Trip Report A little bit of Disney and a lot of luaus!

Hello all!
We're back from our "Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa" stay, and I'm finally able to get this trip report started!
(And fyi the closest I came to a spa was getting a water bubble foot bath at the kids splash area!)

Our party of 6 and a 1/2 consisted of myself Cindy, husband Gary, son Seth, daughter Aleisha (and the half), SIL Julio and our 20 month old granddaughter Una. (You may remember her as crazy girl from our Oct. 2021 WDW trip report.) Nothing has changed there!

Same cast of characters except in a different location!

We left home 9/24/22 and returned 10/5/22.
On Saturday the 24th we flew from Pittsburgh to Sacramento via Dallas. (That is a big airport)!

Before we left I bought myself a new (larger) suitcase for the trip. Someone may or may not have packed one and a half suitcases full of kid crap treasures and needed more space! When I retired my partners bought me the smaller version of this and I love it so much (and it's held up for 4 years of Disney adventures) so it made sense to buy the matching larger one! I'm glad they still offer the same pattern.

We packed up all of said stuff and headed to the airport. Our flight was at a reasonable 1:30pm so we didn't have to kill ourselves to get there.
I put this photo in to remind myself to never do this again. I wanted to save $3/day and so I parked in the economy lot. @riverside will be able to tell you how silly this decision was. There are no shuttles and it was a full on 20 minute walk with my annoying hip back to the terminal. You see that strip of brown there past my car? That is the highway surrounding the airport! But hey, I saved $3/day!

We got through security no problem that time of day and got on the monorail type thing that takes you from the land to air side.
And ps, I'm with every other human on the planet that is sick of mask wearing but Gary's oncologist has asked him to keep wearing them indoors as much as possible due to his immunocompromised state with ongoing chemo and so we do.
I tell everyone it's not going to be his cancer or covid that takes him out, it's going to be me.
See post of family fracas that occurs in a few days.

We had time to grab an early lunch so we shared Chick-fil-A nuggets, waffle fries and some Auntie Anne's nuggets.
He's happy, honestly! He doesn't earn those Grumpy shirts for nuthin!

And then on to what started out as one of the most controversial subjects of this trip.
As his illness progresses and he gets more tired (and grumpy) I try to figure out how to make things less stressful and easier for him.
Flying has become something he detests. So I proposed for the first time in our life that we try to fly first/business class and see if it is any easier for him. If you hate it or feel it is not worth it, never again I tell him.
(Remember I'm the person too cheap to park closer, I don't throw money away either).
Oh boy did the grumping and complaining begin. That's too expensive, I don't want to do that and on and on. I finally wore him down and he acquiesced.
So, how do you think it went?

Give you a little hint, that's actually a smile behind that mask as he sits in his nice wide soft seat!

Do I get to do a wifely eyeball roll yet?!
Hope you'll stay tuned for more of our adventures!

 

[Darstarr]

I told him to take it as it was the last one. You can always return items on Disney properties with tags on and a receipt but you can't buy it if it's gone!
A perfect example of this was they had a Koa wood postcard of Donald Duck that Seth saw on the first day and didn't get it and they never had it again during the week.

Another example was when darstarr went to Aulani and saw a Aulani dvc sticker for her car on check in day. She said she would get it later…sadly, there was no later.
Loving Una

 

[MickeyCB]

Just a few more shopping photos.
The stores were really small for a resort this size and frequently ran out of merchandise.
Across from the main store that has toys, clothes, etc. is a little kiosks that had more seasonal items and some shirts, etc.
These were on the tops of the display shelves.

I picked this up for a friend who asked me if I saw it would I bring it home for her. She's a Disney travel agent and I thought she would like this view of her water bottle! She found me the Mickey mummy popcorn bucket last year at the outlet for a steal!

I bought this for Una while she napped.
I can't lie, I wish I had bought one for myself too!

After Una's nap we decided to head down to play in the water a little.

 

[MickeyCB]

Another example was when darstarr went to Aulani and saw a Aulani dvc sticker for her car on check in day. She said she would get it later…sadly, there was no later.

Truth! And so sad.
I didn't see those either but I wasn't looking. You should have told me!
I did pick up an Aulani DVC pin. I have a pic somewhere I'll dig up.

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 6-Let's play in the water!

After Una's nap we decided to take her down to the water play area. Gary was heading for pin trading opportunities and Aleisha and Julio weren't back yet, so it was just Seth and me.
She wasn't having any part of the big splash area, but there was a smaller one I thought we would try.
She was quick to trust Seth even though she didn't remember him too much since the last time she saw him was at Christmas.

There was a small water geyser that she wouldn't even go near till we told her it was a "water bubble". Then she was all in!

Aleisha and Julio had made it back by now and Aleisha came down to play.

