Aulani Transportation Advice

[KaystotheKingdom]

We will be making our first trek to HA Feb 11-17 of 2026.

There are 5 of us in my immediate family, 3 of which are kids 10,7, and 2.

Our larger travel group is 11 total with 2 other children 4 and 3.

I really don’t know if she should go the route of renting 2 vehicles or planning shuttles. For excursions we are doing Pearl Harbor and Kualoa Ranch (Haven’t booked yet because we need to figure out the transportation piece)

For those that have travelled with littles before, would you rent a car or make alternative plans? Car seats are always the biggest pain point.

Thanks for the insight.

 

[Daisy7425]

Our first trip, we rented a car. The convenience was good but we didn't use it everyday. We will be there again in March and are hiring the shuttle through Aulani. Parking each night is $40 and one way per person for the shuttle is $25. So it will be a good savings in our situation because we will not use a car everyday (maybe three or four out of the nine days), so we will rent a car at the front desk for each day. I don't know if that service is available as a walk up service, we added a rental car package to our reservation.

In your situation, I would hire a shuttle from the airport and then rent a car from Aulani for just the days that you want it.

 

[GrimGrinningGuy]

Rent a car via Costco travel you can get it dirt cheap it’s worth having a car there is so much to do

 

[VGCgroupie]

We rented a car. For me Kualoa is rather far to do a ride share.

 

[VandVsmama]

We will be making our first trek to HA Feb 11-17 of 2026.

There are 5 of us in my immediate family, 3 of which are kids 10,7, and 2.

Our larger travel group is 11 total with 2 other children 4 and 3.

I really don’t know if she should go the route of renting 2 vehicles or planning shuttles. For excursions we are doing Pearl Harbor and Kualoa Ranch (Haven’t booked yet because we need to figure out the transportation piece)

For those that have travelled with littles before, would you rent a car or make alternative plans? Car seats are always the biggest pain point.

Thanks for the insight.

Rent 2 cars for the day you go to Kualoa Ranch. Alamo and Enterprise are available right there. Book through Costco ahead of time for best rates. Kualoa Ranch is too far for ride share and given the size of your group, you'd need 2-4 ride share vehicles to get there + same back to Aulani.

 

[epgirl]

I’ve always rented a car in Hawaii, especially after having kids!
My kids were ages 1 and 3 the first time they went and we traveled with our own car seats and strollers.

 

[Road_Dog]

The only downside of rentals is you need to bring carseats. So that's another checked piece of luggage to worry about. We have a party of 6 (4 adults and 2 kids aged 4 and 2) so we'll need something bigger. I'm expecting a decent cost for our rental plus the daily parking fee. And the only real places we want to go to is Pearl Harbor one day and maybe an excursion another day (5 night trip), but we also may just get bored of being at the resort by day 3 or so and want to just find something online and drive there. We haven't really thought this through haha

 

[VGCgroupie]

The only downside of rentals is you need to bring carseats. So that's another checked piece of luggage to worry about. We have a party of 6 (4 adults and 2 kids aged 4 and 2) so we'll need something bigger. I'm expecting a decent cost for our rental plus the daily parking fee. And the only real places we want to go to is Pearl Harbor one day and maybe an excursion another day (5 night trip), but we also may just get bored of being at the resort by day 3 or so and want to just find something online and drive there. We haven't really thought this through haha

Gate checking car seats is actually pretty easy. You grab the seat as soon as you step out of the plane not like normal luggage. Or once we actually used the car seat in the airline seat (it wasnt a long flight like Hawaii though)

 

[Road_Dog]

Gate checking car seats is actually pretty easy. You grab the seat as soon as you step out of the plane not like normal luggage. Or once we actually used the car seat in the airline seat (it wasnt a long flight like Hawaii though)

I've done it before. It's just a pain to haul the carseat through the airport to the gate. I felt it was easier to just check the carseat as a normal piece of luggage and pick up at the conveyor belt afterwards. We will gate check strollers though, since those provide a usefulness to move around the airport.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I've done it before. It's just a pain to haul the carseat through the airport to the gate. I felt it was easier to just check the carseat as a normal piece of luggage and pick up at the conveyor belt afterwards. We will gate check strollers though, since those provide a usefulness to move around the airport.

ah yeah it can be annoying to carry the seat. We found a car seat bag that had wheels so it made it a little easier.