DLR/Aulani combo trip?

[sgrap]

I think I've read a few mentions of people doing Aulani and Disneyland combo trips. We're considering doing this for a big celebration of our son's college graduation and my 50th birthday in early June. I'm curious what order people have done them in and why. We live on the west coast, so no time change for DLR. No little kids--our youngest will be almost 14 by then.

Also, where have people found the best flight deals? We usually fly either Alaska or Jetblue from SeaTac to Orange County or Long Beach on our DLR trips, although Jetblue usually has the best fares. We could do a triangle flight or 2 round trips, depending on fares.

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Sherry E]

A good person to ask (although she is currently at DLR enjoying Halloween Time) is Corinna, a.k.a. dolphingirl47, who posts for the Theme Weeks in the Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread. Last year she went to DLR first, then headed over to Aulani, and then back to DLR -- all during the holiday season! She doesn't live in the U.S., though (if I am not mistaken), so the flight deals question might be better for someone else to tackle.... I'm not sure, as I don't know which airlines she takes and which way she gets to DLR/Aulani!

 

[sgrap]

A good person to ask (although she is currently at DLR enjoying Halloween Time) is Corinna, a.k.a. dolphingirl47, who posts for the Theme Weeks in the Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread. Last year she went to DLR first, then headed over to Aulani, and then back to DLR -- all during the holiday season! She doesn't live in the U.S., though (if I am not mistaken), so the flight deals question might be better for someone else to tackle.... I'm not sure, as I don't know which airlines she takes and which way she gets to DLR/Aulani!

Awesome, thank you Sherry! Wow, that sounds like quite a trip!!

Is there an Aulani board? I've looked and haven't found one other than the DVC resorts threads.

 

[Sherry E]

Awesome, thank you Sherry! Wow, that sounds like quite a trip!!

Is there an Aulani board? I've looked and haven't found one other than the DVC resorts threads.

That seems to be where the bulk of the Aulani discussion is. I wonder why we don't have an Aulani-specific forum (unless it's here and I somehow missed it).

 

[sgrap]

That seems to be where the bulk of the Aulani discussion is. I wonder why we don't have an Aulani-specific forum (unless it's here and I somehow missed it).

I know--it seems weird with all the different boards that there isn't one Aulani-specific. I looked and didn't find anything. We're just starting to think about it and I'd love to get input from people who have been there. Guess I'll use the DVC board unless we get surprised with a hidden Aulani one!

 

[planningjollyholiday]

The cheapest flights from Seattle to disneyland are jetblue to lgb and southwest to sna. The cheapest flights to Hawaii from Seattle would actually be to drive to Bellingham and fly Alaska. It is always cheaper than flying out of Seattle for some weird reason. I would do disneyland first and then do aulani, because DL is always exhausting, and it is nice to end in relaxing aulani. I'm not sure who is cheapest to fly from disneyland to Hawaii.

 

[Girimama33]

We are west coasters and travel to HI frequently...including two trips to Aulani. My suggestion is to do DLR first. I always need a few days to recover and adjust back to the time difference. More difficult if you are rope drop kind of people.
Aulani is a great resort. You can find all the information you need on the DVC board. If you ever have any specific questions, feel free to PM me. I used to live on Oahu, so I know a bit about the area.
Oh...a tip regarding airfare - You and your spouse can each get a Hawaiian Airlines credit card. They give you 35000 miles when you spend 1000 in 3 months. Plus you each get a checked bag. We did that and paid the $89 annual fee, paid $10 for our ticket, and paid the regular rate for DD. We prefer to fly Hawaiian too.

 

[sgrap]

The cheapest flights from Seattle to disneyland are jetblue to lgb and southwest to sna. The cheapest flights to Hawaii from Seattle would actually be to drive to Bellingham and fly Alaska. It is always cheaper than flying out of Seattle for some weird reason. I would do disneyland first and then do aulani, because DL is always exhausting, and it is nice to end in relaxing aulani. I'm not sure who is cheapest to fly from disneyland to Hawaii.

