- Joined
- Oct 30, 2011
I generally do not post a lot online, but I learned a ton from others who posted on this forum about their trips, so thought I'd do a summary of the trip we just finished. Hopefully this helps other planners so I can pay it forward! I'm happy to answer any specific questions as well.
First some context -- my wife and I went alone without our four kids, so a true vacation. We're from the midwest and this was our first visit to Hawaii, so we intentionally planned a low key week. We wanted to see some of the island and definitely Pearl Harbor, but our main objective was to relax and unplug. We are DVC members at Old Key West, so we used DVC points and had a 5th floor studio room in the Ewa building, checking in Monday April 1 and checking out Monday April 8th.
We flew into HNL at 1pm and had rented a car. We stopped at Target on our way to Aulani to get some breakfast foods and some snacks/fruits -- it was a quick stop and definitely worth it to have some things in the room. I did online check-in, so we just pulled the car up to the main lobby. You cannot park your car in the parking garage until you get a room key, so the valet takes the car until you're able to check-in and bring your luggage to the room. We were blown away by the lobby, so spent some time there taking some pictures, then went up to the room (which was ready prior to 4pm) to drop off luggage, then I retrieved the car from the valet and parked it in the garage. We grabbed a quick dinner across the street at Monkeypod, which we thought was very good. The rest of the evening we just toured ourselves around the resort to get the lay of the land and bought the refillable mugs, which I would highly recommend as we definitely got our $$ worth. We also got a tour of the spa, which sealed the deal for us that we wanted to use the spa so we booked a time for massages (more later on the spa). Then we crashed with a 5 hr time change kicking in.
Tuesday was a complete chill day -- we split time between chairs at the beach, the adults-only hot tub and the adults-only pool. We had no problems getting pool chairs at any point throughout the week, although I can see how if you had kids and wanted to be close to the kid areas it could get challenging. We felt like there were plenty of spots, including places with great umbrellas. I feel like the resort does a great job of catering to people like us who are there to chill out without kids, while also having incredible options for kids. Obviously if you're completely adverse to kids, this resort isn't for you, but for people like us who are fine with kids...we're just happy to be there without ours...it was perfect! That evening we had a dinner reservation at 'Ama 'Ama -- which in short was excellent. We were seated right at the edge of the restaurant, so while the food was very good, the overall ambience of having an open air dinner with live music while watching the sunset was amazing.
Wednesday we left Aulani early (~7:30am) to go to Pearl Harbor. As most have noted, the traffic getting into Honolulu is a pain -- the traffic situation around there does not jive with the laid back island feel you expect from Hawaii! That said, it wasn't horrible...just plan on it being slow. We got to Pearl Harbor around 8:30am and had pre-bought tickets to the Arizona Memorial, but our ticket time wasn't until noon. Fortunately, they still had walkup tickets available so we were immediately able to get on a boat tour rather than waiting. I won't go into details reviewing Pearl Harbor, but we were very glad to experience it and I think everyone should do it to further cement the sacrifices our military members make for our freedom. We also toured the Bowfin and spent a fair amount of time just reading and learning more about Pearl Harbor. After PH, we are state capitol buffs, so drove to the state capitol building downtown. Frankly, this was kind of a dud -- the building isn't overly visitor friendly compared to others we've been to and parking was a hassle. We considered touring Iolani Palace, but at that point we were ready to return to the oasis of Aulani, so headed back home. Relaxed at Aulani for the evening, including dinner at Off the Hook. Note that the servers at Off the Hook will get dessert from 'Ama 'Ama, so we took advantage of that for the amazing pineapple cheesecake.
Thursday morning we had booked a dolphin viewing/snorkel catamaran cruise through Hawaii Nautical, so left the resort fairly early to drive up to Wai'anae beach. For us first-timers, the cruise was an excellent opportunity to get out on the water, see the wildlife and do some "first timer" snorkeling. We returned to Aulani shortly after lunch and then headed to the spa for 4pm massage appointments. Others have discussed this at length, but I will reinforce that the entire spa experience (hydrotherapy gardens, relaxation rooms, sauna, etc) are what set apart Laniwai. We spent a lot of time there just relaxing and reading in the gardens, but frankly could have spent all day. This was absolutely a highlight of the trip and while the price of the massage alone is relatively expensive, the entire experience was worth it.
