johnb3
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2017
I’m not much of a writer but in the spirit of paying it forward I wanted to share a few thoughts on our recent visit to Disney’s Aulani. I spent a fair amount of time reading the Disboard thread on Aulani and I think it helped me choose a room and schedule a number of activities during my visit and I wanted to offer my observations to help someone else.
We are a family of 4 Myself 62 yo My wife 49 yo (who celebrated her birthday during our stay) and our two daughters 15 yo and 13 yo who live in Richmond VA.
We are DVC members and our home resort is SSR. AT 7 months I booked a one bedroom Ocean view room (and used a bit more than 2 years worth of points
) My initial plan was to spend one night at the Volcano House on the big island so I initially booked 9 nights at Aulani. Before our trip the volcano on Hawaii became more active and Volcano National park and the Volcano house hotel were closed. I ended up choosing to cancel the reservation at volcano house and waitlist the final night at Aulani. Before too long the waitlist was filled and our stay was set.
I booked Award Travel for the four of us on American Airlines using miles that I had accumulated before I retired. The routing outbound was a bit complex RIC - ORD - LAX - HNL but flew on time without issue (although it was a very long travel day)
We arrived in HNL and picked up a nice SUV from Alamo and headed off to Aulani. Leaving the Alamo store at night was bit confusing and it was also a bit confusing entering the resort in Ko Olina.
We finally pulled up to the valet station and we were greeted and immediately checked in even before we entered the resort. We each received a Lei and gave our bags to the bellman and the girls immediately went shopping while I took the car to the Garage.
I’d recommend parking on the lowest level as parking is generally available there and it makes it quite easy to exit the resort. The signs in the garage are a bit confusing and I wandered about lost for a bit before I realized that the exit to the lobby was on the 3 floor of the garage. I ran into a number of others over the course of our visit doing the same so I believe the signage could be improved. For all of you planning a trip, park and get on the elevator go to the 3rd floor and exit to your right. You will find a fork in the path the left branch takes you to the valet station and the right takes you to the Waianae Building.
I met up with my wife as she was finishing buying a few groceries at the gift shop (convenient but expensive) we headed up to our room in the Ewa tower. 1082 which was a great location.
We spent quite a few days at the pools and lagoon during this visit. We loved the lazy river. Chairs by the pool for the four of us were tough to find during our entire stay but we never had any trouble finding something at the lagoon. I won’t try to do a day by day review as I don’t think I’d do it justice.
I bought the Honolulu Gypsy Guide for my iPhone and one day we did the north shore tour. The girls enjoyed the Dole plantation, the Banzai pipeline beach, Byodo Temple and a final stop at the Pali lookout. I recommend the Gypsy Guide as it works very well and is cheap.
We celebrated our wedding anniversary while at Aulani and had dinner at Roys at the nearby golf course.the meal was solid but not spectacular (which ended up being my assessment of most of the meals we had on Oahu)
We did a one day hybrid tour with Oahu Private Tours with Des. Jason and his team do a great job. Des was good with our girls and we had a great day. We stopped at the Waianae Leonard’s Malasadas Truck at Waikele Shopping Center on our way out to the north shore (about 3 miles from the resort) and got introduced to Malasadas (yum). The next stop was for coffee at Green World Farms in Wahiawa. Sugared up and Caffeinated our next stop was snorkeling at Sharks cove. We saw a bunch of fish and had fun playing in the shadow water. Des was up for being more adventurous but Mom felt safer staying in the protected water. We packed up and went to the Waimea Valley to hike up to the Wailel Falls. We had the opportunity to swim in the water at the base of the falls after an easy walk thru the valley. After the Falls we stopped at the Pu’u O Mahuka Heiau for a great view of the Waimea bay. We then went to lunch at the Big wave Shrimp Truck (As seen on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) for a great lunch. our last stop for the day was back at the Waikele shopping center for shave Ice at the mountain magic truck (Located right next to Leonards). This shave ice was amazing and we stopped here every time we drove by for the rest of our time in Oahu. If you are thinking about a private tour you need to contact Oahu private tours.
We walked down to Lagoon 1 near the paradise cove Luau a couple of times to see if there were any turtles and we did see one on our second visit which was fun.
I ordered a Cake for my wife’s birthday and the resort did a great job delivering a great looking and tasting cake exactly on schedule.
The only negative comment I have is the dining options at dinner time at the resort did not work too well for us on this visit. Both my daughters are light picky eaters. We all enjoyed the quick service restaurant’s lunch options but thought the dinner options were hit or miss. The fast food spots around the pool all closed at 5pm and for my family would have been solid choices in the evening had they been open. We did eat at the buffet one evening and the meal was fine but poor value for money for us.
We did the swap meet and enjoyed a couple of hours looking at the items on sale and picking up a few souvenirs.
We also spend a few hours shopping at the Ala Moana Center which the girls enjoyed.
Our vacation was over way too soon and we checked out of the resort and spent the morning browsing the shops in Ko Olina and then returning the rental Car and checking in for our flight. Our routing home was HNL - DFW - RIC which was shorter and also on time and uneventful.
