Trip Report Aulani Trip Report (quasi-live)

Who's up for a visit to Hawai'i? Well, we have been. For about 10 years we've been planning this one and it is finally here. If you happened to follow our trip reports, yes, we just got back from Disney World less than a week ago. And, no, we are not made of $$. In fact, my wife and I are both high school teachers just outside Baltimore, Maryland. We have been saving and planning for this Hawai'i trip for quite some time. This summer's visit to The World was a bit of a surprise. We are DVC members and already had annual passes from our visit last summer. We had just enough points to visit DW and our daughter wanted to do the Disney Soccer Academy, so it all worked out for us to do two vacations this summer. The flip side is....we'll be eating Ramen Noodles 3 meals a day for the next few months.

Anyway, you didn't sign up to hear our budgeting plans or anything, you are here to see pictures (and maybe a tale or two) of Hawai'i, I'll bet!

So, we'll start at the beginning! On Tuesday morning, we were up at 3am and driving to the airport by 4am. We were getting to the airport because there had been a name error with our tickets which (according to the person on the phone at USAirways) had been resolved, but we wanted to get there early to make sure. Turns out, nothing was resolved and they wanted to charge us $200 to fix things. After significant arguing and frustration with the total lack of quality customer service (at one point, the teller just walked away while I was asking a question and went through a door and closed it), my wife checked with TSA to see if they would accept multiple IDs with our tickets and they said it was no problem at all. People use the term "money grab" quite a bit around here and to me, this was a true money grab. Basically, USAirways said "they won't let you through security with that problem and it will cost you $200 to fix it. And we refuse to acknowledge the fact that you already fixed it with us a couple months ago" to which TSA said, "No problem, you're all set." OK, airline complaints aside....by 7am Maryland time we were on the plane and about 2pm Hawai'i time we were landing in Honolulu.


Got our luggage, caught our shuttle bus, and were at Aulani by 4pm. Here's the view coming into our room - yes, we really liked the woodwork on the door!


We had an 'island garden view' room, which basically means you are facing away from the ocean, but aren't over the parking lot. Well, my wife did some research and put in a specific room request and boy did she score big time. Here is the view from our balcony.


And here is a little stowaway from the Disney World trip last week.


Once we had settled into the room, we decided that we were pretty seriously needing some food, so we headed downstairs and tracked down some eats. Our daughter simply got chicken tenders and chips (10 hours in the plane made it tough to be food adventurous) while my wife and I split a bbq/guava pork flatbread from Ulu (one of the counter service restaurants). Food was great and the view of the ocean (don't worry those pics will be coming later) was amazing. We also picked up the refillable mugs since we plan to be staying in the resort area for at least 4-5 days this week and it is definitely a good savings for us to get them.


After eating, we came back up to the room crazy tired and almost ready to turn in at 6pm. But, that would be giving in to jet lag, so...put on the swimsuits and went out to the pool! A quick turn in the lazy river and then some swimming in the infinity pool was actually quite relaxing and the water was good for all the sore muscles from 10 hours of plane seats. We just spent about 45 minutes enjoying and then did head back to the room.

 

[brifraz]

On the way back up (this was actually after dinner before swimming), we did run into a few friends just wandering the paths of the resort!




Back up in the room after swimming, it was a little after 7pm, so we sat out on the deck and watched the Disney Hawai'ian culture show, the Starlit Hui. It was a pretty neat show.

Here's the crowd filtering in. Advice to anybody coming this was - it is only 3 or 4 nights a week and was definitely PACKED last night - get there early (maybe 7pm for the 7:30 activities and 8pm show).


There are quite a few different elements to the show, including some Hula, some story telling, a dueling ukelele bit, and (of course) characters at the end. It was a good mix of authentic feeling Hawai'ian material and appeasing the masses.




The show ended a little past 8:30pm and we were quickly asleep after that.

 

[KJ1081]

We spent the day at Aulani when we were in Waikiki for my sisters wedding back in September. I wanted to stay there so bad- the place is breathtaking! But noooo, the parents said we all gotta stay together at the Hilton Hawaiian Village...party poopers

 

[coachwnh]

What an awesome summer! Looking forward to more

 

[Nemo14]

Awesome pictures! Looks another great trip!

 

[brifraz]

In bed and asleep by 9pm meant that this morning we were all up by 4am. Oops! Nothing to be done about it, but to go out and take some pictures.

Pre-sunrise from the lobby looking toward the ocean.


And then, just as the sun was starting to rise looking back at the resort from the beach area.


It seemed like forever until the first restaurant opened at 6am, but it did finally happen, so we were at Ulu again for breakfast (platter of eggs, bacon, and potatoes and a serving of french toast) and very happy to be fed. After we ate, my wife decided to go for a run along the beach while my daughter and I got cleaned up and ready for pool time. Here are some pics from my wife's run.