It's really quite sad and makes no sense but everything shuts down around 5 pm.
That last photo was time stamped at 4:57 pm and a few minutes later all of the water just stopped.
I've read many complaints on line about this at Aulani.
Aleisha rushed her and Una up to try one more round of the lazy river but they wouldn't let them in.

We decided to meander down to the beach and while they didn't stop anyone from getting in the water they were closing up all of the umbrellas, etc. I saw a CM go through with a cart gathering up towels and as there were a fair amount of people in the water I thought they were going to be quite annoyed when they came up and their towels went missing.
Some pics as we headed down to the beach.

This was another thing we didn't do. You could walk along the beach and sit along that little piece of land that juts out into the water.
I saw a bunch of people sitting there and realized they were getting ready to watch the sunset that would be off to the right. We had been here all week but never sat on our balcony at sunset. We did manage to do that this evening but in retrospect the grassy area would have been ideal as the 4 Seasons right next door blocked a fair amount of the sunset.

Julio joined us on the beach and I was on stroller patrol and got a few paparazzi shots.

After that we started to head back to the room to try and catch the sunset from our balcony and figure out what we wanted to do about dinner.

 

[Wicked Sisters]

Love the Duffy bear. I have the original one from WDW but wish they did the cute small one in your photo as well. Enjoying all your adventures with Una.

 

[MickeyCB]

Love the Duffy bear. I have the original one from WDW but wish they did the cute small one in your photo as well. Enjoying all your adventures with Una.

They had a variety of sizes. Some very large and some as small as key chains.
They had ears, shirts and bags with them on them.
I think I have some photos because Seth did a short video tour of the store for his friend back home, I'll try to find them.
And thanks, Una certainly livens things up!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 6-no respect for the art sister, no respect!

On our way back up to the room we stopped by the wonderful Stitch statue for some photos. We all love Stitch!
None of us caught what Una was doing in this pic till we were back home and I was looking through our trip photos.

One of us knows where the camera is!
And this smile of Una's is because she has learned how to "say cheese!"

A CM that was walking by offered to take a photo of all of us.

After that it was a race to the balcony for sunset photos!

 

[Back!Elbow!Shoulders!]

That arm thing must have been so scary for all involved. Especially being away from home. Glad it resolved itself.

 

[MickeyCB]

That arm thing must have been so scary for all involved. Especially being away from home. Glad it resolved itself.

I assume she basically did her own maneuver that put it back in place.
It appears completely resolved and Aleisha said from that day on no complaints.
Gamma is thinking she's got a career in Ortho or ER medicine in her future!

 

[Songbird76]

Gamma is thinking she's got a career in Ortho or ER medicine in her future!

As a patient or a doctor?

 

[MickeyCB]

As a patient or a doctor?

good one @Songbird76!!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 6- check out the sunset!

We raced up to our balcony as the sun was going down fast!
I've tried to put these in proper order as the sun set.
I had written here earlier that it was the 4 Seasons next door that blocked the full sunset view, but it was actually the Waianae Tower of Aulani that obstructed the full view. It was still beautiful nonetheless.
The view from the front rooms of each tower must have been stunning! Those are, I believe, the 3 bedroom grand villas.

And this to me was the wildest shot of the evening. I don't know if you can see in this pic, but it looks like there is a hole in the night sky where the moon is. On my phone if you enlarge it, it looks like you can see the moon in the hole and then clear blue day sky surrounding the moon. Maybe @fractal will have an explanation for this cool effect. Or maybe I just want to go on thinking it's magic?!

Dinner ended up being a combination of leftovers in the room and a few items from Off The Hook takeout.
We ate our dinner and got ready for bed. Tomorrow would be our longest day of the trip with several stops including the Polynesian Cultural Center and some family drama thrown in for good measure.

 

[amjt660]

Hi @MickeyCB

trying to get caught up but had to stop and post this one

The rare Hawaiian Rock Shark

Max

 

[MickeyCB]

The rare Hawaiian Rock Shark

HOW do you catch these things?!
See what I did there?!!

 

[amjt660]

It's really quite sad and makes no sense but everything shuts down around 5 pm.

unbelievable to shut down so early - did they explain why? - early sunset?

A CM that was walking by offered to take a photo of all of us.

and I bet the CM was reprimanded for doing this after 5pm!!!

Well Una just debunked one of my favourite expressions...

"you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose - but you can't pick your friends nose"



Max

 

[MickeyCB]

unbelievable to shut down so early - did they explain why? - early sunset?