Thank you. We love flying jetblue SEA to LGB. If we do DLR first, we will need to fly from SoCal to Hawaii and then either back to SoCal or directly back to SEA.

Hopefully someone will have suggestions on flights from SoCal to HNL.

 

[sgrap]

We are west coasters and travel to HI frequently...including two trips to Aulani. My suggestion is to do DLR first. I always need a few days to recover and adjust back to the time difference. More difficult if you are rope drop kind of people.
Aulani is a great resort. You can find all the information you need on the DVC board. If you ever have any specific questions, feel free to PM me. I used to live on Oahu, so I know a bit about the area.
Oh...a tip regarding airfare - You and your spouse can each get a Hawaiian Airlines credit card. They give you 35000 miles when you spend 1000 in 3 months. Plus you each get a checked bag. We did that and paid the $89 annual fee, paid $10 for our ticket, and paid the regular rate for DD. We prefer to fly Hawaiian too.

Thanks, that is kind of what I am thinking about DLR first, although I hadn't thought of the time difference factor. Thanks, will check out the Hawaiian Airlines CC. What airports does it fly out of?

 

[Girimama33]

LAX

 

[sgrap]

LAX

Thanks!

 

[Scootypuffjr]

Thank you. We love flying jetblue SEA to LGB. If we do DLR first, we will need to fly from SoCal to Hawaii and then either back to SoCal or directly back to SEA.

Hopefully someone will have suggestions on flights from SoCal to HNL.

We are doing a DLR/Aulani trip in two weeks. If you don't mind the drive we got really great deals out of San Diego ($400 first class on Alaska). We used the Hawaiian miles card to get flights back to San Diego from HNL (16,500 miles). My parents live in Orange County so we will be driving back and forth, but the flights out of San Diego were too good to pass up.

Flights out of San Diego were significantly cheaper than the ones out of LAX.

 

[sgrap]

We are doing a DLR/Aulani trip in two weeks. If you don't mind the drive we got really great deals out of San Diego ($400 first class on Alaska). We used the Hawaiian miles card to get flights back to San Diego from HNL (16,500 miles). My parents live in Orange County so we will be driving back and forth, but the flights out of San Diego were too good to pass up.

Flights out of San Diego were significantly cheaper than the ones out of LAX.

Thanks for the suggestions! San Diego might be a little hard for us to pull off, but good to look into. I'm trying to figure out a way we could fly Seattle to either Long Beach or Orange County, then somewhere SoCal to Hawaii, then Hawaii back to Seattle. But not sure if I can do the 3 flights for the same or less than the cost of the 2 round trips. JetBlue offers great one way deals from Seattle to Long Beach, so that leg would be easy. It would just be really nice to fly straight back to Seattle from Hawaii. Hmmm . . .
Are you doing Disneyland first as well?

Thanks again! Enjoy your trip!!

 

[Scootypuffjr]

Yes, we are doing just the Halloween party at DLR this time, but I did buy the advanced purchase Photopass+ because last time we did this trip it included all of our Aulani pictures as well! All of our tickets our one way and that worked out to be the best pricing, so you shouldn't have a problem.

 

[sgrap]

Yes, we are doing just the Halloween party at DLR this time, but I did buy the advanced purchase Photopass+ because last time we did this trip it included all of our Aulani pictures as well! All of our tickets our one way and that worked out to be the best pricing, so you shouldn't have a problem.

OOOH, I always get Photopass+ for our DLR trips, so that would be so awesome if the Aulani pics could be added to the same one! Please let me know if that works again this time!

I'll be scouring the web for 1-way tickets, thanks for the tip!

 

[dolphingirl47]

We did Disneyland both ends. We come from the UK so we needed something to break up the flights and also start to get used to the different time zones. We spent three nights at Disneyland on the way out and 8 nights on the way back. If you come from the west coast, I would recommend doing Disneyland in on the way back. Aulani is so magical that I could not bear leaving there without having something else to leave ok forward to.

We booked our fights from LAX separately. We used miles on Delta for the flight out and got a really good deal on Allegiant on the way back. I want to say it was $139 per person.

