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Short answer: Book online exactly 2 days ahead at 7:00 AM Hawaii time ($25 per non-resident 13 and older). Parking is a separate $3 per car, cash only. The bay is closed Monday and Tuesday.
Hanauma Bay is one of the few Oahu stops that genuinely needs both a car and a reservation booked in advance. Here is how the two fit together.
The reservation window is short
Online reservations open just 2 days in advance at 7:00 AM Hawaii time and routinely sell out within minutes. A limited number of walk-in tickets go on sale at the gate starting at 6:45 AM, first-come first-served, but you cannot count on getting one. The park is open Wednesday through Sunday only (closed Monday and Tuesday), 6:45 AM to 4:00 PM, with last entry at 1:30 PM.
Cost and who it applies to
Entry is $25 per person for non-residents 13 and older; Hawaii residents with valid ID, active military, and children 12 and under enter free.
Parking is its own bottleneck
The lot charges $3 per vehicle and has limited spaces. It fills up close to the same pace as the reservations themselves. Arriving early with your reservation in hand does not guarantee a spot if you show up right at opening on a busy day.
- Your reservation does not reserve a parking space. Treat the two as separate bottlenecks, not one.
- The 2-day window means flexible dates help. If your trip dates are firm, plan to check at 7:00 AM sharp two days out rather than the night before.
- No reservation means no entry, even if you already have your rental car in the lot. This isn’t a pay-at-the-door situation outside the small walk-in allotment.
Also stopping at Kualoa Ranch on the windward side? See the Kualoa Ranch parking guide: your rental only gets you to the visitor center there.
Parking near Lanikai on the same drive? See the Lanikai Beach parking guide: a very different, much less forgiving kind of bottleneck.
Also chasing a Diamond Head reservation on the same trip? See the Diamond Head reservations guide: it runs on a completely different booking system and window. Picking up your rental first? Start with the Honolulu Airport rental car guide.
Book through the City and County of Honolulu’s official Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve page, not a reseller, because third-party sellers charge more for the same slot. For a plain-English walkthrough of the booking steps, this independent Hanauma Bay guide is useful.
Planning more than one booking? The Hawaii reservations calendar lists every window and release time in one table.
Continuing up the coast? The Makapuu Lighthouse Trail lot is gated, with set opening hours.
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Photo: Eric Tessmer, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Researched and written by Neo Pecorro. Facts on this page were checked against the sources linked above. Hawaii rules change often, so confirm on the official page before you go.
Last updated: September 7, 2026.