My spouse and I visited the USS Midway on a Wednesday
afternoon in early July 2018. The museum is open daily from 10:00 am until 5:00
pm. Adult admission is $23; however, you can save $2 by purchasing your tickets
online, which allows you to skip the ticket queue when you arrive. (Child
admission is $10, with additional reduced pricing for students, seniors, and
retired military.)
The USS Midway is docked on Broadway Pier off Harbor Drive
in the Embarcadero near Seaport
Village. Surface parking is available on the pier next to the ship. Semi-permanent
restroom facilities are located near the ticket windows, with additional
permanent “heads” on the ship. Two snack bars/cafes (one is called the Fantail
Café) are onboard that serve a variety of food and drink (including some alcoholic
beverages). Allow at least 3+ hours for your visit, and wear comfortable
footwear. Not only will you walk a lot, but you will also need to climb ladders
and stairs (some limited elevator access is available to certain parts of the
ship). Most visitors explore the ship on their own, but you might benefit from
an audio tour or a docent-led tour. A gift shop, souvenir photos, and flight
simulators are also available for an additional cost.
The Midway was commissioned just after the end of World War
II, and for the next decade, she remained the largest ship in the world. She
was also the first aircraft carrier too large to transit the Panama Canal. The
Midway operated for almost 50 years, seeing action in the Laotian Crisis,
Vietnam War, Persian Gulf, and Desert Storm. She was decommissioned in 1992, and during the process, its sailors and
their families were filmed for the movie “At Sea”, a documentary about carrier life shown at the Navy
Museum in Washington, DC.
In September
2003, the USS Midway was moved
from the Navy Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility in Washington state to San
Diego in preparation for use as a museum and memorial, which opened a few
months later in January 2004. Today, you can tour nearly the entire ship,
including her angled flight deck (which stretches from 122,000 to 174,000
square feet and displays various vintage and modern aircraft) with catapults
and traps, the hangar deck with its elevators, lodging berths, electronics control
room, cafeteria and kitchen, laundry, and hospital ward.
We enjoyed our fascinating visit to the USS Midway.
