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!

 

[MickeyCB]

Ummmm, no.
@amjt660 do you want to explain or shall I?

Max

Ahhh come on!!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 8-our lovely drive continues, and my son in law says "you just shut up!"

We turned around and headed south with our Hawaiian fries and coke in hand.
We came across the wood carving place again and I decided to stop anyway.
It was a little road side stand and there weren't a huge amount of carvings but I thought they were nice. They were somewhat large and Gary said he didn't feel like lugging one home.
There were men in the back with chain saws and other equipment working on some pieces.
I didn't take any photos because I thought that would be rude.

We headed on and I tried to take a few photos from the car of the beach and the mountains to the right but they aren't great.

We got hold of Seth who was still an hour till finishing up. So I called Aleisha and Julio and told them we could come get them if they wanted. They said sure that they had just sat down to eat somewhere but would try to finish up before we got there in about 45 min.

They gave me the street address where they were and I was able to turn onto a side street near the restaurant and pull the car over so they could get in. I didn't quite look at their faces and started prattling on about our lovely drive, the beautiful park and it was when I got to the wood carving store that Julio said "you just shut up!"

I'm still laughing about it as I type this. I looked at him and his face is flushed with the heat and he looks totally stressed.
Apparently Una was an animal the entire time they were in Waikiki. She wouldn't take a nap in the stroller and pretty much yelled non stop and didn't want to do anything they did. They didn't want to go on the beach because they weren't dressed for it, no sunblock etc. They forgot about the zoo being literally one block from where they were and on and on!

Julio loves exploring and is a big fan of woodcarving. That apparently was the camels straw as I told of our days adventures!

At that point I decided to stop rhapsodizing talking about our day and turned the van around to go pick up Seth.

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 8-conts...

We got back to Aulani and Seth showed us his tattoos.
The first one was designed by him and the tattoo artist prior to getting to Hawaii. It's rather large in my opinion, but it's also his hairy leg so what do I care?!

The second one caused me to tear up. I didn't know Seth was doing this.
FOP is one of Gary's absolute favorite rides at Disney. What I didn't know was each time he and Seth would get off of the ride the two of them would fist bump and Gary would say Sivako! It's their thing.
Seth came to me in tears and told me Dad doesn't remember this mom. He was so upset.
He had Gary, in a note pad, write the word Sivako multiple times in his hand writing.
So the next day, the reason it took longer, was he had her tattoo this on his forearm in Gary's hand writing.

As I've mentioned before due to Gary's brain bleeds last year he has intermittent memory deficits. When he saw this on Seth's arm he remembered! And of course they fist bumped.
The brain remains a mysterious thing.

After that we ate a dinner that again was a combination of leftovers and food from off the hook
Una had her mac n cheese.

Gary ate another dole whip, for dinner.

We had a few more leftover flatbreads that we shared. Those things are one of my favorite Disney foods!

And Seth had this fruit bowl thing that he said was good.

As we got ready for bed Seth pulled out the roll out in the living room and I saw this label. I don't remember seeing that at WDW. Has anyone noticed?
And by the way, Seth chose to sleep on the pullout instead of the second queen as he hates when Una wakes up yelling in the middle of the night. On our last trip to Disney in Oct. he slept on one of the queens the first night and said absolutely not thereafter!
You know it's bad when you will volunteer for the Disney rollouts instead of a real bed!

We all hit the hay as we were tired.
Tomorrow we have a football game to watch, a little more resort play time and Seth heads home.

 

[cgersic]

Oh my gosh what a beautiful thing for Seth to have done! I do the Sivako myself, every time! Heartbreaking to hear about Gary's memories, the brain is indeed strange at what it does and doesn't do. Hugs!!

 

[Darstarr]

I say Sivako and get told to “stop it” by my kids.
Love the thought behind the tat

 

[MickeyCB]

Oh my gosh what a beautiful thing for Seth to have done! I do the Sivako myself, every time!

I say Sivako and get told to “stop it” by my kids.
Love the thought behind the tat

I didn't know it was a thing.
But it was really cool to hear that they have that little moment together. Seth is a fairly typical, not too sentimental of a guy and with that in mind I thought it was a particularly thoughtful gesture.
@Darstarr next time we're on FOP and your guys are around we'll make sure to yell it really loud!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 9-Seth saves the football day!

Seth didn't have to leave for the airport till the afternoon so we had some time for a few activities.
The Steelers were playing at home at 1pm, so a 7 am game in Hawaii?!
We were unable to get the game on any channel there but Seth did some kind of whiz kid connection with his computer and got the game up and running. Not that it mattered because we lost that one (too.)

Una not interested in the game and trying to sneak out of the room!

We had done a load of laundry the evening before and Una is "helping" me fold it!

After that I wanted to go down to the shops and Seth went with me.
He took a short video for his friend back home and I got some still shots of the merchandise they had (that day.)

I got that middle postcard for myself. It's made of Koa wood.

Seth got the Donald Duck shirt for he and his friend.

I picked up the Moana pin with the castle for Una. She watches a lot of the Disney movies on Disney + and recognizes the castle.

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 9-store merch continued

I don't get all of the Duffy bear stuff but I know it is quite popular.

I picked this up for my mom who loves macadamia nuts.
I said to her, and she knows how this goes, this is for you but please don't throw away the box. I always bring her home Disney coffee, candy etc., but she knows not to throw the packaging away.
She didn't throw away the box but she did throw away the wrapper with the Aulani label on it.

