Aloha, Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas

What a lovely birthday! That's great you were able to get your breakfast changed to earlier, I'm going to have to put that restaurant on my list. All your pictures are tantalizing me!!! Everything is so gorgeous! The reef, the hottubs, the pools! And your bag, how beautiful. Bummer about the traffic and getting lost but sounds like you found your way and managed your shopping. And what fun to see the spa like that, I'll have to remember that too.

Pinkocto said:

What a lovely birthday! That's great you were able to get your breakfast changed to earlier, I'm going to have to put that restaurant on my list. All your pictures are tantalizing me!!! Everything is so gorgeous! The reef, the hottubs, the pools! And your bag, how beautiful. Bummer about the traffic and getting lost but sounds like you found your way and managed your shopping. And what fun to see the spa like that, I'll have to remember that too.

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It was a truly magical birthday. Makahiki is great. They also do a very nice dinner buffet, but I think I liked breakfast better. I so love that bag.

We did end up taking a scenic route a few times as the signposting can be a little suspect on Oahu, but it was always fairly easily fixed. That traffic was awful though.

While we were there, they offered the spa tour every morning and every evening. I wish I had made the time to go back in the morning to get some photos of the hydrotherapy garden, but that did never happen.

Corinna

Love all your Aulani pics and purse. I almost bought the cross body one.

What a great birthday morning! Happy 40th Birthday.

You're making me wish I have a trip to Aulani planned. It looks gorgeous.
And well done for getting your birthday breakfast reservation changed to an earlier time.
LOVE the Aulani bag.

ACDSNY said:

Love all your Aulani pics and purse. I almost bought the cross body one.

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That is the one regret that I have. I should have picked up the cross body while I had the chance. I have since developed a bit of an obsession with the cross body pouchettes and really want this one.

PrincessInOz said:

What a great birthday morning! Happy 40th Birthday.

You're making me wish I have a trip to Aulani planned. It looks gorgeous.
And well done for getting your birthday breakfast reservation changed to an earlier time.
LOVE the Aulani bag.

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If you ever get a chance to go to Aulani, grab it with both hands. This is definitely the most magical place I have been to.

It was a wonderful day and I am so lucky that I got to have such a special birthday.

Corinna

I love that at the resort they give you a Daily Iwa I am guessing like the Navigator on DCL. Nice touch. Cute Hawaiin Mickey at Breakfast and nice photos. I like the wooden Stitch! Loving your birthday shirt.
I took a fancy to the Kona coffee also and the Hawaiin salt in fact I brought back a pretty gift pack of different coloured salts with me. Oh my yum re your Loco Moco burger!

Great photos of Rainbow Reef. I am glad they let you where your wet suits. I bet that made a difference! Yes to the tote bag that is a beaut!

Made me laugh about the Safeway! A bit like the difference between our Co-Op lol.

Looking forward to reading about your excursion.

Paula Sedley-Burke said:

I love that at the resort they give you a Daily Iwa I am guessing like the Navigator on DCL. Nice touch. Cute Hawaiin Mickey at Breakfast and nice photos. I like the wooden Stitch! Loving your birthday shirt.
I took a fancy to the Kona coffee also and the Hawaiin salt in fact I brought back a pretty gift pack of different coloured salts with me. Oh my yum re your Loco Moco burger!

Great photos of Rainbow Reef. I am glad they let you where your wet suits. I bet that made a difference! Yes to the tote bag that is a beaut!

Made me laugh about the Safeway! A bit like the difference between our Co-Op lol.

Looking forward to reading about your excursion.

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Yes, the Daily Iwa is exactly like the Navigator on DCL. I always felt that they run Aulani like a cruise ship on land. They even have "shore excursions". We did our own thing though.

I wish I had brought back some Hawaiian salt.

Loco Moco has become my ultimate comfort food. I wish I could have a plate right now.

Yes, the wetsuits made all the difference. Some of the people never got more than a few steps away from the stairs as it was so cold. I was kind of surprised by this as we saw a lot of the same fish out in the ocean and that was a lot warmer.

Corinna

catching up. You're tour looks great. Love the pictures of the dream suite. Lucky you getting to meet Anna and Elsa with no wait. That tree at Stanley in Carsland was gone when we were there The Hawaii pictures look great so far. Love the underwater fish pics and your dooney is fab!

petals said:

catching up. You're tour looks great. Love the pictures of the dream suite. Lucky you getting to meet Anna and Elsa with no wait. That tree at Stanley in Carsland was gone when we were there The Hawaii pictures look great so far. Love the underwater fish pics and your dooney is fab!