Once she was back, we headed downstairs to book our daughter's evening plans. She is going to Aunty's House (kids only activity area) for a baking soda volcano building experience, dinner, and a 'tweens' only craft activity. She is very excited about this...and perhaps her mother and I are excited for a little adult time as well. Now registered for all that, we went to pick up our rental car (right on site and MUCH cheaper than renting from the airport), and then the girls went and did some water slides at the pool while I read up on all the island and figured out some of our off-site plans for later in the visit.

Again, a relatively short pool visit and at around 10am, we drove to the next town over (Kapolei) to do some grocery shopping for the week and also to get a better feel for the area. Ko Olina is VERY upscale and tourist feeling - not to say it isn't awesome, but a little bit unreal (maybe like being at, I dunno....Disneyworld?). Shopping done, we were back to our room and eating lunch. If you have never tried it, we highly recommend making grilled cheese sandwiches with a Mickey waffle iron - they come out most excellent, and quite a bit cheaper than just about anything else around here! The girls are now enjoying a post-meal nap and here I am making a trip report.

More later!

 

[mrdrift]

Great report and some really great pictures. Will be following this report since this is a destination that my family would really like to do.

 

[coachwnh]

Wow! Again, what a great way to spend the summer! Love the pictures so far.

 

[Allym146]

What an awesome view you guys scored! Can't wait to see more!

 

[brifraz]

Good morning (well, at least morning here at 7am - back home it's 1pm!). After the naps, it was time for our daughter to visit Aunty's house for the "Eruption Disruption" activity which I would expect you can figure out. She also did some other activities and got to watch some of "Frozen" (for, like, the hundredth time) before having dinner there - chicken tenders, vegetables, and fruit dipped in chocolate for dessert. While she was there, my wife and I walked across the street to the little shopping center and checked things out there. Nothing exciting, just taking in the territory. We then walked to the beach and all the way out to the point at the edge of the lagoon. Here are some pictures from our walk.

The entryway to Aulani


The view from the lobby in daylight (as opposed to before sunrise!)


The beach


Looking back at the resort from the edge of the lagoon


The breakers at the edge of the lagoon


Our daughter was planning to stay at Aunty's for a craft activity at 7pm, but we wanted to check to make sure she was still enjoying herself. We had read and heard that older kids (she is 10) tend to protest going there and then never want to leave, but weren't sure if this was how ours would react. Turns out, that description was spot on. She was pretty wary about it when we showed up, but when we checked in to see if she wanted to leave for an hour or so before the crafts or skip the crafts altogether we got a resounding NO, she didn't want to leave at all!

So, my wife and I went over to Olelo to relax and enjoy a few drinks and some dinner. And boy was it a nice evening. We sat at the bar and had a few drinks along with the garlic fries pupu during the Happy Hour (certainly the best prices around) and then we also got the Kalua Pork nachos (not happy hour, but delicious) with Taro chips. Here's a picture of a couple of those drinks (Mango margarita and PIneapple Basil fizz) and the nachos.


There were two regular bartenders working (both have been here since opening) and a new girl in her first day of training. The two gents were EXCELLENT bartenders (my wife tended bar for a number of years and was quite impressed with them) and the new girl was quite fun to interact with and watch her learn. She was a quick study and by the time we left (a good three hours later) was tapping, pouring, and mixing quite well. We also met and talked with a local family who had been friends with one of the bartenders since high school. Loads of fun and a great setting for it!

A little after 8pm, we picked up our daughter from Aunty's (even though she begged to stay even later) and headed back up to the room. Just a little while later, we all found ourselves asleep again before 9pm. Which meant, we were again up early - at least this morning we managed to wait until 5am!

Today we are planning to spend some time on the beach and then do the Menehune activity (similar to Kim Possible/Perry at Epcot we think) before a nice lunch at the beachfront restaurant and possibly driving north to explore the island a little. See you later!

 

[brifraz]

Oh my gosh, I totally forgot! Yesterday afternoon, while our daughter was at Aunty's we did the Art of Aulani tour. It was amazing - basically a tour guide taking a group of us through the lobby area and describing all the incredible detail of the artwork and how the resort is very Hawai'ian culture based. It really was excellent. We learned more information about the culture and history of Hawai'i during the hour that from quite a bit of pre-trip reading. The guide was really entertaining and pointed out a ton of things that we would never have seen or noticed. If you ever get a chance to visit here, this tour is well worth the $0 that it costs!!

And just FYI, we are staying on the female side of the resort in deference to Hina (goddess of the moon) and Pele (goddess of fire) and have now taken to looking much more carefully at EVERYTHING here. Very cool stuff.