We careful with Photopass. I had Photopass+ for Disneyland and also did Photopass at Aulani. It would not accept the code for Photopass+ and I was charged $99, which is how much Photopass costs at Aulani. The CD contained the photos from Disneyland and Aulani.

If you have any questions about Aulani, please ask. I am happy to answer.

Corinna

 

[crystal1313]

We are going to Aulani in July 2016 and leaving from Oakland airport through Alaska. Had the best deal we could find at the time of booking, $299 each way. And it's a bonus for us to leave from Oakland instead of SFO. We also used our Amex points, so we saved $800 on flights. Hope that helps with the airfare part! Kayak was a good site to compare pricing. We really wanted to fly Hawaiian, but it was considerably more expensive than Alaska was when we booked. Girimama33 has been super helpful for me answering my many questions in the DVC forums! Happy planning =)

 

[Rubygoose]

I would suggest doing a "triangle" type flight, rather than two round trips. I recently booked our flights from Victoria to Honolulu for March, and I looked into all of the possible ways to fly with Alaska airlines, thinking it might be cheaper to fly down to California on points and then use our companion fares from there. Well, it turns out that since Seattle is their hub, the majority of their flights to Honolulu from LAX have a stop in Seattle! So, that would be pretty silly for me to fly from Victoria to Seattle to Lax, then from Lax to Seattle to Honolulu! I also looked into flying from Bellingham, and they have a direct flight from Bellingham to HNL once a day in the evening, at 6pm, I think. The direct flight to Bellingham on the way back is in the middle of the night, though, so we didn't go with that one. We ended up booking flights from Victoria to Seattle to HNL, without stopping in California - it's only about 30 minutes longer to fly from SEA than from California.

 

[sgrap]

I would suggest doing a "triangle" type flight, rather than two round trips. I recently booked our flights from Victoria to Honolulu for March, and I looked into all of the possible ways to fly with Alaska airlines, thinking it might be cheaper to fly down to California on points and then use our companion fares from there. Well, it turns out that since Seattle is their hub, the majority of their flights to Honolulu from LAX have a stop in Seattle! So, that would be pretty silly for me to fly from Victoria to Seattle to Lax, then from Lax to Seattle to Honolulu! I also looked into flying from Bellingham, and they have a direct flight from Bellingham to HNL once a day in the evening, at 6pm, I think. The direct flight to Bellingham on the way back is in the middle of the night, though, so we didn't go with that one. We ended up booking flights from Victoria to Seattle to HNL, without stopping in California - it's only about 30 minutes longer to fly from SEA than from California.

Thanks, the triangle flight would definitely be the easiest, from Seattle to SoCal, SoCal to HNL and then HNL back to SEA. We have credit card points we can use for some of it, but I just looked and they charge 45,000 points for a 1-way and only 40,000 for a round trip. URGH. We love the JetBlue fares from SEA to Long Beach, so that part isn't too bad. Hmmmm, I definitely have some research to do. Thanks for the input!

 

[sgrap]

We did Disneyland both ends. We come from the UK so we needed something to break up the flights and also start to get used to the different time zones. We spent three nights at Disneyland on the way out and 8 nights on the way back. If you come from the west coast, I would recommend doing Disneyland in on the way back. Aulani is so magical that I could not bear leaving there without having something else to leave ok forward to.

We booked our fights from LAX separately. We used miles on Delta for the flight out and got a really good deal on Allegiant on the way back. I want to say it was $139 per person.

We careful with Photopass. I had Photopass+ for Disneyland and also did Photopass at Aulani. It would not accept the code for Photopass+ and I was charged $99, which is how much Photopass costs at Aulani. The CD contained the photos from Disneyland and Aulani.

If you have any questions about Aulani, please ask. I am happy to answer.

Corinna

Thank you, Corinna! Wow, that must have been a fun trip!!! We have never been to Aulani, so I am just starting to look at it. I'll have to start reading the DVC Aulani posts in earnest. If there is anything off the top of your head that would be good to know, I'd love to hear when you have the time. Oh, here's one to start: how many days do you recommend at Aulani?

Thanks again!