Dreams Come True in Blue Hawaii - Aulani, Kauai, Disneyland May 2017 TR, updated 7/30

May 31 - last full day at Aulani

How is it possible we've already come to the last full day at Aulani? Ah, even visits to paradise must end, I suppose. Fortunately, we had more adventures on the horizon before heading home or I would've been despondent leaving Aulani.

As we were planning on a pool day and Hawaii time made us early risers anyway, we headed down to the adult pool to stake out spots shortly before 9:00 am. Spoiler alert: totally unnecessary.

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We had full run of the adult pool at that hour and there was barely anyone at the other pools either (although quite a number of "reserved" chairs already...)

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As you can see, the adult pool gets a lot of morning shade. This is fine for me, I am usually longing for shade at the beach or pool, but my dear fiance is more of a sun fan so we decided to try some of the other pools while the crowds were slim. We had the Ka Maka Grotto pool nearly to ourselves, it was just us and a father/daughter playing in the water. (no photos, sorry)

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These pools really are so beautiful, I love the immersive resort feel at Aulani and how immaculately the grounds are kept. They did fold our towels for the hour time limit this morning while we visited the other pools, but it was unnecessary. We were obviously back within the hour anyway but there were plenty of chairs for quite some time.

I really enjoyed that the adult pool (and maybe the others, though I am not sure because we never sat elsewhere) had pool chair service, so I availed myself of the oportunity to try Aulani's mai tai:

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This was good, a standard mai tai but necessary to experience poolside, at least once! Two mai tais were $28.27, plus tip, so I was glad we had our stash of Safeway booze previously through the trip. I'm not sure what's more indulgent than a mai tai with a beautiful orchid brought to you in your pool chair in tropical paradise. Can't beat it!

After our mai tais, we headed up to the room and finished off our taco supplies for another lunch on the balcony. I really like this aspect of DVC accomodations, it makes vacations feel a bit more relaxed to me to have a bit of a kitchenette where I can prepare a leisurely lunch "at home" even if it's just assembling cold prepared foods. I'm sure we had another drink or two. I left my phone and camera in the room and we headed down to the pools again where we just dumped our stuff on the ground in the shade and took a couple of laps around the lazy river. The resort was MUCH less busy today than it had been over the weekend and we enjoyed the lazy river with fewer bodies bumping along. We ended the afternoon back at the beach, which is truly the highlight of Aulani for me. It is probably the biggest selling point for me to go back, with the sheltered lagoon affording a swimming opportunity where other beaches don't.

We also had a great time interacting with other guests at Aulani's beach. I can't remember which day it was but we spent a fair amount of time just chatting in the waves with a nice lady who was there with her extended family from the northeast U.S. Lots of people asked if we were on our honeymoon so we got to tell the engagement story plenty of times! :love: We also had a great time chatting with one of the recreation cast members, Lance, who was really funny and entertaining. Aulani has great staff and we didn't have any unpleasant interactions.

We had a nice dinner planned so we got cleaned up and headed down to the beach again for more photopass. Sorry for the photopass overload but I found other trip reports helpful in seeing photopass locations so I am trying to showcase the different spots and different lighting you can get there for those who might be interested:

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Not crazy about the back-lighting in this one above, but it shows the grass location if you don't want to get your feet sandy after cleaning up

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Also on the grass, above, but facing the other way, and a much better background in my opinion at this hour

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The above one came out dark, I had to lighten it up myself, but I liked the sandy feet and sunset look

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Same location, this time with flash. The photographers were always trying to get us to do shakas (the hand sign) and sometimes we obliged and sometimes we told them we'd prefer not to. After seeing how the first night's pictures turned out I had no problem saying "no" to certain poses.

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They tried to get us to do a variety of different cutesy poses over the few nights we did photopass, this one was one of the few successful ones.

We took the last evening in with a stroll around the Ko Olina lagoon coves

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We walked over toward the chapel and past it around the corner to where the Ko Olina Villas are

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Looking back at Aulani

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And then back past Aulani over to the Four Seasons:

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the Four Seasons was playing host to an extravagant wedding that night so that pathway was blocked off, preventing us from walking all the way around to Luau Cove. I was a little irritated, actually, but I wouldn't want pedestrians sauntering through my wedding either, I suppose.

We had dinner reservations for 'Ama 'Ama that evening at about 8:00. I had originally made the reservation for 5:30 for sunset, but we learned earlier in the week that would not work for our eating schedule so I moved it to a later time when we were there. We were seated shortly after our reservation time at a great table near the beachfront terraces. I did a pretty bad job photographing our meal, but I did take notes on what we had.