Friday we wanted to see the island, so we started by driving through the center of the island (past the Dole plantation) to Laniakea Beach (aka Turtle Beach). We had the beach to ourselves in the morning and while no turtles came on shore, we enjoyed watching them in the water just offshore. We then spent a fair amount of time eating and shopping in Haleiwa (quick plug for the Kai Ku Hale store, which has a lot of local crafts/art). We returned to Laniakea and one turtle had made his way onshore, so spent some time watching and learning (many more people were there, including a turtle "keeper"). We then took a leisurely drive then around the island going east then south, cutting off north of Honolulu to skip the traffic. The diversity of the island seeing the west, north, east and then south sides is amazing, particularly for us land locked residents, so we enjoyed seeing everything. Upon return to Aulani, dinner was the pizza at Ulu Cafe, which was surprisingly good and probably the lowest cost meal we had all week! Leftovers fit into the room fridge, providing lunch the next day too!
Saturday we hung out at the resort relaxing by the various pools throughout the day and also did ukulele lessons at 2pm, which were very fun. Around 4pm we got ready to head to Paradise Cove (just north of Aulani) for their luau -- we had done some research and decided to try Paradise Cove's luau rather than Aulani. We did the deluxe package at Paradise, which gets you table service and several other amenities, which we appreciated. The activities before the luau and the show were very well done and the food was solid, but not spectacular. We had a great time, but really can't compare it to Aulani's luau -- next time we'll do Aulani and compare.
Sunday was primarily another relax day although we did take the DVC cultural tour at 2pm, which was fascinating. There were only a few other people in our group, so it was essentially a personalized tour by "Uncle" (who also does the fireside stories at night, which I failed to mention earlier and are very entertaining). We probably should have done the tour earlier in the week, because you learn about so many details on the design and culture of the resort, very few of which you notice on your own. The amount of thought and care that went into the design and respect of Hawaiian culture is absolutely what sets Aulani apart from the other resorts in the area.
Finally on Monday all good things have to come to an end, so we prepped for departure. Our flight out was early evening, so we got to spend a few more hours relaxing. The Luana Lounge is normally available for showers/changing for those who have checked out, but it is currently closed. However, we were given access to a studio "hospitality room" from 2-3pm, which worked great. It was interesting to see a "hotel" style room with a view of the parking lot -- honestly, for the point different, the room was still very nice and we noted that if you can get it, those rooms are actually a pretty good deal versus the villas! After an uneventful drive back to HNL (traffic was only bad the other direction), we loaded up for the red eye home.
Overall, given our prior experiences with Disney resorts, we had high expectations for Aulani -- and they were met and exceeded! We absolutely were able to relax and enjoy the resort, along with adequate time to get out and see the sights of Oahu. Our highlights at the resort were probably 'Ama 'Ama and the spa experience, but I would say we genuinely enjoyed every moment we were there. We definitely hope to return at some point! Aloha...
First some context -- my wife and I went alone without our four kids, so a true vacation. We're from the midwest and this was our first visit to Hawaii, so we intentionally planned a low key week. We wanted to see some of the island and definitely Pearl Harbor, but our main objective was to relax and unplug. We are DVC members at Old Key West, so we used DVC points and had a 5th floor studio room in the Ewa building, checking in Monday April 1 and checking out Monday April 8th.
We flew into HNL at 1pm and had rented a car. We stopped at Target on our way to Aulani to get some breakfast foods and some snacks/fruits -- it was a quick stop and definitely worth it to have some things in the room. I did online check-in, so we just pulled the car up to the main lobby. You cannot park your car in the parking garage until you get a room key, so the valet takes the car until you're able to check-in and bring your luggage to the room. We were blown away by the lobby, so spent some time there taking some pictures, then went up to the room (which was ready prior to 4pm) to drop off luggage, then I retrieved the car from the valet and parked it in the garage. We grabbed a quick dinner across the street at Monkeypod, which we thought was very good. The rest of the evening we just toured ourselves around the resort to get the lay of the land and bought the refillable mugs, which I would highly recommend as we definitely got our $$ worth. We also got a tour of the spa, which sealed the deal for us that we wanted to use the spa so we booked a time for massages (more later on the spa). Then we crashed with a 5 hr time change kicking in.
Tuesday was a complete chill day -- we split time between chairs at the beach, the adults-only hot tub and the adults-only pool. We had no problems getting pool chairs at any point throughout the week, although I can see how if you had kids and wanted to be close to the kid areas it could get challenging. We felt like there were plenty of spots, including places with great umbrellas. I feel like the resort does a great job of catering to people like us who are there to chill out without kids, while also having incredible options for kids. Obviously if you're completely adverse to kids, this resort isn't for you, but for people like us who are fine with kids...we're just happy to be there without ours...it was perfect! That evening we had a dinner reservation at 'Ama 'Ama -- which in short was excellent. We were seated right at the edge of the restaurant, so while the food was very good, the overall ambience of having an open air dinner with live music while watching the sunset was amazing.
