Hanauma Bay Reservations

Hanauma Bay is a flooded volcanic crater on the east end of Oahu and a protected marine life conservation district. The city caps it at about 1,400 visitors a day and sells most of that through timed reservations. The slot you book is really a time for the preserve’s education video, which every visitor has to watch on every visit, even if you watched it last year.

It is closed every Monday and Tuesday. Plan your snorkel day for Wednesday through Sunday before you plan anything else around it.

Most people should book the city reservation. The Roberts package costs $40 more per adult and earns it if you have no car, since parking is the other half of the Hanauma problem.

1. Count back two days. Book Monday for a Wednesday visit, Tuesday for Thursday, and so on through Friday for Sunday. There is no booking on weekends, because the preserve is closed Monday and Tuesday.
2. Set an alarm for 6:55 a.m. Hawaiʻi time. Hawaiʻi does not use daylight saving time, so the mainland offset changes in November. The table below has it.
3. Open the city’s reservation site on a laptop, logged in. Whoever finishes checkout first gets the slot. Have the card out: the site takes Visa, Mastercard and JCB.
4. Pick a time, then add every person. Children and anyone free still need a ticket on the order.
5. Do not refresh a frozen payment screen. The city says to wait it out. An abandoned order returns to the pool after 10 minutes.
6. Screenshot the confirmation. The person who booked shows it with their original photo ID. A photo of the ID does not count.

Since November 2025, the city has sold 400 of each day’s tickets through a single concessionaire, Roberts Hawaiʻi. The package is admission plus a round-trip electric bus from Waikiki hotels, with the required video played on the way out, so you skip the theater line. Adults are $65, children 3 to 12 are $40, and infants ride free.

Its real advantage is the booking window. Roberts opens each month’s dates on the 1st of the month before, so you can lock in a Hanauma day weeks out instead of racing the 7 a.m. release. The first pickups leave Waikiki around 6:20 a.m., and the last bus back leaves the bay around 3:40 p.m.

Read the cancellation terms before you buy. More than 48 hours out costs 10%. Inside 48 hours it is non-refundable.

The city holds about a quarter of each day’s entry for people who show up. Walk-in sales start at 6:45 a.m., when the parking lot gate opens, and the whole party has to be there. In peak season, cars line up for a drive-through ticket booth from 6:45 to 7:10 a.m. After that, tickets move to the loading zone in the public lot.

There is no official time when walk-ins run out, and the city warns that they sell out quickly. If you go this way, be at the gate before 6:45 with cash for the $3 parking.

• Parking. 280 stalls, $3 per car, cash only, first come first served. A reservation does not hold a stall. If the lot is full, you wait or find legal street parking and walk in.
• Gear. Dive Oahu runs the only city-authorized rental stand on the beach, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., card only. Mask, dry snorkel and fins run $25. Lockers are $12 to $15. Bring your own from Waikiki and you skip that line.
• Food and shop. The snack bar and gift shop are card only.
• Sunscreen. Hawaiʻi bans the sale of sunscreen with oxybenzone or octinoxate. Bring a mineral one, or a rash guard and skip most of the sunscreen.
• Hands off. Feeding fish is against state law in the preserve, and so is taking anything. Stand only on sand. Standing on the reef crushes live coral.
• Timing. Entry ends at 1:30 p.m. The beach is cleared at 3:30 and everyone is out by 4:00. The water is clearest and calmest in the morning, before the trade winds build.

Check the ocean before you commit your morning. Our guide to whether it is safe to swim on Oahu today covers the alerts and high-surf warnings, and the water temperature guide tells you whether to pack a rash guard.

The city no longer runs bus service into the preserve, and no current TheBus route stops at the gate. Some older guides, and the city’s own page, still mention Route 22. That route is not on TheBus’s route list anymore. The nearest service ends in Hawaiʻi Kai, which leaves an uphill walk along Kalanianaʻole Highway.

Without a car, the Roberts package is the option that works. A rideshare drop-off works too, but you still need a reservation or a walk-in ticket, and a ride back out of Hanauma is not guaranteed.

With a car, Hanauma is the natural first stop on an east side morning. The Oahu Drive Map runs from here past the Hālona Blowhole to Makapuʻu, and an early Diamond Head hike the day before or after fits the same side of the island.

1. Try the next open morning. A new day opens at 7 a.m. every weekday. Shifting your snorkel day by one is usually easier than fighting for a sold-out one.
2. Go early for a walk-in. Be at the gate before 6:45 a.m. with the whole group.
3. Book the Roberts package. Its tickets come from a separate allotment on a longer window, so it can have space when the city site does not.
4. Book a guided snorkel with a set entrance time. A small-group guided snorkel with a set entrance time holds entry for its guests, with a guide in the water. You meet them at the bay.
5. Snorkel somewhere else. Our Oahu beaches guide covers the calmer options. In summer, Shark’s Cove on the North Shore is the best-known alternative. In winter, the North Shore surf puts it off-limits.