Aulani - how to plan out the day

[IleneF]

So I have read the travel books/threads. I know what I want to see and what restaurants to visit. I have sorted out the North Shore from Waikiki and the East coast. BUT what I need to know is how does the day actually work out? I hear "it's hot go hiking early" but I also hear "get an umbrella chair by 10am" pool or beachside. So do people usually do offsite stuff early in the day and enjoy the resort later and then go out again for dinner to Waikiki or in the area after swimming or spa time? OR does it work out better to enjoy the resort early and go out after lunch for site seeing/ dinner? We have 10 days and it hardly seems like we'll be at the resort with all the area sites to see. We have a morning planned for Diamond Head/Leonards Bakery, Pearl Harbor, Manoa Falls Hike and Kayaking. We have afternoons planned for PCC visit, Turtle Beach/Ted Bakery, Shopping Mall/Int'l Mkt Place, Aviation Museum, North Shore drive/shrimp trucks, Dole plantation, Tropical Nut Farm and Hale'iwa artist town/Opal Thai. We want to see/do lots but we want to enjoy the resort too...HELP!

 

[okiedokieartichoke]

Go hiking early. It's the only way to do it. Don't go hiking in the late morning/afternoon. The peak hours for the poolside chairs/area is between 10AM and 3PM. Any time before or after that you shouldn't have issues finding chairs/umbrellas/tubes, etc. Year round, this is true.

 

[Anal Annie]

So I have read the travel books/threads. I know what I want to see and what restaurants to visit. I have sorted out the North Shore from Waikiki and the East coast. BUT what I need to know is how does the day actually work out? I hear "it's hot go hiking early" but I also hear "get an umbrella chair by 10am" pool or beachside. So do people usually do offsite stuff early in the day and enjoy the resort later and then go out again for dinner to Waikiki or in the area after swimming or spa time? OR does it work out better to enjoy the resort early and go out after lunch for site seeing/ dinner? We have 10 days and it hardly seems like we'll be at the resort with all the area sites to see. We have a morning planned for Diamond Head/Leonards Bakery, Pearl Harbor, Manoa Falls Hike and Kayaking. We have afternoons planned for PCC visit, Turtle Beach/Ted Bakery, Shopping Mall/Int'l Mkt Place, Aviation Museum, North Shore drive/shrimp trucks, Dole plantation, Tropical Nut Farm and Hale'iwa artist town/Opal Thai. We want to see/do lots but we want to enjoy the resort too...HELP!

Are you going to try to do all of that in 1 day?! IMHO that's way too much for 1 day and if you have 10 days on Oahu I'd spread it out more. This summer will be my 5th trip to Hawaii but I've always stayed in Waikiki before and never for more than 3 nights so this time we're planning things at a slower pace with a full week there before we head to Maui. We usually over-plan & over-schedule so I have purposely already built in 2 resort only days by splurging on a cabana rental. I figured we could just sit & chill on our first and last full days on Oahu. That means we'll do all of our sightseeing & stuff on the remaining days in-between and we won't stress out over not allowing time to enjoy the resort.

I am going to allow pretty much a full day for Pearl Harbor. I've gone there on every trip and can't miss it this time either but I know how long you can spend there too. We will also visit the USS Missouri battleship & the USS Bowfin (submarine) museum while we're there - they recommend allowing 5 hours to visit both the Arizona Memorial and the Missouri and the Bowfin museum. You are supposed to be there an hour before your reservation time and with it being an hour away from Aulani that pretty much eats up the whole day. I am not going to plan anything big for that afternoon. IF we would plan to do anything else that day it might be to go on into Waikiki for a little while (DS has decided he wants to collect T-shirts from different Hard Rock Cafes so that might be an opportunity to cross that off the list). We could do a late lunch there or something.

We also want to take surf lessons and visit the North Shore and will allow for a day to maybe go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay & then into Waikiki for some shopping etc... We will plan to do all of these things sort of early in the day and will then come back to the resort to chill by the pool or on the beach in the afternoons. I may see about horseback riding somewhere one day too - maybe on the North Shore... Anyway, to guarantee you take plenty of time to enjoy the resort you might want to think about the idea of the cabana rental for a day. From what I understand they only take reservations for full days and if they're not rented out then they rent them out on a first come / first served basis for half days.

 

[Pakey]

We did all of this our first time to Hawaii. Actually it was my fourth vacation there before I realized we were doing it all wrong. The best thing about Hawaii is the downtime.

Our stay at Aulani had high winds at the resort every late afternoon. It was the least enjoyable time to be at the pool. I would try to plan a few days where you are at the resort/pool/beach all day and just relax and enjoy the downtime. Perhaps at the end of your vacation because you may be tired from all of these activities.

 

[dsneygirl]

We were at Aulani for 10 days and barely left the resort. But we knew we'd be back and had no desire to try and do everything.

Most mornings we found the beach less crowded and the pool more crowded as the day went on it was the reverse.

We never had a problem getting an umbrella but we were also up every morning by 6 because of the time change.

When it was lunch time I would pop up to the villa and grab some food in the cooler bring it back and we ate poolside.

 

[lovesparkdisney]

Check out Groupon for surf lessens and lots of other things too. We r heading there next week and it is saving us lots of $$$

 

[LoriKutchey]

LOL, we had grand plans to do all this sightseeing when we were there too But once we arrived we fell in love with it and never left till checkout day

 

[Mickey Mantle]

Like others have mentioned, we also had big plans to see all the sites during the ten days were there last month. Outside of heading to Pearl Harbor on our second full day (to see all four attractions took us about 8 hours, if not for the five year old in the family we could have taken much longer) and driving up the west side of the island as far as we could go, we hardly left the resort.

It was the most relaxing holiday I have ever had in my life. We have booked eleven days for next February and I plan on staying at the resort as much as possible.

My only tip would be to get the early morning activities out of the way at the first part of the trip when you are waking up at 4 or 5am. Book evening activities near the end of the trip when you have had more of a chance to used to the time change.

Have fun, Aulani and the island of Oahu are both gorgeous.

 

[mouseaider]

We were at Aulani last April for seven nights and we took a very relaxed approach.

We went to Pearl Harbor in the morning which I consider a " must do" for anyone. Then we went to lunch at Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville downtown.

Another morning we climbed Diamond Head.

We also took a drive to the North Shore with a stop at the Dole Plantation (Tourist trap) and ate at Giovanni's Shrimp truck.

Most of our time was at the resort and when we return, we'll take the same laid back approach.

Enjoy it..... it's a great vacation!

 

[rpcvpanama]

I will echo some of the comments...Spend a few days just relaxing at the resort. We went to Aulani last year for 5 days and never left. Rented a cabana for 3 of those days and just hung out at the pool all day. It was great. I would definitely consolidate some of you plans and maybe be out 3 or 4 days to see the sites.

Aulani is too nice of a resort to just spend an afternoon or two there.

 

[carissa1970]

We went for 7 days and only left the resort for 1 1/2 days total. Didn't want to leave.