This was my first visit to the museum, and I wasn't sure what to expect as far as size and content were concerned. Coincidentally, it happened to be on Memorial Day weekend.

At the beginning of the museum I was so excited to get started, I almost opted to skip the video at the entrance. Immediately after the video was over, I entered the first hallway which was filled with a daunting display of photos and text that consumed the better part of 30+ minutes. The end of this hallway was only about 150' into the museum, and I already felt overwhelmed.

The hallway entered a room with a miniature submarine, the first of many exhibits where I was left confused. I circled the room and read everything for more info as to what was sitting in front of me. A video played and text on the walls talked about the use of mini subs but nothing I saw was related to the specific display in the room. Was it real? a scaled down replica? I had no clue.

The next room had some models battleships, display cases with artifacts, and uniforms. A relief as this was much lighter reading and more to look at visually. However many rooms after this were filled with 20-30 minutes worth of reading material. I later commented to someone I felt as If I had walked thru a textbook where the pages has been stapled to the walls of a building.

There were two more rooms, one with a plane, and another with a tank, again poorly labeled, with not much explaining the display. I tried to discern if they were authentic, replica's or something else, and manged to find a small plaque in the plane room, in a dark corner that was barely lit. The plaque explained it was a similar aircraft model to those talked about in the texts, that it had been repainted to more closely resemble the actual aircraft. I later asked my friend if he had seen this.. he said no..

Over 2.5 hours into the building, I started opting to skip displays, skim read text, and at this point even skip videos and interactive displays. I passed people who had accidentally circled around and were lost. Many shortcut passages contained additional displays, which were either missed by visitors, or caused people to backtrack on accident.

My phone chimed at this point, the person I was visiting with, a veteran, was texting me, to let me know they had exited the building and that they were waiting outside. They had given up, as it was just too much info..

I skipped the entire last 3 rooms, where there were 2 more videos, displays of the atomic bombs and the final resolution to the war. Our group was so tired at this point, we didn't even go to the Nimitz museum. We walked around the outside of the building, and attempted to find the Chinese garden, but couldn't find it as the signs just seemed to point to a square grassy area filled with plaques. I later found out the garden was located behind the Nimitz building.

In addition to the frustration of information overload, there were numerous lights that continuously flickered, or faded in and out throughout the museum.. I assumed some of these were bad lights, while others were motion activated to save electricity. But when people are reading page after pages of text, they don't create much motion.

I rated this museum 4 stars because I felt the presentation of the materials needed much improvement. I'm not sure if the audio tour would have been much better, or better condensed, but I left the museum still confused about why Japan attacked America in the first place. I realized this info was somewhere in that first hall, but that I either missed something, or didn't process the information in a way that made it apparent. Which was puzzling since I had spent so much time there.

While the information was detailed, and plentiful, it also made it impossible to consume. To honestly read all the text, view all the displays, and watch all the videos, Id recommend at least 5 hours, and dont know if this would allow you to visit the Nimitz building as well. Even then, only someone who is fluent in English would be able to accomplish it.