peacefrogdog
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2000
Just thought I'd share my thoughts about Aulani from the room and resort perspective. I won't talk about excursions off the resort that you could do without staying at Aulani. It's not that it may necessarily change your decision whether to travel there or not, but having stayed at almost every DVC villa we had a lot of difference reference points to compare. I'm sure others are in the same situation.
For reference, our favorite villa for the room itself is Saratoga Springs, with our least favorite being Old Key West. We typically stay in a 1-BR for our family of five, and tend to spend a lot of time at the resort wherever we go (with the exception of eating out for dinner).
In general, yes the resort is beautiful and I won't review what many others have said about it. As a WHOLE, it is probably our favorite DVC resort from a pure resort/accomodation perspective (not including off-site recreation). However I'll focus on the specific.
What we liked:
- Decor is beautiful in the rooms. no surprise for a new resort.
- LOVED the kitchen banquet seating area.
- lots of seating areas in the lobby but also on each floor. Not sure if anyone ever uses them
- While we didn't use them, liked the idea of having a rice cooker available.
- Room had a blu-ray player instead of a DVD player. We had actually brought some of our movies from home - the community hall had DVD's only
- Pool: no surprise given how new it is. Spent most of our time just sitting by the pool and comfortable with the kids on their own. They had enough to do for an entire morning or afternoon with just the lazy river and water slides.
- The eat-in family meals were a nice deal, especially given the price to eat at restaurants. ALways had enough for leftovers.
What we didn't like:
- Too bad they couldn't fit in two bathrooms in their one-bedroom villas, like what Kidani village or BLT did. We definitely noted this with out family of 5.
- In most other villas, there is a place to hang coats/jackets near the front door. At Aulani, you have to walk past the kitchen, and towards the bedroom to access a closet. Minor inconvenience, but still odd.
- While the Murphy bed helped open up space during the days, it really did limit clothing storage space for our 3 kids who slept in the living room. That left just the drawers in the master bedroom for the 5 of us.
- Lack of restaurants: This has been mentioned before. I refused to do the buffet because of the price. We did Ama Ama - I view this like doing the Cinderella thing at Magic Kingdom - did it, won't do it again.
- Lack of outside restaurants for families: We were looking for restaurants that were not typical chain restaurants and didn't want to drive too far (e.g. Waikiki.) For some reason I was expecting what it is like in Hilton Head, with tons of nice, locally-run restaurants. We didn't do the more expensive places like Roy's (mainly because Yelp mentioned it wasn't the greatest for kids). Monkeypod was close, and while others have raved about it, it wasn't anything special. For those in Canada, it was no better than a Milestone's.
- Coffee: i refused to buy the refillable mug out of principle. You could get nice coffee in the AM (in the small bar area next to the buffet place, can't recall the name), but come the afternoon you couldn't. Really wished they could keep that place open all day. Bought some Kona Coffee from target to brew in the villa. Never seemed to turn out great, but later figured it was when we used tap water. Tasted better using bottled water.
We also did the community hall, Aunty's House, pics with characters, beach; not much to say with those. They were as good as expected, no worse and no better than similar things in other DVC resorts.
If you're wondering, YES, we would definitely go back. But with our family of 5 (kids are now 10, 8,8) here is what we would do differently:
1. We'd have to get a 2-Bedroom, mainly for the bathroom reason.
2. Either agree to drive further to eat out, or do more of those in-room family rooms. Probably the latter.
3. Definitely rent a car again.
4. Continue to be content just laying by the pool.
Feel free to shoot over any questions.
For reference, our favorite villa for the room itself is Saratoga Springs, with our least favorite being Old Key West. We typically stay in a 1-BR for our family of five, and tend to spend a lot of time at the resort wherever we go (with the exception of eating out for dinner).
In general, yes the resort is beautiful and I won't review what many others have said about it. As a WHOLE, it is probably our favorite DVC resort from a pure resort/accomodation perspective (not including off-site recreation). However I'll focus on the specific.
What we liked:
- Decor is beautiful in the rooms. no surprise for a new resort.
- LOVED the kitchen banquet seating area.
- lots of seating areas in the lobby but also on each floor. Not sure if anyone ever uses them
- While we didn't use them, liked the idea of having a rice cooker available.
- Room had a blu-ray player instead of a DVD player. We had actually brought some of our movies from home - the community hall had DVD's only
- Pool: no surprise given how new it is. Spent most of our time just sitting by the pool and comfortable with the kids on their own. They had enough to do for an entire morning or afternoon with just the lazy river and water slides.
- The eat-in family meals were a nice deal, especially given the price to eat at restaurants. ALways had enough for leftovers.
What we didn't like:
- Too bad they couldn't fit in two bathrooms in their one-bedroom villas, like what Kidani village or BLT did. We definitely noted this with out family of 5.
- In most other villas, there is a place to hang coats/jackets near the front door. At Aulani, you have to walk past the kitchen, and towards the bedroom to access a closet. Minor inconvenience, but still odd.
- While the Murphy bed helped open up space during the days, it really did limit clothing storage space for our 3 kids who slept in the living room. That left just the drawers in the master bedroom for the 5 of us.
- Lack of restaurants: This has been mentioned before. I refused to do the buffet because of the price. We did Ama Ama - I view this like doing the Cinderella thing at Magic Kingdom - did it, won't do it again.
- Lack of outside restaurants for families: We were looking for restaurants that were not typical chain restaurants and didn't want to drive too far (e.g. Waikiki.) For some reason I was expecting what it is like in Hilton Head, with tons of nice, locally-run restaurants. We didn't do the more expensive places like Roy's (mainly because Yelp mentioned it wasn't the greatest for kids). Monkeypod was close, and while others have raved about it, it wasn't anything special. For those in Canada, it was no better than a Milestone's.
- Coffee: i refused to buy the refillable mug out of principle. You could get nice coffee in the AM (in the small bar area next to the buffet place, can't recall the name), but come the afternoon you couldn't. Really wished they could keep that place open all day. Bought some Kona Coffee from target to brew in the villa. Never seemed to turn out great, but later figured it was when we used tap water. Tasted better using bottled water.
We also did the community hall, Aunty's House, pics with characters, beach; not much to say with those. They were as good as expected, no worse and no better than similar things in other DVC resorts.
If you're wondering, YES, we would definitely go back. But with our family of 5 (kids are now 10, 8,8) here is what we would do differently:
1. We'd have to get a 2-Bedroom, mainly for the bathroom reason.
2. Either agree to drive further to eat out, or do more of those in-room family rooms. Probably the latter.
3. Definitely rent a car again.
4. Continue to be content just laying by the pool.
Feel free to shoot over any questions.
You are certainly entitled to your opinions, as am I. I don't think I ever said you weren't. 
I didn't bother with the bringing up the HHI part (I would never compare dining in Hawaii to HHI either but whatever.) While I've read of other people who've been disappointed with the food choices offered AT Aulani itself it seems that most people have really been very pleased with the other local offerings in the area. I think yours was the first really negative review I've read of the entire Ko'Olina area.