Quickly, I will note that our reservation was immediately past the last stages of sunset and when it got dark the flying termites that everyone complains about at 'Ama 'Ama did come out. They were buzzing around when we were waiting on our table and they were pretty thick and swarmy when we were seated. One got in my dress and really freaked me out for a minute. But they went away in about 5-10 minutes so I am really glad we did not kick up a fuss over it. I started with a glass of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc ($13) and R had the Elouan Pinot Noir ($12). Neither was grossly overpriced and these are widely available at home as well. They brought us extra coasters to put on top of our wine glasses for the few minutes that the termites were around o_O they worked, I am glad to report!

For appetizers we had:

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Fresh ahi poke at the recommendation of our server, who told us it had been swimming that morning. $18. Current menu description: "AHI POKE WITH CRISPY RICE kochujang aïoli, kabayaki, sea bean salad" This was incredibly fresh and tasty, and I am not your gung-ho seafood eater so those are high accolades, I promise! Highly recommended.

For dinner I had the "daily catch" which was snapper, grilled and topped with macadamia nut brown butter sauce. Their fish menu allows you to choose a fish and mix and match with preparations. This was absolutely to die for. I wish I had a picture, but we were celebrating and I was trying to lay off the documenting and just savor the moment. My entree was $36.

R had Shrimp Pasta ($32) "curry-spiced garlic shrimp, squid ink, egg linguine" and we also greatly enjoyed this. I remember it being tasty and flavorful. The server warned us about it in some way (now I can't remember what about, wow am I helpful) but we were very glad we went with it anyway.

We also ordered sides, as the menu is basically a la carte. We were tempted by "asparagus with herb-butter, fried garlic" ($11) and the truffle mac and cheese ($14). Both were disappointing and I would skip them in future in lieu of another appetizer and more fresh options.

As dinner wound down, we were treated to an unexpected surprise, though we had a bit of warning thanks to the live band which announced what was happening:

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the Four Seasons wedding had arranged for fireworks! Cue the waterworks! :sad:

I know it had nothing to do with Disney but it just felt incredibly special, enjoying our last night at Aulani celebrating romance with fireworks, which are just quintessentially Disney to me. They weren't for us, but they felt like they were for us.

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Sidenote: I cannot imagine what this wedding must have cost. The fireworks alone probably cost more than my whole wedding will. There were a LOT of fireworks. It was gorgeous!

We finished the meal with dessert:

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Mocha Chantilly Cake ($11) Coffee Kanten, Coffee Anglaise, Macadamia Nut Nougatine and Chocolate Gelato. I believe this was recommended by our server but I don't remember anything else about it. I probably let R have most of it and opted for another glass of wine :thumbsup2

the total with tax before tip was $167.53, so we made it an even $200 and went back to our room to sit on the balcony and listen to the live music from the Olelo room and pretend we never had to leave.

There's not much left to say of Aulani, the next day includes just a couple tidbits about departure, so I understand if I lose my audience after this. After all, half the fun of trip reporting is reliving the memories. However, we are only halfway into the trip and headed off the next morning for Kauai, followed by Disneyland, so stay tuned if either of those adventures interest you!

To those of you not interested in the rest of the trip, thanks for reading and ALOHA! :flower3:
 
Looks like a perfect last lazy day at Aulani! Glad you were able to enjoy the pool without as many crowds! Sometimes its nice to leave the photo/camera behind and just enjoy! That is special that a wedding gave you fireworks on your last night! Awesome timing.
 
It seems like you had the perfect last day. There are some amazing places to take photos there, I love the ones on the beach with the sunset. The giant flying bugs at dinner did not sound nice, they only like coming out after sunset?

It's always hard when your trip is coming to an end, good thing you had other things planned it makes it more fun when there are multiple stops.

This definitely makes me want to go to Hawaii, but I will wait until I can take a proper vacation and not a weekend crazy trip :)
 
What a wonderful way to end your Aulani stay. :love: I'll be sticking around because we'll probably make a stop at Disneyland too to break up the long flight(s) back to Scotland.
 


I am really enjoying your trip report! Our family of 5 are planning on heading there summer 2019 ( I love planning far out!) We are from Birmingham, AL and are planning on flying to Seattle for a couple of nights before heading to Hawaii (Aulani on Ohua and the big island) before stopping by Disneyland for a couple of days. Was the plane ride from Hawaii to LA also 6 hours? I love all the pics!
 
I've been reading! Just a bad commenter...