Wednesday we left Aulani early (~7:30am) to go to Pearl Harbor. As most have noted, the traffic getting into Honolulu is a pain -- the traffic situation around there does not jive with the laid back island feel you expect from Hawaii! That said, it wasn't horrible...just plan on it being slow. We got to Pearl Harbor around 8:30am and had pre-bought tickets to the Arizona Memorial, but our ticket time wasn't until noon. Fortunately, they still had walkup tickets available so we were immediately able to get on a boat tour rather than waiting. I won't go into details reviewing Pearl Harbor, but we were very glad to experience it and I think everyone should do it to further cement the sacrifices our military members make for our freedom. We also toured the Bowfin and spent a fair amount of time just reading and learning more about Pearl Harbor. After PH, we are state capitol buffs, so drove to the state capitol building downtown. Frankly, this was kind of a dud -- the building isn't overly visitor friendly compared to others we've been to and parking was a hassle. We considered touring Iolani Palace, but at that point we were ready to return to the oasis of Aulani, so headed back home. Relaxed at Aulani for the evening, including dinner at Off the Hook. Note that the servers at Off the Hook will get dessert from 'Ama 'Ama, so we took advantage of that for the amazing pineapple cheesecake.
Thursday morning we had booked a dolphin viewing/snorkel catamaran cruise through Hawaii Nautical, so left the resort fairly early to drive up to Wai'anae beach. For us first-timers, the cruise was an excellent opportunity to get out on the water, see the wildlife and do some "first timer" snorkeling. We returned to Aulani shortly after lunch and then headed to the spa for 4pm massage appointments. Others have discussed this at length, but I will reinforce that the entire spa experience (hydrotherapy gardens, relaxation rooms, sauna, etc) are what set apart Laniwai. We spent a lot of time there just relaxing and reading in the gardens, but frankly could have spent all day. This was absolutely a highlight of the trip and while the price of the massage alone is relatively expensive, the entire experience was worth it.
Friday we wanted to see the island, so we started by driving through the center of the island (past the Dole plantation) to Laniakea Beach (aka Turtle Beach). We had the beach to ourselves in the morning and while no turtles came on shore, we enjoyed watching them in the water just offshore. We then spent a fair amount of time eating and shopping in Haleiwa (quick plug for the Kai Ku Hale store, which has a lot of local crafts/art). We returned to Laniakea and one turtle had made his way onshore, so spent some time watching and learning (many more people were there, including a turtle "keeper"). We then took a leisurely drive then around the island going east then south, cutting off north of Honolulu to skip the traffic. The diversity of the island seeing the west, north, east and then south sides is amazing, particularly for us land locked residents, so we enjoyed seeing everything. Upon return to Aulani, dinner was the pizza at Ulu Cafe, which was surprisingly good and probably the lowest cost meal we had all week! Leftovers fit into the room fridge, providing lunch the next day too!
Saturday we hung out at the resort relaxing by the various pools throughout the day and also did ukulele lessons at 2pm, which were very fun. Around 4pm we got ready to head to Paradise Cove (just north of Aulani) for their luau -- we had done some research and decided to try Paradise Cove's luau rather than Aulani. We did the deluxe package at Paradise, which gets you table service and several other amenities, which we appreciated. The activities before the luau and the show were very well done and the food was solid, but not spectacular. We had a great time, but really can't compare it to Aulani's luau -- next time we'll do Aulani and compare.
Sunday was primarily another relax day although we did take the DVC cultural tour at 2pm, which was fascinating. There were only a few other people in our group, so it was essentially a personalized tour by "Uncle" (who also does the fireside stories at night, which I failed to mention earlier and are very entertaining). We probably should have done the tour earlier in the week, because you learn about so many details on the design and culture of the resort, very few of which you notice on your own. The amount of thought and care that went into the design and respect of Hawaiian culture is absolutely what sets Aulani apart from the other resorts in the area.
Finally on Monday all good things have to come to an end, so we prepped for departure. Our flight out was early evening, so we got to spend a few more hours relaxing. The Luana Lounge is normally available for showers/changing for those who have checked out, but it is currently closed. However, we were given access to a studio "hospitality room" from 2-3pm, which worked great. It was interesting to see a "hotel" style room with a view of the parking lot -- honestly, for the point different, the room was still very nice and we noted that if you can get it, those rooms are actually a pretty good deal versus the villas! After an uneventful drive back to HNL (traffic was only bad the other direction), we loaded up for the red eye home.
Overall, given our prior experiences with Disney resorts, we had high expectations for Aulani -- and they were met and exceeded! We absolutely were able to relax and enjoy the resort, along with adequate time to get out and see the sights of Oahu. Our highlights at the resort were probably 'Ama 'Ama and the spa experience, but I would say we genuinely enjoyed every moment we were there. We definitely hope to return at some point! Aloha...
