San Diego: USS Midway (July 2018)



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 CafĂ©) 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.



































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