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Culture
Ticket prices, how long a visit takes, what is aboard the aircraft carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Laffey, stairs and elevators, parking, and where to eat afterward in Mount Pleasant.
Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum sits on Charleston Harbor in Mount Pleasant, at the foot of the Ravenel Bridge. One ticket covers the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, the World War II destroyer USS Laffey, 27 historic aircraft, the outdoor Vietnam Experience exhibit and the Medal of Honor Museum, which is aboard the carrier. The museum opens every day from 10am to 5pm, and the ticket window closes at 4pm.
The museum's own advice is to plan at least two to three hours for a first visit.
Tickets cost less bought online, at the Patriots Point ticket store. They are not tied to a date, are good for one visit within a year of purchase, and are not refundable. Free admission for young children and active-duty service members is given at the ticket window only.
Parking is not part of the ticket and is paid separately (see Parking below). The museum closes on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July it closes early, and the last ticket is sold at 2pm.
From the ticket area a long pier crosses the marsh to the Yorktown. The information desk is in the carrier's hangar bay, the enclosed deck under the flight deck where aircraft were stored and repaired, and the museum suggests starting there. Volunteers at the desk point the way to stairs, exhibits and restrooms. The Laffey is moored alongside the carrier, and the Vietnam Experience is on land beside the pier.
A visit combined with the Fort Sumter ferry, which leaves from the same dock, takes most of a day. Arriving at 10am leaves time for the carrier before the 1:30pm boat from late February through November.
The Yorktown is a World War II aircraft carrier, built in 16½ months at Newport News, Virginia, and commissioned on April 15, 1943. She was named for an earlier USS Yorktown sunk at the Battle of Midway in 1942. Known as the "Fighting Lady", she fought across the Pacific from late 1943 to the end of the war in 1945 and earned 11 battle stars, the Navy's award for taking part in a campaign. She earned five more off Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, and in December 1968 she recovered the Apollo 8 astronauts and their capsule after the first crewed flight to orbit the moon.
The ship was retired in 1970 and towed to Charleston in 1975, and the museum opened with her as its centerpiece on January 3, 1976.
Aboard are aircraft on the hangar bay and the flight deck, a replica Apollo 8 capsule with recordings from the mission, an engine room exhibit with interactive screens, a ship's library exhibit about life aboard, and the Medal of Honor Museum. The Captain's Tour, a 90-minute guided walk for up to 20 people, reaches parts of the ship closed to general visitors, including the captain's quarters and a B-25 bomber. Its tickets are sold for a set date and time, and the route climbs ladders and stairs.
The Medal of Honor is the country's highest award for military valor, first given during the Civil War in 1862. The museum aboard the Yorktown tells the stories of recipients from the Civil War through Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is home to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, the organization of living recipients. A searchable database holds every Medal of Honor citation, the written account of what each recipient did.
A destroyer is a smaller, faster warship built to protect larger ships. The Laffey was commissioned in February 1944 and within months was off Normandy, firing in support of the D-Day landings at Utah Beach. On April 16, 1945, in the Pacific, she was attacked by 22 Japanese aircraft, including planes flown deliberately into the ship. Thirty-two of her crew of 336 were killed and 71 wounded. The crew kept her afloat, and she became known as "The Ship That Would Not Die".
She later served in the Korean War and the Cold War and joined the museum in 1978. Two exhibits aboard recreate her history: a combat information center, the room where radar contacts were tracked, and Mount 53, a gun turret set on the day of the 1945 attack.
A third ship, the submarine USS Clamagore, was moored at Patriots Point until October 2022, when she was towed to Virginia to be recycled.
The Vietnam Experience is an outdoor exhibit on land, set up as a Navy river patrol support base and a Marine Corps artillery base in 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Khe Sanh. It holds five Vietnam-era helicopters, a river patrol boat dedicated to Medal of Honor recipient James Elliott Williams, a mess hall, a howitzer, trucks and an ambulance. A Quonset hut, a curved metal building of the kind used at bases, holds a small theater inside a replica Saigon street corner. An observation tower plays the sounds of jets and helicopters overhead.
An elevator on the Yorktown reaches the hangar bay, the flight deck and the quarters. Other parts of the carrier are reached only by steep stairs. The Laffey is not wheelchair accessible. The Vietnam Experience is.
Wheelchairs are free to borrow, on land and at the Yorktown's accessible entrance, and a golf cart carries visitors between the ticket area and the ship. Service animals are welcome on a leash or harness, though steep stairwells and tight spaces close some areas to them. Pets are not allowed. The museum's accessibility page lists the details.
The visitor lot is on Club House Road, beside the museum, and is run by Palmetto Parking. It costs $5.50 an hour, up to $25 a day, plus a card fee, and the system sends a reminder before time runs out with an option to add more.
From Charleston, cross the Ravenel Bridge into Mount Pleasant, turn right onto Coleman Boulevard at the foot of the bridge, then right onto Patriots Point Road at the first light. Follow Patriots Point Road past the old entrance and through the roundabout, turn right onto Club House Road at the stop sign, and the lot is on the right. The museum's directions page also covers the route from the north on Highway 17. The Charleston Water Taxi also stops at Patriots Point in season.
Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired, sits on an island in the harbor, and the ferry run by Fort Sumter Tours leaves from the Patriots Point dock. The trip takes about 2¼ hours, with about an hour at the fort. From late February through November, boats leave Patriots Point at 10:45am and 1:30pm, and from December 1 to 24 at 12:30pm. Fort Sumter Tours also sells a combined USS Yorktown and Fort Sumter ticket for $71. Ferry tickets are sold by Fort Sumter Tours.
Charleston Harbor Fish House is a short walk from the museum at 32 Patriots Point Road, and its windows look across the marsh to the Yorktown. Shem Creek, Mount Pleasant's waterfront of seafood restaurants and shrimp boats, is under two miles away. Red's Ice House, Shem Creek Crab House and Saltwater Cowboys all sit on the creek. The Shem Creek guide covers the rest of it.
The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge carries a paved walking and cycling path, Wonders' Way, 2.7 miles each way between Mount Pleasant and downtown Charleston. The easiest place to start is Mount Pleasant Memorial Waterfront Park, under the bridge on Harry M. Hallman Jr. Boulevard, which has parking, restrooms and a fishing pier. From the top of the bridge the view runs from Folly Beach to the Isle of Palms.