Your proposal story had me like :love: I love it!

Aulani and Hawaii look just beautiful. Those are bucket list places for us! All of your photos are great I think :) And you guys got some really good PP pictures! What a good tip for getting photos with your AP... Note to self, plan Aulani/Hawaii trip next time we get WDW APs ;)

I can't wait to hear more about your adventures!


Oh yes, I showed Zack your Tamatoa sticker and he was super jealous. :rotfl2:
 
Wow, what a beautiful vacation so far, and what a special place to get engaged!

This is making me miss Hawaii so much!
 


This Memorial Day weekend (2018) will be our wedding weekend, and I really want to share our experience and also document the memories so I can look back on the trip report and the photos in the future.

Congrats!! I missed getting caught up here before your wedding weekend, but I hope you had a wonderful time with all kinds of special memories! I enjoyed getting myself caught up here now, even if a little late.


How incredibly beautiful!! After reading this report, I may or may not have started making a five-year plan for Nathan and I to do this for my 30th birthday... :blush:

I'm going to go ahead and totally spoil the early posts of thTR, but many of you may know me from around the boards anyway and it's been so long that I will 'fess up that this is the trip on which I got engaged to my partner (and now fiance) "R".

Congrats!! What an amazing place for an engagement. :lovestruc

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I couldn't get over the leg room

Oh my gosh! Amazing!! This is absolutely the way to fly. :worship:

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Oh yeah! Check out those bad boys! We got 6 original, 6 haupia (coconut), and 6 chocolate filled. Total including tax was $26.70 and they were so worth it! Especially hot and fresh.

These look SO good.

our total was $247.87. It was a little more than I had planned to spend on room supplies but it ended up saving us in the long run considering how many meals and cocktails we made off those supplies compared to the resort prices. For example, a bottle of rum was $27.99 and two mai tais at the pool bar were $27.00 (both before tax).

Wow! I knew Hawaii was expensive, and Disney's also expensive, but wow! Smart move getting a lot of your food and drink for the room.

I would also recommend looking at the Diamond Head website and at the trail maps on there - I am in slightly better health now, but after having read others’ reports on the Diamond Head experience, I knew that the enclosed stairs portions as you are nearing the top of the climb would be a likely trigger for a panic attack for me.

Ooh, this is good to know. I'd have trouble with that, too.

but the important part was that he asked me to watch Jeopardy with him every night for the rest of forever and of course I agreed.

:lovestruc:lovestruc Now that's a keeper!!


So beautiful!


Your photopass pictures came out great! (At least the ones that made the cut for you to share here.) I think this was my favourite one.


It looks like paradise!! Also...Moana sailed onto your beach!? :)

I was all for checking out what everyone else had stopped for. It turns out we'd found a popular surfing beach.

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Neat! But I see what you meant about the surf not being good for swimming, especially for kids.

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"Toasted pullman bread with warm goat cheese, white cheddar, pickled onion and kalua pork" ($11)

This looks amazing. Nom!


So much beauty in these photos!

Lots of people asked if we were on our honeymoon so we got to tell the engagement story plenty of times! :love:

:lovestruc

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the Four Seasons wedding had arranged for fireworks! Cue the waterworks! :sad:

I know it had nothing to do with Disney but it just felt incredibly special, enjoying our last night at Aulani celebrating romance with fireworks, which are just quintessentially Disney to me. They weren't for us, but they felt like they were for us.

Such an amazing end to your trip and your engagement/birthday celebration. How special. :lovestruc
 
Looks like a perfect last lazy day at Aulani! Glad you were able to enjoy the pool without as many crowds! Sometimes its nice to leave the photo/camera behind and just enjoy! That is special that a wedding gave you fireworks on your last night! Awesome timing.
It was incredible! And thanks again for your amazing trip report. It really helped me plan and to know what to expect!!

It seems like you had the perfect last day. There are some amazing places to take photos there, I love the ones on the beach with the sunset. The giant flying bugs at dinner did not sound nice, they only like coming out after sunset?
It was fantastic. I loved Aulani and would absolutely recommend it especially since you guys like the villa rooms. Those flying termites were so weird - for just a small window of time it was like a horror movie and then they disappeared :confused3 People really had me freaked out about them but it was short lived so I would totally go back to 'Ama 'Ama even after dark.

It's always hard when your trip is coming to an end, good thing you had other things planned it makes it more fun when there are multiple stops.

This definitely makes me want to go to Hawaii, but I will wait until I can take a proper vacation and not a weekend crazy trip :)
Yes! I have to bribe myself with good things at the end of the trip :rotfl: Otherwise I'd never come home!!!