No explanation, and before we went I watched a bunch of YouTube videos posted from people who vacationed there and a lot of them commented on the same thing. And going so far as to talk about how by 8pm things were pretty buttoned down.
Maybe I can understand the lazy river closing as it would be difficult to life guard in the dark, but you would think they would at least have the pools open later.
I can't remember if I mentioned it yet but there is a bar on the ground level that Aleisha and Julio wanted to go down to maybe at 9 or so and they told them they could put them on the list but it closed (I think) at 10. So no real value in that.
The flip side of all of that is that as old people on east coast time, most nights I was ready to crash at 8 or 9pm.

Well Una just debunked one of my favourite expressions...

"you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose - but you can't pick your friends nose"

She is a hoot! I can't imagine as she gets older the things she is going to do!

 

[MickeyCB]

This Mickey obsessed human is interrupting her trip report to wish you all a Happy Hallowweeeeennn!!!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 7-It's luau number two!

It's 7:30 am and we're drawing and drinking (juice) on the balcony! Seth and I were up early and chilling outside.
So stinkin nice.

Eventually we got ourselves together and headed out the door. The plans were to drive a scenic cross country route to the Polynesian Cultural Center (for the rest of this trip report PCC to abbreviate), and stop at anything that caught our fancy. We didn't have to be at the PCC to meet our tour guide till after 12:30 pm.

As we entered the lobby area on our floor Aleisha saw Stitch down below and they flew down trying to catch him for Una.
They got down there while he was still there but he was headed out. The pictures are a little blurry but you could see Una was so excited to see him.

After that we all piled into the van and headed out. First stop was an interesting little roadside restaurant called Farm to Barn in Haleiwa.
We pulled in there and got something to drink and I think everyone shared a fruit bowl of sorts (Acai Bowl.)
Seth liked it so much he bought himself a ballcap with their logo on it.

And then we headed off again towards the ocean. We stumbled across a little town down the road that had a shave ice place called M. Matsumoto Shave Ice. It was delicious! Prior to coming to Hawaii every time I read about shave ice all I could picture was snow cones and didn't get the appeal. But these were wonderful and the one we had later at Aulani was too.

It's located in an outdoor mall of sorts.
There was a little store in the back that I found my mom and stepdad some Kona coffee and an island brand banana pancake mix to take home for them watching our cat while we were gone.

 

[MickeyCB]

More mall photos-

Across the road was an old church. The archway caught my eye and this was the plaque beside it.

Beside this church was a little shop that I went into. I had been looking for a child size Hawaiian bracelet for Una since she seemed to love her "jewels" so much!
They had a few her size and we let her pick the color. She picked the "boo" one.

After that we all piled back into the van and finally ran into (not literally) the ocean!
This is Waimea Bay! It's on the North Shore. Years and years ago we were here during surf season and there were waves so high it was crazy and a little frightening!
We followed that road till we got to the PCC to begin phase 2 of todays adventures!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 7- the PCC!

We rolled into the parking lot, that wasn't very crowded, and unloaded us and our gear.
It was a little confusing at the beginning because we weren't sure where to go and we were of course about a half hour late to meet with our guide.
When you enter it's like an open air mall. There are shops, and food kiosks. Apparently anyone can park and come into this area without a ticket into the PCC. I found it to be a little confusing.

I had reserved a motorized scooter for Gary who only protested at little, because there is a fair amount of walking here.
We were given directions by someone in a random booth to head to the right despite my email from the scooter rental company saying go left.
It was in fact the wrong direction and we had to turn all of the way around to get the scooter and to find our guide for the day.
But as we were at the entrance to the PCC a security guard walking by asked if we would like her to take our picture. I found all of the staff to be incredibly nice throughout the entire day.
It was close to the temperature of the sun, not sure if you can see us melting or not.
And it was so funny, Gary got so many compliments during the course of the day on his Steeler Hawaiian shirt!

After our photo session we headed back the direction we came to find the kids, get the scooter and meet our guide. THEN we walked right back under this sign, again!

Prior to booking this outing I researched the various ticket options and decided to go with having a tour guide and I am so glad we did. It is a very large place and all of the countries represented are spread out and each have various small shows and demonstrations. Our guide Jasmine was very efficient getting us around (herding us along), so we would see the various events. I'm pretty sure if we were meandering on our own we would have missed a fair amount. She also was very knowledgeable about the various countries we toured.

The first thing we did was take a canoe ride that I think went by each of the countries. The guy who was doing the work of paddling this canoe was hilarious. Think the PCC version of Jungle Cruise.
He asked all of us where we thought he was from. Many Polynesian countries were thrown out as guesses. And with a straight face he says Chicago! He was very humorous

Seeing this photo reminded me that when we met our tour guide at the beginning we were given another Lei, this time a cream color nut.

In Hawaii they offered a hula lesson that Seth, Aleisha and Una (sort of) participated in.

We stopped by Fiji and apparently this giant canoe/boat? is actually used by brave souls out on the ocean.

Next up I think is Tonga!