bonoriffic

Warning for out of town fans!

I just returned today from a long vacation in Hawaii. I attempted to go to the University of Hawaii vs. Purdue football game held at the same venue U2 will be playing at. The stadium had around 44,000 fans, the largest turnout of the season but less than what is expected for U2.

The island, city, and stadium are not able to handle the amount of people that will be expected! Let me warn all of you now, if you are not a local read this carefully.

Avoid parking at all costs. The stadium can hold maybe 5000 cars, and even then a large percentage is for parking pass holders only. There are several alternate parking sites at a great distance from the stadium. You may learn about them if you are lucky, after our first 1.5 hour slow crawl to the stadium we were turned away and told by police to "park somewhere else". After following the next line of cars working our way to another entrance we were again turned away and given a pre-printed map of 3 locations with vague directions not useful from our current spot. After waiting in another traffic jam heading over a mile from the stadium we gave up.

If you are coming from Waikiki as most tourists are, consult thebus dot org website and find public transportation options. Find an express event bus if possible as normally scheduled routes do not use the highway. Leave by bus at least 3 hours before the concert begins.

Leave very early. I left 2.5 hours before the game start time from Waikiki and only began to glimpse the stadium as the kickoff was starting. If you insist on parking, arrive at the stadium a MINIMUM of 4 hours before the event.

Obtain highly detailed street maps of Honolulu. The majority of maps do not include the small one way side streets you will have to negotiate to find parking, all having very similar sounding names as the Hawaiian alphabet has limited characters.

Scope out your route and discover cheap parking options the day before. The police told us to "just find someplace to park" and that is what the locals do. Every fast food place, community center, high school, and side street will be used for parking.

Expect delays. Despite having almost perfect weather year round and zero reason for road decay, Oahu has some of the worst roads you will ever travel on and are always under repair. The main expressway H1 is a parking lot at various hours of the day as it can not handle basic city traffic and will be insane with tourists flooding in for U2. There will also be lingering crowds from the anniversary of Pearl Harbor as well as the marathon scheduled just after the concert.

Do not let something as stupid as parking cause your Hawaiian vacation to be ruined. Do not underestimate how awful the situation is there. Leave early. Also be aware that Honolulu is a dangerous city. Even a member of President Bush's security detail was brutally attacked in Waikiki just the other day. If you are late and pressed for time, it will be dark and you may pick the wrong place to park in desperation.

Lila64

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Liesje

Wow, soooooo glad I got in on Lori/Kirk's bus/carpool!

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Chizip

Sounds terrible, glad I'm not going

tryan101

good thing we're allowing 12 hours.

U2Fanatic4ever

I would take this persons warning seriously.. I lived on Oahu for 4 yrs and actually lived in the miltary housing a mile from Pearl Harbor Naval Base with is next to or across the street from Aloha Stadium... This city is not equiped to handle this many people. As mentioned football games cause the worse traffic that I have ever seen.. And I know traffic having lived in LA all my life.. What makes it bad is that there are no real outlets/ways around the traffic when it starts.. I wonder if the police/security are anywhere near prepared for this.. The locals are very laid back and not so organized..
For those camping out you will be ok.. But for those who are not as mentioned leave very early. H1 freeway is the only major highway on the island coming from waikiki so once that backs up there isn't much choice but to sit. There is a road that runs parallel to H1 but I can't think of the name at the moment.

Leaving the show well, hang out at the stadium for a while if you can cuz if you get in your cars you won't be moving for a long long time..

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bonoriffic

I know the name, only because we didn't exit when we should have. Who would have guessed an expressway can go in two directions and still be called the same thing!

Nimitz Highway will run parallel to H1 and near the airport actually underneath it. You will be no better off as it has stop lights and is under construction.

bonoriffic

Hanging out in 3 hours of traffic only to not see an event you paid money for isn't all that bad once you realize you are in Hawaii. A little careful planning and the day will be amazing. I can't believe 18 hours ago I was sitting in the open air airport only to come home to a foot of snow to shovel.

zonelistener

I think you really could say this about ANY city.

The aide was at a nightclub in Waikiki, and stepped outside to have a smoke by - alone. If it wasn't an White House Aide, this would not have made national news.

As you would in any city you are visitng - you need to be ALERT!

Thanks for the bus suggestion! i think we will lave the rental car behind.

AND...you may have arrived late for the first half....but you did not miss much...the second half was MUCH better (despite the loss)!

zonelistener

I was just digging around the Honolulu newspaper online, and found THIS article!

Only 8000 spots and the lot filled up by 3:30 for a 7:05pm game.

Lila64

Wouldn't there, theoretically, have to be a certain amount of parking spots at any venue based on the capacity of said venue? 8000 spots for 40,000+ seated stadium? That's an average of 5 per car (NOT). Seems quite ridiculous, especially next weekend with 60,000 expected...

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kramwest1

Thank you for the warning. I was wondering about all of that. I guess we'll be getting there earlier than we thought.

Mark

Liesje

I wonder if this will cause problems for the Interference bus arrangement.

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oktobergirl

Thank you SO much for this info.

techfire

Yikes!