What a wonderful way to end your Aulani stay. :love: I'll be sticking around because we'll probably make a stop at Disneyland too to break up the long flight(s) back to Scotland.
It was a fantastic stay and a fantastic finale. Disneyland after Aulani is the way to go so that you get a break and you have something fun to look forward to after leaving Hawaii!

I am really enjoying your trip report! Our family of 5 are planning on heading there summer 2019 ( I love planning far out!) We are from Birmingham, AL and are planning on flying to Seattle for a couple of nights before heading to Hawaii (Aulani on Ohua and the big island) before stopping by Disneyland for a couple of days. Was the plane ride from Hawaii to LA also 6 hours? I love all the pics!

Thank you! :flower3: I love planning far in advance too!

Our flight left Kauai at 9:20 pm and landed at 5:50 am in LA. That would have been 2:50 AM in Kauai so I guess that flight was about 5 and a half hours? It worked out for us because we were able to have a whole day on the last day in Kauai and not "lose any time" in getting to LA. We were tired at Disneyland but so excited to see everything that it ended up working out great.

I've been reading! Just a bad commenter...
girl, please. You just described my life :laughing: glad you are here even if you go back to lurking :flower3:
Your proposal story had me like :love: I love it!
I didn't even do it justice. It was so sweet! Bliss!!!

Aulani and Hawaii look just beautiful. Those are bucket list places for us! All of your photos are great I think :) And you guys got some really good PP pictures! What a good tip for getting photos with your AP... Note to self, plan Aulani/Hawaii trip next time we get WDW APs ;)
Yeah... it wasn't even intentional for us but it's definitely an incredible perk! I just hope they don't figure out we know and separate the Disney World photopass from Aulani. It definitely DID NOT work for Disneyland :oops:

Aulani was amazing but I would love to return to Kauai and also see Maui. Needless to say this trip did nothing to cross Hawaii off my bucket list :rolleyes2

Oh yes, I showed Zack your Tamatoa sticker and he was super jealous. :rotfl2:
I love it! It's still in good shape and it was only a couple bucks. I got it from Teepublic! The other side has an adorable country bears vinyl sticker with "tears will be the chaser for your wine" and Trixie on it!

Wow, what a beautiful vacation so far, and what a special place to get engaged!

This is making me miss Hawaii so much!

It is making ME miss Hawaii so much! :laughing: That's always the problem with writing reports, it just makes me want to go back to everywhere I've ever been! :flower3: And thank you for joining in!
 
Congrats!! I missed getting caught up here before your wedding weekend, but I hope you had a wonderful time with all kinds of special memories! I enjoyed getting myself caught up here now, even if a little late.
Glad to have you here any time! I am a little late in updating but I am FULLY COMMITTED to finishing this report!!!

How incredibly beautiful!! After reading this report, I may or may not have started making a five-year plan for Nathan and I to do this for my 30th birthday... :blush:
Oh my gosh, DO IT! Any way for Nathan to book a convention and write off your travel as a tax deduction? (wait, just remembering you guys are Canadian and I have no idea how taxes work there. Don't tell me there aren't taxes or I will be packing my home up) I loved planning and reading reports and dreaming and then BOOKING OUR TRIP! It was the best kind of anticipation.
Oh my gosh! Amazing!! This is absolutely the way to fly. :worship:
Yes it is, but DON'T DO IT! :rotfl: I spoiled myself and now I'm back to cattle class for the rest of my travels. I turned R into a snob now too, he's always checking to see how much more extra comfort or first class would be over economy!

Wow! I knew Hawaii was expensive, and Disney's also expensive, but wow! Smart move getting a lot of your food and drink for the room.
Oh my gosh, yes. That's why, despite it being kind of crass, I like to include budget information. I think I got the room food and drinks tip from @Vernie822. We saved a lot on food and we had the convenience of eating or grabbing drinks or snacks when we wanted to this way. I just wish we'd known about Wal-Mart being right there! o_O

Your photopass pictures came out great! (At least the ones that made the cut for you to share here.) I think this was my favourite one.
I had to restrain myself from photo spamming the report, a lot of them actually came out great! And of course I hated many of them at the time but love them more and more as time goes on. I am so glad we were able to take advantage of it!

It looks like paradise!! Also...Moana sailed onto your beach!? :)
:lmao: I watched Moana SO MANY TIMES prior to and on this trip. As well as Beauty and the Beast which I think I watched on every flight. R was like "Aren't you tired of these movies yet?" To which I responded by turning on the Moana soundtrack in the room at every opportunity :D

Such an amazing end to your trip and your engagement/birthday celebration. How special. :lovestruc
It was so amazing! Fortunately we had a bunch more fun stuff after this! I am working on an update now.
 
