Aulani ~ other hotel for late night arrival

[DisSarahK]

We will be at Aulani in the spring (end of March and beginning of April) and as our flight arrives late (11pm-ish) at night, I am looking for a hotel to stay in that night so that we can check-in at Aulani the next day...and maybe get an upgrade. We are not staying on points at Aulani.

Any suggestions for decent area hotels that won't break the bank? Might as well try to save a bit of money while we're at it since we'd be leaving first thing in the morning and going to Aulani.

Thank you!

 

[dadaleus]

We're going at the exact same time and also arriving late. So I looked into doing the same thing. The options were very limited though. From what I could tell (this is all web research, not in person), most hotels are in the opposite direction (Waikiki). The ones near Aulani are pretty expensive. There is a Best Western right by the airport that's pretty cheap, as well as other inexpensive motel type hotels in that area. But after reading the rather unappealing reviews on tripadvisor I decided just to bite the bullet and head straight to Aulani.

 

[Cinderpamela]

dadaleus is right about the other resorts around Ko Olina.
Here is the link for the Ko Olina website to see the resorts around Aulani:

http://www.koolina.com/


Another option is to stay closer in by the airport. When I was researching it for the night before we fly home the hotels closest to the airport didn't look so great...the closer you got towards Waikiki the better the hotels seemed to get. I didn't wind up booking one because we wound up doing a red eye the night before.... and didn't save the links to the ones I had narrowed it down to.

So it just depends what your willing to put up with for that first night ... or what your willing to pay.

 

[DisSarahK]

Right now we are booked to stay that night at Aulani...so it isn't as though we don't have a place to stay...but I'm still wondering about other options.

I"m not necessarily opposed to going toward Waikiki. I guess I just don't know what is good other than what I read online. I've never been to Oahu before.

 

[DenLo]

What is a reasonable price for Hawaii in your opinion? I was going to suggest the Hilton Hawaii Village. We had an ocean view there for one night and it was worth it to wake up to a view. But it was over $200 per night.

 

[mom2aidanNpiper]

We've stayed twice in Waikiki before moving on (one trip to a beach house, last trip to Aulani). Both were because we landed late. It was nice because it wasn't too far from the airport and in the morning we strolled the beach, did some shopping at the international marketplace, etc. Personally we only need a cpl hours in Waikiki.

Once we got a great rate at Outrigger Waikiki on the beach (their pool was closed so it lowered rates), and last time we stayed at Hyatt Place Waikiki (great FREE breakfast buffet). But both times after tax we paid around $200 or so.

 

[JeanfromBNA]

Has anyone tried Priceline?

 

[DisSarahK]

At this point, considering what I'm paying for Aulani, $200ish isn't bad at all. Typically I wouldn't consider that a deal, but I would definitely consider paying up to about $250 for that first night.

My thinking is that if we're coming at a prime time like spring break (end of March) and arriving mid-week, we're not going to have a lot of room choices...so arriving super late at night will lessen those choices even more. If we arrive in the morning, aren't they more likely to put us in a better room and *maybe* upgrade us? (I know our Aulani room wouldn't necessarily be ready in the morning...but they would know we are on the resort property at that point.)

 

[Cinderpamela]

At this point, considering what I'm paying for Aulani, $200ish isn't bad at all. Typically I wouldn't consider that a deal, but I would definitely consider paying up to about $250 for that first night.

My thinking is that if we're coming at a prime time like spring break (end of March) and arriving mid-week, we're not going to have a lot of room choices...so arriving super late at night will lessen those choices even more. If we arrive in the morning, aren't they more likely to put us in a better room and *maybe* upgrade us? (I know our Aulani room wouldn't necessarily be ready in the morning...but they would know we are on the resort property at that point.)

This sounds like a logical way to go about it to me... I know that it helped me when I checked in at the VGC last November... we spent the first night at the Sheraton and then checked into the VGC at 6:30 am the next day (that was due to early park entry access that morning... no need to be that early at Aulani). I wound up getting a great room it was the one that was on the top of my room request list.

It certainly couldn't hurt as far as if there was a certain room request that you had put in.