Aulani - hire car or no hire car?

[amystevekai&bump]

hi all

We are visiting Oahu for 12 nights in August. The first 4 nights are at the Outrigger on Waikiki Beach and the remaining 8 nights are in a studio at Aulani.

We had originally planned to have a hire car for the duration, but having read various posts about forgetting a car at Aulani and just doing day rentals when needed, I'm now not so sure.

I think we would still need one in Waikiki - to get from the airport, to hike diamond head, visit the south shore beaches, Pali lookout, Ala Moana shopping mall, swap meet and Pearl Harbor. - all of which we planned to get done before using the car to get from waikiki to Aulani.

But now I'm wondering whether we should ditch the car upon check in at Aulani and just hire one for the two days we plan to have full on sightseeing trips (one day for the North shore and the other for our booked excursion to Kualoa ranch & the Byodo in temple)?

We'd planned to eat offsite a couple of times and had spotted an Outback Steakhouse, ruby Tuesday's and chilis near by - which I know are just typical US chain restaurants, but being British they are quite a novelty for us! But tbh we don't need to eat there, we were just worried whether we would run out of affordable options onsite - keeping in mind that we only have a studio booked.

So.... Is 6 whole days at Aulani too much without a car? We are a family with two youngish boys (8 and 11) so aren't really looking for fancy food - will we run out of options without driving?

Many thanks for any thoughts

 

[wanderlust7]

I think the big question is do you need to pay for parking? If not, then cost out 8 additional days of car rental from HNL vs 2 days of car rental from Aulani - they may come out about the same. If you do need to pay for parking, then it's a harder decision since parking would be $280 for 8 days. There are restaurants walkable from Aulani. We tried Monkeypod for happy hour and Pizza Corner, they were both good and just across the street (so close that it's about the same amount of time to walk there as to get the car). There is also a BBQ place, a taco place, and a sushi place in the same complex that we didn't try (Yelp rating were lower).

 

[wanderlust7]

But now I'm wondering whether we should ditch the car upon check in at Aulani and just hire one for the two days we plan to have full on sightseeing trips (one day for the North shore and the other for our booked excursion to Kualoa ranch & the Byodo in temple)?

Just noticed you were thinking about dropping off the car at Aulani. Definitely price this out. When I checked it was a lot more expensive to do this, plus your only choice would be Alamo, that is the only onsite car rental company.

 

[amystevekai&bump]

thanks ever so much for replying Wanderlust

We will be staying on points, so no parking fees.

I must admit I prefer the idea of keeping the car to give us at least the option of going offsite, even if we decide not to!

Pricing up is a good idea, that way if it works out about even, I also won't feel the need to use the car just to 'get my monies worth', should we want to stay put!

Thanks again for posting

 

[cindyzig]

thanks ever so much for replying Wanderlust

We will be staying on points, so no parking fees.

I must admit I prefer the idea of keeping the car to give us at least the option of going offsite, even if we decide not to!

Pricing up is a good idea, that way if it works out about even, I also won't feel the need to use the car just to 'get my monies worth', should we want to stay put!

Thanks again for posting

I would recommend renting a car. We were there for 10 nights and thought it would be a waste to rent a car with everything there is to do on the property. We were surprised to find out that we were stir crazy, and we mostly wanted the car to try different places to eat as we were not impressed with all of the food choices at Aulani or even across the street. We also missed out on visiting the North Shore, and a car would have been nice to explore that area. We loved Aulani, and it is our home resort, but we will rent a car on our next visit. Hope that helps!

 

[deedisneydream97]

thanks ever so much for replying Wanderlust

We will be staying on points, so no parking fees.

I must admit I prefer the idea of keeping the car to give us at least the option of going offsite, even if we decide not to!

Pricing up is a good idea, that way if it works out about even, I also won't feel the need to use the car just to 'get my monies worth', should we want to stay put!

Thanks again for posting

I, too, recommend keeping the rental car. Especially since you are staying in a studio. We rented a car for 10 days for $120 through dollar. The resort is just so wonderful.....but kind of off the beaten path, not a lot going on around it. We did one resort day followed by an exploration day and it worked for us. There is a beautiful place to go....it is past the resort...you keep driving until you get to the end. There is a semi-difficult hike to get to an albatros sanctuary...and once you pass thru the security gate, you come to a point that is so spectacular. And you HAVE to go to the north shore for the shrimp truck and wave watching. And you need the car for trips to Target to pick up provisions to put on the really great gas grills at the resort. And to try out different places to eat.

Since you aren't paying for parking....and if you can get the rental car at a cheap price like we did....well, the old saying here in the US is "it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it".

 

[amystevekai&bump]

Thank you both for replying.

We've decided to keep the car - I suspect there will be days when it won't be used, but as you say, it's better to have the option of using it than feeling 'stuck' onsite