We will return to Aulani in the future likely as part of a trip that involves at least on other island.
I'm happy to try to answer any question
We are a family of 4 Myself 62 yo My wife 49 yo (who celebrated her birthday during our stay) and our two daughters 15 yo and 13 yo who live in Richmond VA.
We are DVC members and our home resort is SSR. AT 7 months I booked a one bedroom Ocean view room (and used a bit more than 2 years worth of points
) My initial plan was to spend one night at the Volcano House on the big island so I initially booked 9 nights at Aulani. Before our trip the volcano on Hawaii became more active and Volcano National park and the Volcano house hotel were closed. I ended up choosing to cancel the reservation at volcano house and waitlist the final night at Aulani. Before too long the waitlist was filled and our stay was set.I booked Award Travel for the four of us on American Airlines using miles that I had accumulated before I retired. The routing outbound was a bit complex RIC - ORD - LAX - HNL but flew on time without issue (although it was a very long travel day
) We arrived in HNL and picked up a nice SUV from Alamo and headed off to Aulani. Leaving the Alamo store at night was bit confusing and it was also a bit confusing entering the resort in Ko Olina.
We finally pulled up to the valet station and we were greeted and immediately checked in even before we entered the resort. We each received a Lei and gave our bags to the bellman and the girls immediately went shopping while I took the car to the Garage.
I’d recommend parking on the lowest level as parking is generally available there and it makes it quite easy to exit the resort. The signs in the garage are a bit confusing and I wandered about lost for a bit before I realized that the exit to the lobby was on the 3 floor of the garage. I ran into a number of others over the course of our visit doing the same so I believe the signage could be improved. For all of you planning a trip, park and get on the elevator go to the 3rd floor and exit to your right. You will find a fork in the path the left branch takes you to the valet station and the right takes you to the Waianae Building.
I met up with my wife as she was finishing buying a few groceries at the gift shop (convenient but expensive) we headed up to our room in the Ewa tower. 1082 which was a great location.
We spent quite a few days at the pools and lagoon during this visit. We loved the lazy river. Chairs by the pool for the four of us were tough to find during our entire stay but we never had any trouble finding something at the lagoon. I won’t try to do a day by day review as I don’t think I’d do it justice.
I bought the Honolulu Gypsy Guide for my iPhone and one day we did the north shore tour. The girls enjoyed the Dole plantation, the Banzai pipeline beach, Byodo Temple and a final stop at the Pali lookout. I recommend the Gypsy Guide as it works very well and is cheap.
We celebrated our wedding anniversary while at Aulani and had dinner at Roys at the nearby golf course.the meal was solid but not spectacular (which ended up being my assessment of most of the meals we had on Oahu)
We did a one day hybrid tour with Oahu Private Tours with Des. Jason and his team do a great job. Des was good with our girls and we had a great day. We stopped at the Waianae Leonard’s Malasadas Truck at Waikele Shopping Center on our way out to the north shore (about 3 miles from the resort) and got introduced to Malasadas (yum). The next stop was for coffee at Green World Farms in Wahiawa. Sugared up and Caffeinated our next stop was snorkeling at Sharks cove. We saw a bunch of fish and had fun playing in the shadow water. Des was up for being more adventurous but Mom felt safer staying in the protected water. We packed up and went to the Waimea Valley to hike up to the Wailel Falls. We had the opportunity to swim in the water at the base of the falls after an easy walk thru the valley. After the Falls we stopped at the Pu’u O Mahuka Heiau for a great view of the Waimea bay. We then went to lunch at the Big wave Shrimp Truck (As seen on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) for a great lunch. our last stop for the day was back at the Waikele shopping center for shave Ice at the mountain magic truck (Located right next to Leonards). This shave ice was amazing and we stopped here every time we drove by for the rest of our time in Oahu. If you are thinking about a private tour you need to contact Oahu private tours.
We walked down to Lagoon 1 near the paradise cove Luau a couple of times to see if there were any turtles and we did see one on our second visit which was fun.
I ordered a Cake for my wife’s birthday and the resort did a great job delivering a great looking and tasting cake exactly on schedule.
The only negative comment I have is the dining options at dinner time at the resort did not work too well for us on this visit. Both my daughters are light picky eaters. We all enjoyed the quick service restaurant’s lunch options but thought the dinner options were hit or miss. The fast food spots around the pool all closed at 5pm and for my family would have been solid choices in the evening had they been open. We did eat at the buffet one evening and the meal was fine but poor value for money for us.
We did the swap meet and enjoyed a couple of hours looking at the items on sale and picking up a few souvenirs.
We also spend a few hours shopping at the Ala Moana Center which the girls enjoyed.
Our vacation was over way too soon and we checked out of the resort and spent the morning browsing the shops in Ko Olina and then returning the rental Car and checking in for our flight. Our routing home was HNL - DFW - RIC which was shorter and also on time and uneventful.
We will return to Aulani in the future likely as part of a trip that involves at least on other island.
I'm happy to try to answer any question
