The adult version includes interviews from Bowfin veterans while the family-friendly version vividly describes historic scenes of what each part of the submarine was like when in action. I must admit, I

kind of

enjoyed listening to the family version just as much as I did the adult version.

Get the Picture:

Almost any tourist place or restaurant you visit will have a "house photographer". While most places have the typical cardboard layout, the USS Bowfin prints your photo onto the front page of a newspaper with info about the Bowfin. That alone makes the USS Bowfin a memorable experience. This is the one and only photo we would actually recommend you purchase. 

Hawaii : Pearl Harbor, USS Arizona

It's the "date which will live in infamy" (President Franklin D. Roosevelt): December 7, 1941. 

Japanese fighter planes attack the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii at 7:55 a.m.

Japanese bombers hit the USS Arizona four times, sinking the ship and taking 1,177 courageous men down with it. 

And there we stood, on a blindingly white memorial - a stark contrast to the hidden dark ship below us - seeking to honor the lives that were ended because of war and hatred. 

Along with the fallen 1,177 crew members, more than 30 USS Arizona survivors have chosen the USS Arizona Memorial as their final resting place. "Following a full military funeral at the Arizona memorial, the cremated remains are placed in an urn and then deposited by divers beneath one of the Arizona’s gun turrets" (

history.com

). The veterans' names are engraved on a small box perched on the stairs to the right of the memorial.

Every day, thousands of visitors filter through the memorial which sits perpendicular to the ship (

check out the sky view here

), all in awe of the devastation that occurred on that infamous day. 

Merely visiting a memorial cannot express the gratitude we have for all of our nation's soldiers, fallen soldiers and veterans. They have sacrificed more than we can fathom, all for our freedom. We are beyond thankful for the families, men and women who have served our great country with such dedication and without hesitation. 

(Pictures of Pearl Harbor bombings here.)

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The USS Arizona Memorial was our first stop at Pearl Harbor.

If you're planning on a visit one day, here's some bits of info you may be interested in

....

• Allow 75 minutes for the full tour. The "tour" includes a sobering video, a boat ride to and front the memorial, and a few minutes of walking around the memorial.
• Admission is free for the USS Arizona Memorial. 
• We arrived around 11 a.m. and had no trouble getting in without purchasing advanced tickets online. Try to make your way towards the front when standing in the outside waiting area for the next showing.
• When filing into the theater, sit at the bottom right-hand side of the theater. You will load a boat which will take you over to the memorial. On the boat ride back from the memorial, try to sit on the back row of the boat. You will get the best photos from here. 

Overall Pearl Harbor Trip Tip: Purses, handbags, backpacks, camera bags, diaper bags, etc. are not allowed into the Pearl Harbor gates.

They have a holding place for these bags but there are no lockers. 

JD and I bought the ticket package including the USS Bowfin and USS Missouri. They are both must-sees!! 

Food side note: There is a hot dog stand before you get to the USS Bowfin. We recommend eating here if you like nachos and cheese because... You add the sauce yourself. Yeah. Clog those arteries and load up on the hot cheese sauce. Don't forget to pick up a case off free jalapeños.