The last of the three Aloha Festivals Saturdays is the one that puts a parade on the street we use to get anywhere. The 78th Annual Floral Parade runs 9 a.m. to noon on Sept. 26, from Ala Moana Regional Park along Kalākaua Avenue to Kapiʻolani Park. The timing suits us — it is finished before our afternoon starts — but the thing we went looking for is not published anywhere we could find: no one has posted when Kalākaua closes, or when it reopens.
What happened
An 80th-anniversary piece by Katie Helland in Aloha State Daily is what put the parade back in front of us this week. It gives the route in plain terms — “The route starts at Ala Moana Regional Park and continues along Kalākaua Avenue ending at Kapiʻolani Regional Park” — and quotes Sam Shenkus, co-chair of the Aloha Festivals board, on how it is staffed: “It’s truly an astounding level of aloha, but it’s all volunteer. There’s no one getting paid to be in the parade.”
The festival’s own Floral Parade page lists it the same way: “Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026 | 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.,” “From Ala Moana Park through Kalākaua Avenue to Kapiʻolani Park,” with grandstands and narration at four spots — Ala Moana Park, Prince Waikiki, Royal Hawaiian Center and the Moana Surfrider. It describes flower-covered floats, hula groups, marching bands and pāʻū riders — “men and women on horseback dressed in lei,” in Aloha State Daily’s words, “while wearing the colors of the different Islands.” Some of the people in the parade are keiki.
For scale, the festival’s about page says this began in 1946 as Aloha Week, became Aloha Festivals in 1991, and that its events are staged by “thousands of volunteers” and “attended by more than 100,000 people.” The events index heads the year “80 Years of Aloha.” On cost, Aloha State Daily calls the Sept. 19 block party “the free, volunteer-run event”; nothing we read puts a price on the parade, and the parade page does not mention admission or seat charges at all.
What it changes for a Waikiki stay
Here is what is published and what is not, as we read it on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, Hawaii time.
| Sept. 26 Floral Parade | What is published |
|---|---|
| Date and time | Saturday, Sept. 26, 9 a.m.–12 p.m. |
| Route | Ala Moana Park, along Kalākaua Avenue, ending at Kapiʻolani Park |
| Grandstands with narration | Ala Moana Park, Prince Waikiki, Royal Hawaiian Center, Moana Surfrider |
| Admission or seat price | Not mentioned on the festival’s page |
| Street closure and reopening times | Not on any page we read |
| Trolley detours | Not on the trolley’s reroute page |
Those last two blanks stand out because both were filled in a week earlier. For the Sept. 19 Hoʻolauleʻa it published a 2026 map whose closure box read “12:30 p.m. – Partial closure of Kalākaua Avenue begins” and “2:00 p.m. – Full closure of Kalākaua Avenue from Seaside Avenue to Liliʻuokalani Avenue,” which is what we wrote about two days ago. Waikiki Trolley matched it: its reroute page says the Blue, Red, Green and Pink lines all detour after 2 p.m. on Sept. 19, because “The event will close Kalakaua Avenue, all lanes from Seaside Ave. to Lilioukalani Ave.” On that same page, nothing for Sept. 26.
That gap lands on one errand for us. The Pink Line is how we get to Ala Moana Center for groceries, and its own page says the first trolley of the day is at 10 a.m., that it comes roughly every 15 minutes, and that a single-day Pink Line ticket is $6. So our usual mid-morning ride would start into the parade’s second hour, toward a shopping center next door to the parade’s start line — the same Ala Moana Regional Park that reopened Sept. 10 after Hurricane Lowell. We would not stand at a trolley stop at 10:15 that morning and hope.
The other effect is simpler: for three hours the sidewalks along Kalākaua are the venue, not the way through Waikiki.
What we would do — and what we would not
We have not watched the Floral Parade, so take the crowd notes as reported rather than field-tested.
Watch from the curb, not a grandstand. A 9 a.m. start actually works for us, because we are up early with coffee in the room anyway. We would walk over to the Royal Hawaiian Center stretch, a few minutes on foot from where we usually stay, watch the horses and a handful of floats go by, and be back inside long before it ends. Narration is the case for a grandstand seat, and it is a good one — it is just not worth a morning of sitting to us.
Move the Ala Moana run to Friday, or to after 1. That is the only real cost of the day, and it is small: groceries bought Friday, or the trolley taken once the parade has cleared.
Nothing about the afternoon changes. The parade ends at noon and our day really begins around 2, with a happy hour or the cold half of the refrigerator. An event that is over before we start is the easiest kind there is.
If you rented a car, do not plan to cross Kalākaua that morning. The festival’s pages post no closure or reopening time. Its event parking page does list places to park, including Royal Hawaiian Center and Kapiʻolani Park, which sit on or near the route. A parade route is a closed street whether or not anyone posts the hour.
If you are at the Diamond Head end, 9 a.m. is not your time. The route runs one way, so 9 a.m. is when it leaves Ala Moana Park, not when anything reaches Kapiʻolani Park. Neither source prints a time for any point in between, so if you are aiming at a particular block, build in a wait.
For fellow owners, this is what long stays are for. A free parade you can walk to costs an hour when you are already here for weeks, and it is just as easy to skip. No booking, no ticket, no points either way.
Before you plan around this
Everything above was read on Sept. 19, 2026, Hawaii time: the Floral Parade page, the events index, the about page, the trolley’s reroute notices, and the city Department of Transportation Services’ news release page, where the newest item was dated Sept. 1 and none of them mentioned the parade. A closure notice may appear during the week, so check again a day or two out rather than trusting this list.
The festival’s own pages have also disagreed with each other this month: for the Hoʻolauleʻa, the events index listed a 9:30 p.m. finish while the event page said 10 p.m., which we flagged when we covered the three Saturdays at the start of September. If two pages give you two answers about Sept. 26, take the more recently updated one and look for a city advisory as the tie-breaker.
Details
- 78th Annual Floral Parade: Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, 9 a.m.–12 p.m., from Ala Moana Park through Kalākaua Avenue to Kapiʻolani Park.
- Admission: none listed on the festival’s page.
- Re-verify at alohafestivals.com/floral-parade and, for detours, at waikikitrolley.com/reroutes.