I got a little behind with my reporting as we were busy GETTING MARRIED! :teeth::teeth::teeth::teeth: But I am back and wanted to continue writing in case anyone else is interested in Kauai or Disneyland as part of their Aulani vacations.

Thursday, June 1, 2017:

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Unfortunately with this morning came our departure from Aulani. We were up at 5:30 to pack and get ready for the next travel leg. We found a decent price on gas to refill the rental car on Nimitz Highway not too far from the airport, and returned the Jeep without incident (love Alamo!)

Before long we were at our gate. Just a tip: you don't need to be so early to an inter-island flight! We had an hour to kill at the gate with not much to do. I did get a Starbucks "You Are Here" series cup as a souvenir to add to my collection, like this one:

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(image lifted from the internet)

I loved the colors and the cute pineapple, plus it shows Diamond Head, where we got engaged.

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We had a short and easy flight to Lihue, Kauai on Hawaiian. For anyone following along with our budget, the flights were $69 per person. You can see a cruise ship was in port!

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(U. R. Here)

We picked up our car (again with Alamo) and headed straight to get some lunch at a place I'd read a lot about and was looking forward to - Pink's Creamery.

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Pink's is a very casual sandwich and ice cream shop in Hanalei. It's more of a sandwich counter with just a few seats, located in a little shopping center. I'd heard a lot about their Hawaiian Grilled cheese - Kalua Pork, pineapple, and muenster grilled on Hawaiian bread and served with chips for $12.

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Well, we'd totally spoiled ourselves by trying the Kalua Pork grilled cheese at The Beach House a few days prior, as I kinda found myself disappointed by this famous grilled cheese. It was good, don't get me wrong, and I still highly recommend Pink's, it just wasn't eye-rollingly, life changingly good like the one we'd already tried. Plus I'm not much for pineapple on savory things, I don't like it on my pizza and I ended up picking most of the pineapple off of my sandwich. The good thing about Pink's is that in addition to the famous grilled cheese, they have amazing ice cream. My notes, in fact, specify that it was FABULOUS! I don't remember what each of us got (and managed not to take notes on the flavors) but all of the varieties that we tried were winners. I'm sure I had coconut, as I am predictable in that regard, and I loved what I had.

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R is happy any time you give him ice cream, so with bellies full, we set off in search of our next accomodation. (Here's where his souvenir from the Haleiwa Patagonia shop makes its cameo appearance if anyone else is into that sort of thing)

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(just another view, right off the main road into and out of Hanalei)

We were staying on the North Shore of Kauai near Hanalei, a surf town with a slower pace than some of the more developed towns on the south end of Kauai, As I mentioned earlier in the trip report, I wanted to visit Kauai primarily to see the Na Pali coast, and it made sense for us to make our home base in Hanalei given the proximity to the Na Pali trailhead. I'd checked all of the options, but the only major hotel in the area is a St. Regis (ummm, too rich for our blood) and I really wanted a spectacular view, so we ended up renting a condo for our three days/two nights there. Here are some photos from the listing on the rental website, we used Kauai Vacation Rentals and the process was smooth.

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The condo was a little outdated but it was convenient and had all we needed. Also it had the view I wanted :cloud9: so I was willing to accept a less than five star condo. The weather was a little overcast, but here's a sneak peek of the reason why I'd wanted to book the condo that we went with:

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That mountain looming under the grey clouds is Makana, the real life version of Bali Hai, the mountain made famous in the musical South Pacific. The condo complex we rented in is called Pali Ke Kua, in case it is helpful. It was outside of Hanalei in a resort area called Princeville. This was convenient and had more than enough space for us. The only downside is that many of the vacation rentals in Princeville do not have air conditioning. Ours was no exception, so it was rather warm in the condo during the day, but it was comfortable at night.

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We again visited the local grocery store, this time it was the Foodland, and picked up drinks and dinner supplies. We got stuff to make kalua pork tacos again (what can I say, we loved them) and a six pack of local beer, enough rum and coke supplies to get us through the short visit we'd be there for, and some ice cream. The total came to $54.49. We spent the evening just hanging out at the condo, catching up with social media and taking it easy. We were already on island time and loving settling in!

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Next up: our hike of the Kalalau Trail, well at least the first couple of miles...
 