 

[brifraz]

Almost bedtime here in Hawai'i, but with a few minutes before 9pm (yes, we are still going to bed at 9pm...jet lag is still winning) it is time to give up some more pictures!

As planned, this morning was breakfast followed by some time at the beach and swimming.


We had a lot of fun in the ocean - 8am is a good time for it as the water is nice and warm and the crowds have not woken up, yet. Finally, a picture of me is creeping into the trip report...I gotta work on those tan lines.



And here is the view that my wife had from her lounge chair. Yes, those really were rain clouds and there was a little bit of misty rain that made it to this side of the island this morning.


After an hour or so of playing, we headed back up to the room to get cleaned up so we could play some of the Menehune adventure. We did the indoor portion which takes place mainly in the lobby area.


And then we had our nice lunch at Ama Ama - the ocean front table service restaurant. It was a beautiful view and the food was good (although nothing amazingly special, just good).


After lunch, we decided that (again) some good afternoon rest would do us some good, so back up to the room for a couple hours of relaxed vacation-y resting. We are so used to vacationing at Disney where every day is packed with activity that it seems odd for us to be spending a few hours each day doing nothing! After a couple hours, my daughter and I decided to head down to the pool and enjoy the lazy river while my wife got some more rest. We did a couple of full circuits of the river and then headed back up to the room for dinner.

This evening we decided to do more of the Menahune adventures, but this time outside in the pool area. As we were completing one of the tasks, we got a little assistance. We actually all jumped a bit when he snuck up behind us to help!


While completing the different activities, we were also looking around at all the rock work that is here. One of the things we learned about at our art tour yesterday was that there are MANY things carved into the lava rock here. They are not nearly so obvious as those at the Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom and they are often almost invisible until you look very carefully. For example, here is a shark that we found.


We have also found a number of birds, fish, and turtles around the resort. They are quite interesting and often take a great deal of looking (and some imagination). We finished up the adventures a little before 8pm and decided to come back up to the room and turn in early since we will be getting up early for Pearl Harbor tomorrow morning.

 

[brifraz]

Wow! What a day. Very busy and quite different from our plans, but everything worked out great. So, once again we found ourselves awake at 5am, which was OK since we wanted to get out by 6:30am and to Pearl Harbor by 7am to get early tickets to go to the Arizona Memorial. SO.....note to potential visitors: arriving at 7am on a Friday will get you tickets for the 12pm boat to the Memorial. There were literally hundreds in line when we arrived and while the line moves quickly, the boats fill up just as quickly. Originally, we had hoped to visit Pearl Harbor and be done around lunch, but that just wasn't going to work out. We had a few places we were going to visit after that, so we just did some flip flopping.

We toured the museum and displays about Pearl Harbor (sorry, no pics, I'm not a big museum picture taker) which were very well done and informative and we watched the 'you are there' film that is in the museum. It took us about an hour and a half to complete - there were some folks not reading the plaques and displays who likely made it through in half an hour, but we like to read! I'm going to jump ahead to put all the Pearl Harbor stuff together, but remember we actually left for a good 2+ hours before coming back for the Arizona memorial, which includes a decent length film about the attack. Everything is very well done and very sobering. We really enjoyed it and are glad our daughter could learn some things there.

This is the USS Missouri (the actual boat is the memorial) with the current active base operations in the background.


Here is the view from either side of the Arizona Memorial - for those not familiar with it, the white building is directly over the sunken Arizona which is the tomb for over 900 who died onboard during the attack (and many who have died since and asked to be buried there).



But now let's rewind to the time between our first arrival at Pearl Harbor and our visit to the Arizona. We decided for the sake of saying we did it to drive through Waikiki. And, it was exactly what we expected, a tourist beach resort town - big, at times very high end, but still a tourist town. Glad we drove through and don't need to visit again! Toward the east side of town we came across a little park with some serious Banyan trees. My wife and daughter are dwarfed in the middle of the tree here.


We then drove further East to Portlock to find the Spitting Cave. The "Oahu Revealed" instructions for getting there were spot on and so was the description of a VERY steep hike on an almost invisible path. But, we found it and did it and were well rewarded. It is a shelf of different lava flows that is beautiful on its own, but then you add in a spot where the waves crash into a cave which spits them back out and it was amazing. Supposedly had we hiked out over the cave we would have felt the rumbling, but our daughter was VERY wary of going any further and I think my wife was a little concerned as well. I took at least 40 pictures out there and have yet to go through them in any detail, but I think this is one of the better shots of it spitting!


After hiking back up to the car, we headed back to Pearl Harbor, but you have already heard about that! So, Pearl Harbor complete around 1:15pm, we were seriously hungry folks. Back East to the same area as Portlock - to Koko Marina for lunch at Kona Brewing Company. Good beers (I had a quite coconut-y brown ale, my wife had a citrus-y pale ale, and then we split a wheat beer brewed with passion fruit) and very good pizza as well. Worth driving back that way for, we thought (and much cheaper than a lot of the places around here). It didn't hurt that this was the view from our table.


