Diamond Head over the holidays

Is Diamond Head open on Christmas Day and New Year's Day 2026-27?

No. The park is closed on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. In 2026-27 those are Friday 25 December and Friday 1 January. Every other day it opens at 6 a.m.

The DLNR park page gives the hours as 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, last entry at 4:30 p.m. for the 4 p.m. reservation, and lists the two closures in a single line: closed Christmas and New Year's. No reduced hours are published for Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, so treat 24 and 31 December as normal days.

Thanksgiving is the one that trips people up. In 2021 the state closed the crater on Thanksgiving as well, citing staff shortages, in a one-off news release. The current park page lists only Christmas and New Year's, so Thursday 26 November 2026 should be a regular day. Check the booking calendar anyway: if a date cannot be selected, it is closed.

When do reservations open for the holiday weeks?

On a rolling 30-day window. Expect 26 December to appear around 26 November, 31 December around 1 December, and 2 January around 3 December.

Non-residents need a timed reservation from gostateparks.hawaii.gov, which says reservations "may be made up to 30 days in advance". Each morning a new day joins the end of the calendar, so the slots for a given holiday appear one day at a time, about a month before. Several trip-planning sites say new dates drop at midnight Hawaii time; the state's page does not give an hour, so the safe move is to look first thing in the morning on the day the window reaches your date.

Count back from your visit. The table shows the date each holiday morning should become bookable. Note the first row: the slots for the Saturday after Christmas open on Thanksgiving Day, when many people are busy with something else.

Which time slot should you book over Christmas and New Year?

The 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. entry. They sell first, they are cooler, and in late December the sun rises after 7 a.m., so the first slot can still catch a summit sunrise.

There are two kinds of reservation. If you drive, you book a two-hour parking slot starting at 6 a.m., and you have to be out when it ends. If you arrive on foot, by bus or by rideshare, you book an entry-only window of one hour, and the 2022 DLNR release that set up the system says walk-ins can stay until closing. Either way, you must arrive within the first 30 minutes of your slot or you can be turned away without a refund.

In the holiday week, take the earliest slot you are willing to wake up for. On 26 December the sun comes up at 7:07 a.m. (US Naval Observatory), and a steady hiker who walks in at 6 a.m. is on the summit in time. Our winter sunrise table has every date to March. Late-morning slots are hotter and more crowded, and the trail narrows near the top, so a full crater at 10 a.m. means queues on the stairs.

Winter is also Oahu's rainier season. The state does not refund for weather unless it officially closes the park, so a wet morning is still a used ticket.

What do Diamond Head tours do on Christmas Day and New Year's Day?

They cannot enter. Every tour that includes the hike depends on the state park, so plan a crater tour for 24 or 26 December, or for 31 December or 2 January.

Tour operators do not have a back door. They book entry through the state's commercial system, and when the park is closed it is closed for them too. If an operator's calendar does take a booking for a closed day, the trip cannot run as sold, and an operator cancellation means your money back. Do not count on it: pick an open date from the start.

On the two closed days you still have options that never needed the crater. The 7 lookouts tour stops at the beach park below Diamond Head and six other viewpoints, and the Ke Kai sail looks at the crater from the water. Check their calendars for the holiday itself; we have no published holiday schedule for either.

For the busy days around the closures, the tour route has one real advantage. Commercial operators book entry through a separate system from the visitor calendar, so a shuttle can still have seats on a morning when the public slots are gone. The Kaimana shuttle is the cheapest at $35 with park fees, water and a map included; the Go Tours shuttle is $40 with the entry tickets and about two hours at the crater.

Entry reservation included, a trolley ride from five Waikiki pickup points and about two hours to hike at your own pace.

★ 4.8 · 2.5 hours · from $40

Explore the Diamond Head shuttle with entry tickets → Tour details

What else can close Diamond Head in December?

Unplanned closures happen: water outages, rockfall work, emergencies. Only an official closure triggers a refund, and race morning on 13 December makes the roads slow.

The two holidays are the only scheduled closures, but they are not the only ones on record. In June 2023 the state closed the park for a day after a water disruption, and in 2025 DLNR shut it on eight full days in June for rockfall work around the Kahala Tunnel. Closures like these are announced on the park page, and they are the only case in which the state refunds a reservation for conditions.

The Honolulu Marathon runs on Sunday 13 December 2026 with a 5 a.m. start, and the course passes Diamond Head twice (Hawaii Guide). Final 2026 road closures were not out when we checked; watch honolulumarathon.org in race week. If you must hike that Sunday, go on foot or skip it and take the Monday.

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