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The tour was amazing and the Dream Suite was definitely the icing on the cake. As to the Anna and Elsa meet and greet, I was not quite so lucky the second time round. I was glad that I got to see that tree. I had actually forgotten all about it and during the second part of the Disneyland trip, I thought that this area could really do with a tree. When I then edited the Photopass photos, I noticed the photos with the tree.

Aulani is truly magical. There will be plenty more photos. As to the Dooney, now that I posted the photo, I want to use it again. I have a total of 7 Dooney and Bourke totes now and I use a different one every week as my work bag. I was going to use my Tink tote next week, but I think I will go with the Aulani tote instead.

Corinna

What a lovely birthday! The pic of you two smooching is adorable!

tiggrbaby said:

What a lovely birthday! The pic of you two smooching is adorable!

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It was such a beautiful day. It is sometimes hart to believe that we have been married for 17 years and have been together for nearly 20 years (we hit that landmark at Christmas.

Corinna

Day 7

We were up bright and early again, but this morning we needed to be. We got up and ready and left our room at 5:15. It was nice walking through the empty hotel. That morning we decided to walk along the road to the marina. We soon realized how faulty our research had been and we got to the marina way too early. Fortunately there was a bench just outside the building where we needed to check in and we sat down and relaxed.

Just before 6:00 somebody arrived to let us in. We checked in and were told to wait in the building for about 5 minutes, but somebody would be out shortly to take our lunch order. Shortly afterwards we were asked to come outside. They had an area there where you could rent wetsuits. We had our own. The member of staff there took our lunch order and also gave us a muffin. Somebody else came out shortly afterwards with hot drinks. Suddenly the person who had checked us in appeared. She had forgotten to ask us to sign the waivers. We signed those and then sat down.

Once everybody had arrived, our captain and the crew came over to take us to our boat. The company had two boats: a zodiac and a catamaran. We went on the zodiac. I was pretty happy with this. Once we were all on board, the crew introduced themselves and we found out a bit more about the plan for the morning. We were heading to an area first that was known as a turtle cleaning station. We were given some ground rules and they started to give out some equipment. We had our own snorkeling gear, but we were told that we all needed to wear a life vest at the first site. They also gave out fins. I had never found fins that fit me as they are always too tight at the top and hurt my feet. So I always make do without. That was not an option that morning. They were worried about the current and that I would get into trouble without the fins. I ended up trying a few different pairs and to their credit, they found me a pair that fit like they were made for me. We arrived at the first site not long after everybody was kitted out.

Our first snorkeling site was right by a power station. There was already a boat there. I turned out to be the Nai'a, which was the boat we were on in 2012. Once our anchor had been dropped, we were free to get off. This is part that always makes me nervous. I was not quite sure what to expect in terms of water temperatures. I also had swallowed rather a lot of water on a previous snorkeling excursion. It was fine on both counts. The water was a very pleasant temperature and because of the life vest, I never went under. I swam a short way away from the boat and then started looking what was around. I did not see any turtles, but I saw all kinds of beautiful colourful fish. One fish that particularly fascinated me was a very delicate looking fish with black, yellow and white markings. I found out afterwards that this was a Moorish idol. They are very common off the coast of Oahu. However, they seem to be camera shy. I spent a lot of time following them around and trying to get a photo. I did not succeed that day, but I also saw a bunch of other colourful fish. This was the first time this holiday that I realized that you can cover an awful lot of ground if you are following an interesting fish without even noticing. When I resurfaced, the boat was a long way away. I decided to make my way back, but still continued to check out what is there. As I approached the boat, they signaled everybody to come back. This was perfectly timed.

Once everybody was back on board, we headed out again. We headed towards an area where the spinner dolphins often hang out. They were not there this day, but we still stopped so that we could do some more snorkeling. This time round, we were given the option to leave the life vest on the boat, but I decided to keep it on. In terms of fish, this was even better. Pretty much as soon as I left the boat, I happened upon a reef that was full of colourful fish and different fish from the ones I had seen before. I figured that it was probably not going to get any better than this. So I headed towards the middle of the reef and just floated. It was almost like watching TV. At some stage I headed out a bit further, but I came back to the reef shortly afterwards. After a while they called us back again.





























We stuck to the coastline for a while checking out coves where the spinner dolphins are known to hang out. Unfortunately there was no sign of them that morning. We then headed into deeper water where a pod of bottlenose Dolphins had recently been spotted. On the way, our captain opened the throttle and it was a pretty thrilling ride. Unfortunately those dolphins were not there either. We cruised around for a bit longer and then it was time to head back to port. We did not see dolphins or turtles that day, but we had a great time and snorkeling in very clear water and seeing all the fish made it worth it. We had both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.