Friday, June 2, 2017:

So, if you don't already know from the previous few days, I am what my family calls a bit of a princess. I'm not much of an athlete and while we "hike" fairly often on our vacations, it's usually easy hikes on at least decently groomed trails. The Kalalau trail is not at all like this, which I did know well in advance of planning the hike as I'd done quite a lot of research.

I also knew from research to head out early. We probably parked and got started on the trail by about 8:30 or 8:40. The last of my photos from the trail was time-stamped around 12:30, so it was about a four hour adventure for us. We'd also stopped for pre-made sandwiches and water bottles at the grocery store before heading to the trailhead.

From kalalautrail.com:

"Ke`e Beach to Hanakapi`ai beach:
This section offers a popular day hike for able-bodied hikers. Walking the first half mile will reward you with excellent views of the coast. The summer sand beach at Hanakapi’ai is a popular destination for day hikers. Swimming or wading can be dangerous, however, and is not recommended. The surf and rip currents are variable and often extremely treacherous, but worst in winter when high surf conditions prevail. BEWARE! Many drownings have occurred here.

Camping is not permitted at Hanakapiai. Day Hikes to Hanakāpīʻai Beach (4 miles round trip) or up to Hanakāpīʻai Falls (8 miles round trip) are allowed without a permit."


Big photo update:

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Still relatively fresh faced, only about 30 minutes in!

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True to the promise mentioned above, at 1/2 mile into the hike the views started getting dramatic and beautiful!

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Just look at that color blue.

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I also just saw a review on Tripadvisor saying that this portion of the trail is an "easy hike". I think that's so misleading. I saw some older folks that were struggling mightily. Look at the root sticking up into the trail above! This is not an adventure for the faint of heart or with mobility issues. We encountered slippery rocks, muddy trail, and very steep climbs and descents.

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We also had to cross a few small streams. Wear old shoes or waterproof hiking boots. We both brought old shoes to leave in Hawaii (in the trash) after we were done with our hike.

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There were also a few small waterfalls visible from the trail! The sound of running water was so tranquil.

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Husband pictured for scale! This was one of the stream crossings that required agility and a little luck to stay dry through. We hopped across those big rocks.

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This sign let us know we were nearing our final destination, Hanakapiai Beach. The sign says that 834 visitors have drowned. You can't really tell in the photo but the sign reflected an increasing tally as the dangerous current has caused more deaths over the years. We did not go near the water!

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Hanakapiai beach is surrounded on three sides by dramatic cliffs, with a stream emptying into the ocean. It is truly dramatic being there.

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We found some nice rocks to perch on and take in the view

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The beach is accessible only to hikers and those bringing sea kayaks ashore. Better them than me! That looks exhausting.

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This was our view for our sandwich break. This is one of my favorite photos from the whole trip. It was simply amazing and the reward for traveling all the way to Hawaii and hiking out into the middle of nowhere.

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After our rest, it was time to head back. Something to note is that in order to get onto the beach you see in the photos above (past the rocks we were sitting on), you had to cross a rather broad stream. We didn't really want to get sandy anyway but we elected to stay on the Ke'e side of the trail rather than trying to cross the rocks. We saw a few folks fall into the stream and we knew we'd be in big trouble if one of us twisted an ankle.

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Some of the informational signs we didn't even notice on the way in...

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Notably more exhausted than our cute smiley selfie at the beginning! Note all the sweat on R's shirt. You can also see mud on my legs... more on that in a minute.

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Some of Kauai's most famous residents, just hanging out near the beach...

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Ke'e beach is pictured above. You can visit here for the day with none of the effort required to hike to Hanakapiai. It was beautiful but much busier than Hanakapiai, for obvious reasons.

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And yes, that photo is gross! But it's my photographic evidence that I made it and the hike is really not a joke. All that dirt came in through tennis shoes and socks!

All in all, this was totally worthwhile and one of the highlights of Hawaii for me. There's only one experience that tops it, sight-seeing wise, which is still to come, and of course getting engaged at Diamond Head probably edges out the Kalalau trail, sentimentality-wise. But I would HIGHLY highly recommend this hike and would love to do it again. In case you were curious...

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Next up: hanging around in Hanalei, more shave ice, and visiting the FAMOUS Tahiti Nui!
 
Oh my gosh, DO IT! Any way for Nathan to book a convention and write off your travel as a tax deduction? (wait, just remembering you guys are Canadian and I have no idea how taxes work there. Don't tell me there aren't taxes or I will be packing my home up) I loved planning and reading reports and dreaming and then BOOKING OUR TRIP! It was the best kind of anticipation.