We took over 160 pictures today, so you are getting a very condensed version. The second half of the day is coming up....

 

[brifraz]

After lunch, we continued East to the far southeast corner of the island to check out some of the sights. I am severely limiting my picture posting, but you are definitely getting the highlights!

First up is the Halona Blowhole which was pretty incredible. I have at least 30 other pictures just like this one as each wave came up, I had to see which would be the best one.


Then we drove to the Makapu'u lookout for this view of Rabbit Island.


And we took some time to hike up the side of Makapu'u. It was into the mid-80s and we were all a bit hot and tired so we didn't make it all the way to another blowhole (Dragon's Nostrils), but it isn't as reliable as Halona, so we just got to see the awesome view looking back south at Koko Crater.


We then drove a bit inland heading for the infamous H3 highway across and through the mountains. The sights along the way were amazing (the windward side mountains are just incredible) and these are a couple of the better shots from our moving car!



Then it was across the island on the H3. This is a picture looking back over the bridge we had just travelled as we were about to enter the tunnel.


After getting through the mountain, we connected back up with the main highway, the H1 and were stuck in slow traffic along the route back east from the Honolulu area to Ko Olina. Now, it is after 7pm, we are back in the room and quite tired. We are all enjoying some Strawberry Daquiris (2/3 with rum) and just relaxing before we get to sleep. Very excited for another great day tomorrow with the possibility of swimming with some turtles (crossing fingers).

 

[brifraz]

Very bummed to have just seen some weather forecasts that say we will be getting some heavy rain here on Sunday and Monday.... Hopefully we can dodge the raindrops and still have some great times! Going to load up on the activities tomorrow before this (ex-tropical depression) storm shows up.

 

[NYwdwfan]

There are quite a few different elements to the show, including some Hula, some story telling, a dueling ukelele bit, and (of course) characters at the end. It was a good mix of authentic feeling Hawai'ian material and appeasing the masses.

This sounds like what the luau at the Polynesian SHOULD be.

Hope the weather holds out - sounds like you are having an amazing summer!!

 

[coachwnh]

Very bummed to have just seen some weather forecasts that say we will be getting some heavy rain here on Sunday and Monday.... Hopefully we can dodge the raindrops and still have some great times! Going to load up on the activities tomorrow before this (ex-tropical depression) storm shows up.

Good luck with the weather!

Im loving this report.

 

[Nemo14]

I'm loving this - you guys are really doing some awesome things but relaxing too. Good for you!

 

[Mom@disney]

What a great trip so far! How is the lazy river and water park there? Hopefully the storm holds out for you and you can enjoy the rest if your trip!

 

[brifraz]

This sounds like what the luau at the Polynesian SHOULD be.

Hope the weather holds out - sounds like you are having an amazing summer!!

The Starlit Hui isn't really a luau, though, just a storytelling show. We've done a real Hawai'ian luau back on our honeymoon and it was amazing. The Hui doesn't have food, which is THE main ingredient of a true luau. It does have some traditional music (although most of the music is pretty modern) and a very little bit of hula (with audience participation), but not to the degree that one would expect from a traditional luau. By the way, the local traditional luau at Paradise Cove (walking distance away) was last night and there was a FLOOD of people from Aulani heading that way. Since we have seen one in the past and we know our daughter would not appreciate the Kalua pork and nobody really appreciates the poi (I actually kind of like it), we decided it wasn't worth it for us.

What a great trip so far! How is the lazy river and water park there? Hopefully the storm holds out for you and you can enjoy the rest if your trip!

The lazy river (Waikolohe Valley Stream) is absolutely beautiful. While it does get a little crowded at times, it is nowhere near as crowded as those at water parks - I expect the nearby ocean has some influence. There is nice vegetation all along the route, a cave with 'natural springs' (bubbles), and waterfalls along the way. The tubes are plentiful, but it is more than nice enough to just swim through.

To be honest, all the pools are really pretty amazing. The main pool is zero entry and mainly in sun during the day and has lighting in the bottom laid out as constellations, the infinity pool has a nice little grotto area for shade in addition to the main area and the adult-only pool is quiet! The tube water slide is great and empties directly into the lazy river if you want to just keep going after your ride. We haven't tried the body slide, but it empties into the main pool. All are well themed throughout. This morning we are planning to spend some time in both the ocean and the pool before our breakfast with Mickey and friends.

Rain is definitely coming either later tonight or tomorrow - we just hope it maybe moves a little faster than they are expecting and is out of here by Monday afternoon!