When we arrived back in port, lunch was served. This was more like breakfast for us. We both had chosen the chicken teriyaki sandwich, which came with fruit salad and corn chips. I did not like the corn chips, but the rest was very nice. I had a Pepsi with my lunch and Graham just had some water. Once we had finished our lunch, we said goodbye to everybody and left. The Ko Olina Intra Resort Shuttle is supposed to pick up at the marina every 30 minutes. According to my watch, one should have been just about due. However, there was no sign of it. I figured my watch may just have been slow and we may have missed it. We were just going to wait for the next one. In the end we waited an hour and the shuttle still did not show up. So in the end we walked back along the lagoons.

When we got back, we took most of our stuff up to the room and then we headed down to Rainbow Reef. We obviously had not enough fish for a day. When we got our wristbands, I noticed that they had the kind of life vests that we had been given on the excursion. I liked those a lot better that the flimsy blow up ones that they normally gave out. I asked if they had them in adult sizes and they said they did. So from this point on, I wore a proper life vest in rainbow reef, which was much more comfortable. I got chatting with one of the Photopass photographers who was in Rainbow Reef at that time while I was warming up a little in the shallows. I then headed out again to do some snorkeling. At some stage, somebody tapped me on the shoulder. It was the photographers and she asked me if I wanted to help feeding the fish. I was up for this. She then asked me if I was by myself and I pointed out Graham to her. So she invited Graham as well. We were asked to swim over to a ledge were the aquarium staff were. They handed us a Mickey head each. My Mickey head had a romaine lettuce attached and Graham’s had some seaweed inside a net. Both of them had lead weights at the bottom. We were told to swim over to the window and then set the weight down on the window ledge. As soon as we set off, we must have been surrounded by at least half of the fish in Rainbow Reef. Fortunately neither of us is worried about fish. This was great fun. Once we had fed the fish, we decided to come out. Despite the wetsuits, we are starting to feel quite cold. We dropped off our life vests, peeled off our wetsuits and quickly rinsed off under the shower. Then we headed over to the infinity hot tubs at Alohi Point to warm up.









Once we felt sufficiently waterlogged, we headed back up to the room to get showered and changed. We then decided to head over to the Ulu Cafe for some coffee. We enjoyed sitting there watching the world go by for a while and had various birds coming to check us out. We then went for a walk around the resort before deciding to take a nap. This happened to mark the end of the day for us. Between still feeling jet lagged, the early start in the morning and a fairly active day, we fell asleep and did not wake up again until fairly late in the evening. At that stage we just turned over and went straight back to sleep.

i got so far behind. Stupid new Dis is who I blame.
I loved your DL stay. it looks like you had a really nice time.
Aulani is beautiful and I am enjoying all the pictures. I love all the fish pictures. What a neat experience to get to feed them. Aulani has their own photopass right?

jenseib said:

i got so far behind. Stupid new Dis is who I blame.
I loved your DL stay. it looks like you had a really nice time.
Aulani is beautiful and I am enjoying all the pictures. I love all the fish pictures. What a neat experience to get to feed them. Aulani has their own photopass right?

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I think you are not the only one. I seem to have lost a few people along the way. Yes, I had a great time. There is more to come, too. After Aulani, we headed back to Disneyland for another 8 nights.

Aulani is truly amazing. I think I am part mermaid so having so many opportunities to snorkel and see fish was right up my street.

Yes, Aulani has Photopass. The issue I had was that the Aulani and Disneyland photos ended up on the same CD and I ended up paying the Aulani price rather than being able to use the voucher that came with Photopass +. Still I was going to buy the Aulani CD anyway so there was nothing lost.

Corinna

Look at all those fishies!

Good for you for getting that snorkling done and I'm so glad that you got a pair of fins to fit you. But.....surely as part mermaid.....you could have used your tail???

I wondered it they would connect between the 2.

PrincessInOz said:

Look at all those fishies!

Good for you for getting that snorkling done and I'm so glad that you got a pair of fins to fit you. But.....surely as part mermaid.....you could have used your tail???

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My argument exactly. To be honest, I don't think they really made a difference at all. I may not be a quick or particularly graceful swimmer, but I am a strong swimmer. I have been in stronger currents before and even later in that trip without fins and I was absolutely fine.

jenseib said:

I wondered it they would connect between the 2.

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Yes, I think the only Photopass system that is not linked together with the others is that for Walt Disney World.

Corinna

Too bad about missing the turtles and dolphins but what a beautuful excursion nonetheless.

And what fun feeding the fish in Rainbow Reef. What a lovely day!