After that we headed down for a little water play and some lunch.

 

[fractal]

Sivako!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 9 continues...

We were going to head down to get some lunch and stop at the DVC area so we could get a picture with all of us with Mickey since Seth wasn't there with us on check in day.
But I almost forgot. Before we headed down Seth looked down from the balcony and saw this.

He flew down to try and catch Donald for some photos. Donald has become one of he and his friend's new favorite.
He was excited because even though Donald was headed off he stopped for some photos with Seth. He's in his Halloween best!

After that we headed down to get lunch but went through the DVC area to get there.
We got some pics in front of Maui's hook.

But, because Julio wouldn't let Una do this...

This happened. (The floor and yelling part of our trip)! Notice all of the concerned adults gathered around?
Nope, have a good time Una!
My life is truly over she wailed!
Am I the drama? Why yes, yes you are.

Grandparent eyeball rolls cause double vision.
After she settled down. All of 45 seconds later, we got our pic with Mickey.

We ordered food and they played in the water while we waited for it.

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 8- cont.,
Water play and lunch.

Aleisha and Julio took Una over to the splash area while we waited for our food.

Aleisha and I scolding Gary for having a coke for lunch.

And then it was time for Seth to say goodbye. They were going to stay down by the water as Gary and I were taking Seth to the airport.
Awkward goodbyes!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 8-a few resort photos on the way out.

As we walked Seth back up to the room I grabbed a few photos as we had not taken this path before.

Guess what this is?!

This is the view facing Makahiki Restaurant that hosts the character breakfast. That's the terrace where we got our photos taken with Mickey and above it is the balcony you can step out onto from the lobby level.

We helped Seth gather up his gear and headed for the airport.

 

[Bullseye1967]

Guess what this is?!

A mongoose

 

[MickeyCB]

A mongoose

And the winner is....!!!!!
Seth had pointed them out and I thought he was full of it because I hadn't seen them till that day.

 

[rshell68]

Guess what this is?!
View attachment 679746

RIKI-TIKKI-TAVI!!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 8- Seth is off to the airport and we have a little more relaxing time.

We helped Seth gather up his gear and headed to the airport.
It's a very reasonable 20-30 minutes. And we learned a HUGE difference from Sunday when we took Seth to Monday when we left as far as traffic and congestion are concerned.

We dropped Seth at terminal 2 I believe, it is to all gates, but first some hugs and fist bumps are in order!

I like that they have a scale outside to weigh your luggage so if you have to do the "my suitcase is too heavy shuffle" you can
do it outside.

He looked really lost at first as to where to go.

I didn't want him to go so I called him back.

Then he was really annoyed when he realized I just wanted to say bye again!

This would be a much different scene tomorrow morning!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 8- continues with a few last minute sight seeing photos and presents!

After we dropped Seth off we drove back to Aulani and caught a few resort photos.
We stopped at the sign announcing the entrance to the resort and grabbed a photo or 2.

We had not noticed this till our last day. Apparently there is a train that people can take a ride on that stops across from the resort entrance. I'm not sure where it goes.

After we parked we went into the shops again. I had Gary try on this spirit jersey he had been eyeing up all week. He didn't want to spend the money on it for himself. I finally sold him on it by telling him it was sort of Steeler's colors and he could wear it to watch the games.

But then the coolest thing happened.
We went back up to the room and Aleisha and Julio were in the living room because Una was napping.
Sitting in the living room was a large box and the same shirt we had just bought and a thank you card.
Seth, Aleisha and Julio all chipped in and bought Gary the spirit jersey and me the Mickey lamp I had been hemming and hawing about all week!!
They bought them for us as a thank you for the trip.

The funniest thing was that when I opened the box we realized that the new lamp was painted very differently than the one in the room. You can't really see it in the photo but the original lamp his pants are a little more red and his hands and face are more of a creamy color. The guy at the store said no ma'am, you can't take the old one and leave us the new one! Oh well, it was a ridiculously nice gesture from the kids and it is sitting beside my computer as I type this!
It didn't make it's way into my Polynesian room (yet) because I already have the tiki lamp from the Polynesian resort in there.

I unpacked the lamp from the box and managed to get it into a carry on that made it to Sac then I super duper packed clothes and stuff around it and put it into one of the suitcases we used to bring Una's stuff to Sac.

Next up our last afternoon to play at the resort.

 

[amjt660]

So did you return the spirit jersey that you had purchased?

Did Gary pick out another one?

Max

 

[MickeyCB]

So did you return the spirit jersey that you had purchased?

Did Gary pick out another one?

Max

Yes, he was able to return one of them.
What we didn't realize is they are all a little different from each other. Colors lighter or darker, the black to orange fade, etc. As it turns out he kept the one he tried on.
I had mentioned earlier in the TR I recommend buying something you think you want at Disney, don't take the tags off and keep the receipt till you go home because I've never had them not let me return something.
And at WDW I found out you can return it anywhere. I bought something at the parks once and was able to return it at the store in the Contemporary.
I would still probably ask when buying if it is a big ticket item, to be sure that it can be returned but I've had success so far.

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 8-continues, let's get some shave ice and a last day in the ocean!

We went down to the pool and lazy river area. I had been wanting a shave ice all week and kept forgetting to get one.

You would have thought we put acid in that bowl with the way Una reacted!
I kept trying to get her to taste it and she was having none of it, even after I let her pick the colors!

Aleisha, Julio and Una headed down to the beach and we meandered after them.

Gary was playing with the color filter on his phone with this one.