Oooh, now that's an idea!! Sign us up!! And yes, we pay our taxes up here, too! :laughing: But a lot of Nathan's travel expenses can be written off when it's for work. If we can find a reliable and reasonably-priced way to ship supplies in future, maybe we'll just have to try to make this work... :goodvibes

a lot of them actually came out great! And of course I hated many of them at the time but love them more and more as time goes on.

I do this, too. ::yes::

R was like "Aren't you tired of these movies yet?" To which I responded by turning on the Moana soundtrack in the room at every opportunity :D

Yes!! I mean really, does he even need to ask? I've got Nathan on board with Moana now, so occasionally he even requests the soundtrack when we're driving somewhere. #Disneywin

I got a little behind with my reporting as we were busy GETTING MARRIED! :teeth::teeth::teeth::teeth: B

Very reasonable excuse!

But I am back and wanted to continue writing in case anyone else is interested in Kauai or Disneyland as part of their Aulani vacations.

Yes! If we go, I'd like to include a Disneyland trip, too. I hate to travel on anything that moves, so it would be good to break up the long distance.


What beautiful views you had!

That mountain looming under the grey clouds is Makana, the real life version of Bali Hai, the mountain made famous in the musical South Pacific.

No way! So cool!


:eek: Beautiful!


Holy smokes. Talk about a view! The water is so gorgeous!

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This was our view for our sandwich break. This is one of my favorite photos from the whole trip. It was simply amazing and the reward for traveling all the way to Hawaii and hiking out into the middle of nowhere.

I just can't get over these pictures of paradise. Your strenuous hike was definitely worth it!
 
So glad I found this trip report! Congratulations on getting married! Your photos and trip looked amazing! We are doing almost the same itinerary!
 
Yes! If we go, I'd like to include a Disneyland trip, too. I hate to travel on anything that moves, so it would be good to break up the long distance.
I do too, I get motion sick so it was much more palatable to break up the long travel with stops. I definitely advise a Disneyland stop so you're not so sad on the way home!

No way! So cool!
I know, and can you believe I still haven't seen South Pacific :duck: I'm embarrassed for myself. It is on my list though!!

I just can't get over these pictures of paradise. Your strenuous hike was definitely worth it!
Oh my gosh yes it was! More gorgeous photos coming (well, not in the next installment). I took over 700 pictures on the day following this one so I am not looking forward to culling those down to just my favorites... :eek:

I’m so yealous you got to go to the napali coast! We couldn’t go because of the mud slides! And the hike was on our wish list. Guess we’ll have to come back for that... your pictures are amazing!
Oh man, I didn't remember until just now but I do remember hearing on those podcasts I was listening to that some of the trail had been closed at various times from mud slides and other hazardous conditions! I guess we were lucky to visit when we did. And thank you for the compliment on the photos!!!

So glad I found this trip report! Congratulations on getting married! Your photos and trip looked amazing! We are doing almost the same itinerary!

Thank you! It was a great trip, I hope that at lease some of the report is helpful!!! Thank you for reading along!:hyper:
 
June 2, 2017 (Continued)

After our hike, we deserved (second? :rotfl:) lunch. We did have sandwiches halfway through, but we were pretty hungry. We decided to try the Hanalei Gourmet, a little local place that was highly rated for sandwiches and other lunch fare, so it sounded perfect for our casual lunch. There is indoor and outdoor seating, but I think the weather had gotten iffy so we decided to sit inside.

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The restaurant is located in a converted building (an old schoolhouse maybe?) and in a little strip center. Hanalei is a really local-yokel kind of place so we really enjoyed trying some of the smaller restaurants in town.

We decided to split two things, per the usual. We had "Da Kine" Nachos to start:

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"Corn tortilla chips layered with jalapenos, four cheeses and a spicy black bean sauce. Served with our homemade salsa." Obviously we also had ours topped with a big ol' pile of kalua pork also. Are you sensing a theme to our hawaiian dining adventures? When in Rome, and all that, I suppose.

These hit the spot perfectly and went down great with more local beers. They were also absolutely massive. Not that we needed something else to eat, but we'd ordered both things at once, so we also had " Beer Battered Fresh Fish & Chips"

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Fresh fish, beer battered and deep fried. Served with french fries, Asian coleslaw and a soy wasabi sauce. Sorry, I can't recall what the fresh catch was that day, but it was delicious! (In retrospect I'm thinking it might have been Ono as we had it a few times). The batter was light and crispy, perfect for fish and chips, and the sauce they served with it was super tasty!

Undeterred by our already full tummies, I had another stop in mind. I'd actually listened to quite a lot of "Escape to Kauai" podcasts prior to our travels, and Ty spoke highly of some shave ice in the Hanalei main drag.

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Of course I needed to compare it to the Aulani and Matsumoto versions, for science! :thumbsup2

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Jojo's was the winner in at least one regard, size! :eek:

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This was good shave ice, not as good as Matsumoto's perhaps, but better than Aulani. It took FOREVER to get my order though, despite there not being a ton of people around. We sat at a little picnic table and enjoyed.

Fed, refreshed, and entertained after doing some people watching, we moseyed back to the Pali Ke Kua to rest. I think we might have taken a nap, and we definitely both had showers! Later we went to go check out the beach at the condo complex.

It was a bit of a hike down to a pretty rocky beach, but boy was the view worth it!

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The black rocks were gorgeous, despite preventing us from getting in and enjoying the water. We had a nice evening just sitting with our feet in one of the tide ponds enjoying a couple of drinks. :cloud9:

After getting cleaned up for dinner, we walked around the serene grounds and ran into some native wildlife

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These are nene! (The official bird of Hawaii)

This was the view from the master bedroom of the condo - when clouds weren't obscuring the view, there was pretty amazing vantage point looking toward the mountains.

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We decided while near Hanalei we needed to try the world famous Tahiti Nui. Part of the action in the film "The Descendants" was filmed here (the George Clooney film, not the Disney channel film). It was really hopping when we arrived a bit after 8:00. We put our name on the list and moseyed up to the bar. Of course, we had to get mai tais as this would be our last night in Hawaii, and "The Nui" claimed that theirs were famous. There were a ton of these being served. :drinking1 (and no, not just to us!)

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These were good, but sweet. It was pretty neat hanging out at a REAL tiki bar!

Soon our table was ready. There was some weirdness as they actually ended up moving us to accomodate a larger party, but that's just the laid back way of Hawaii. We were cool with it. We were advised that the kitchen was running a bit behind and not to order pizza, so we just made ourselves comfortable and listened to some live music.

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(authentic dark tiki bar, and poor R's head, haha)

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We started with a seasonal salad, topped with gorgonzola and macadamia nuts. ($14) This was good, nothing to write home about, but we appreciated the veggies.

We again chose two entrees that we would be happy sharing:

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The Mac Nut Ono (fish, also known as Wahoo) $26 and served with coconut lime cilantro sauce, rice and seasonal veggies. This was really really good. We were slurping up every bit of that sauce! You can't go wrong with mac nut encrusted fresh catch IN HAWAII!

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Special Kauai prawns - $25 and served in a tasty, flavorful broth with purple mashed sweet potatoes, I believe. The only menu I can find online says served with Macadamia honey sauce over steamed bok choy, which doesn't look like what we had. It was also really good though.

Somewhere along the line we got another round of drinks - I had a dark and stormy and boy was this well executed! (you can also see the band setting up in the below photo, they were right next to our table)

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So dark! (and stormy?:laughing:) it was $10. R had a Hinano Tahiti beer (not pictured, $5)

The only misstep was dessert. I think it was a chocolate lava cake and it just wasn't great (also $10):

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Overall we would go back - we enjoyed the ambiance, the live music, and the food was really more upscale than I was expecting for such a casual place. Our total before tip was $93.12.

Next up: How did I take over 700 photos in one day?! And OUR FAVORITE thing we did on the trip!
 
No, there was a major mudslide on that side of the island and when we were there, you couldn't go past Hanalei, you couldn't reach the trail itself! Not just part of it, all of the Napali Coast. As far as I heart it hasn't reopened yet, a little while ago it opened for residence (the road past Hanalei)

Oh how awful! I had not heard that. What a devastating impact for people who make their living from tourism. Well we were doubly lucky I guess. I hope they are recovering.
 
I know, and can you believe I still haven't seen South Pacific :duck: I'm embarrassed for myself. It is on my list though!!

It's a classic! :) I taught voice lessons part-time for a couple of years, and I always used to get a kick out of getting my adorable little girls to sing "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" from South Pacific. So cute!

Obviously we also had ours topped with a big ol' pile of kalua pork also.

Obviously! Is there any other way?

Jojo's was the winner in at least one regard, size! :eek:

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Holy smokes, this is huge!


All your pictures look like postcards. :lovestruc

A great meal that night! It must have been cool to try more local-type places. We always like when we can find some of the local haunts when we're on vacation and get an idea what the personality of a place is really like.
 

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