Better Late Than Never-our Aulani adventure Aug 2014 UPDATED JFeb 11/15

[alohamom]

Hello everyone,

I am proud to say I am a Dis Veteran and have been posting and reading the DisBoards since 2003 and believe it or not, this is my very first trip report!
I decided to do one because I found so many of the Aulani trip reports helped me with my planning and I hope mine will in turn help others. I am also using it in the middle of January to re-live our wonderful family trip of August 2014 so come on along and check it out-Aulani was INCREDIBLE!

My hubby Mark and I were married on the Big Island in 94 and we try to go back to Hawaii every few years. On the off years we either do WDW or Disneyland. My kids grew up thinking they were Lilo and Stitch and love the islands as well.

This past summer marked our 20th wedding anniversary so we felt it was only fitting to celebrate in Hawaii. Some people questioned why we took the kids too and truthfully we just love being with them. Our daughter is 17 and will be off to University this coming fall and our son is 15 and who knows how much longer they will want to hang around with us! This probably wont be our last family vacation but you never know what life will bring so we decided we wanted them with us.

The itinerary was Aulani hotel room for 3 nights, Aulani DVC rental for 2, Big Island for a week and then back to Oahu for 3 nights at the Marriott Ko Olina Beach Resort.
Here is PART ONE

We left Toronto early in the morning on August 7th. The impending double hurricanes had given us some doubts but we had been through a Hawaiian hurricane before and knew that we just needed to get there before it made landfall. (gosh, that makes me sound like an intrepid explorer or something-the closest I have some to that is the Jungle Cruise!) This is Jacob with the ring pop, Breanna with the teddy bear and myself, Suzanne goofing around on the first leg of our flight which took us through Denver.


We had just over an hour in Denver and my hubby had been joking around that maybe we would see Dog the Bounty Hunter because he lives in both Hawaii and Denver. Welllllllll, we made our way to the connecting gate and settled in. Mark and Breanna decided to go get some coffee and snacks so off they went. Sure enough, not 5 minutes after they left, this blonde mullet haired, sun glass wearing, dressed in all black dude comes toward our gate area along with a body guard type. I seriously had to rub my eyes cause Dog was on our flight. I thought maybe my husband had pulled some kind of elaborate prank-honestly, what are the odds?!?! So yes, of course I went and talked to him!!! LOL, he was headed back to Big Island to be with his family because of the storm. Remember people were speculating that it was going to hit bad. We chatted a bit and when Mark and Bre came back about 15 minutes later hubby was flabbergasted. Time to board was called and on we went to welcome the hurricane!

After approx 7 hours from Denver we landed safe and sound in Honolulu arounf 2:30pm Hawaii time. It had been a long time since we had gone through HNL so I took the kids pic by the ALOHA sign


Once we got our rental car (which was an exceptional price through Discount Car Rental Hawaii) we were off...to sit in traffic! We did see a double rainbow, it is not that clear in the photo but there is another fainter one on top of the stronger lower one...



I took us about 45 minutes to get to Kapolei, where we went straight to Panda Express. Keep in mind we are Canadian and we do not have Panda here. We love it when we go to Florida and Cali so we made it our first stop so that no one was cranky from being hungry.


We hit Safeway for some cans of Guava and POG, beer for my hubby, muffins and fruit-then it was time to check into AULANI!!!

It was fairly busy because many families had decided to stay because of the impending storm (which was supposed to hit the next day) but check in was quick and easy, the guys got Kukui nut leis and my daughter and I were given the gorgeous tuberose/orchid leis and of course we were offered this



Next time we go I am going to use Dugettes idea and do a family group selfie as we come into the lobby.

We had the wonderful fortune to be upgraded to an ocean view hotel room. It is possible this is considered a partial ocean view as it was mu hubby who checked in and he doesnt remember what they said it was. We didnt ask for the upgrade but I think it was because of the weather...this is room 1420 on the Wai'anae side, it was almost sunset by the time we got to our room and I think this was one of our better arrival times to Hawaii, it was so nice to catch the sunset! JW Marriott is to the right and below the room is the adults only pool



These fantastic suitcase areas under the beds were just too much for the kids to resist and they begged to sleep under there! Man, you would think they were toddlers!!! Breanna is wearing her beautiful lei, in case any one was wondering what they looked like


I loved the Mickey towel, even though I knew it would be there from other reports, I still gave a little sigh at the sight of it-silly, I know, but hey-I am a Disney addict!


We had what I thought were heavenly beds


and of course I have to post this...

 

[alohamom]

PART TWO

I decided to take a few shots of the room before we got too settled in so here they are. I know others have posted similar ones but I am including them just in case any one is interested in the non dvc hotel room, which I think is the same as the dvc one but you never know...







We didnt know how the next days impeding hurricane would manifest itself so we decided to go down to the pool area and get some swimming in. It was great fun and I fell in love with the lazy river! After about an hour of swimming we were all feeling very tired so up we went to sleep, dreams of hurricanes danced in our heads.

We woke the next day and it was clear and sunny. Mark and Breanna decided to go in search of coffee and smoothies while Jacob slept and I read in bed (sigh, it was heavenly!) It was then that I realized that I would not be able to log onto the Disboards as I just stay logged on at home and I dont actually know my password. If I ever need to log in, I have it saved on my desktop BUT not on the laptop. I was so disappointed because a couple of other Disers were at Aulani at the same time including Anal Annie and LovetoTrvlTexas. I had hoped to meet everyone especially as they had older kids as well, but I guess it wasnt meant to be. Here are some of the pics M & B took that morning-sure doesnt look like a hurricane is on its way, does it?



Mark found his coffee and the firepit-For anyone wondering, the Ulu Cafe had regular colombian coffee, a 10% Kona blend and then a premium 100% Kona coffee which Mark said was very good. Not quite as good as some of the estate coffees he has had on Big Island, which is the source, but still a wonderful good quality pure 100% Kona that was worth the extra $$ in his opinion (he is a coffee snob, can you tell?)



We had enough supplies from Safeway, including bottled water and we thought it would be best to stay put at the resort, just in case the storm got really bad. They had said there was a chance the pools would be closed but thank goodness they were open. We spent a lovely day swimming and relaxing and discovering the resort.

The lazy river

The back of the main lobby from the lazy river


The Menehune in Rainbow Reef


Looking out the hall window from the 14th floor


Some random shots from around the resort
Oleo room


Mark and Breanna


looking up at the two tiered adult hottub



We walked over to "Just Tacos" to eat that day and you can see it was still kind of cloudy and windy


The next day was our Breanna's 17th birthday and we treated her to breakfast (COOKIES!) and gifts in bed


We had booked her surfing lessons with Sunset Surratt surf school (Uncle Bryans). I made Mark go out too, just in case but she was better than him when it came to getting up and riding the waves






There were other options for surf lessons which we considered including Hawaiian Fire but they were closed the day we wanted to go out so I went to TripAdvisor and saw that Sunset Surratt had some awesome feedback. We had such a good experience with him that we booked private lessons for Breanna on the return leg of our trip back to Oahu from Big Island.

For any of you booked with Uncle Bryans this is the truck you need to look for



Jacob and I body surfed the waves at the shore and enjoyed the lovely beach just past Hale'iwa



The sign going into the beach town of Hale'iwa



We had lunch at Teds Bakery which was delicious. I had the shrimp plate but hubby had the loco moco and he said the hamburger was charcoal grilled and loved it.
This is the mural facing the Ted's Bakery parking lot




We drove around the North Shore a bit and next time we will hit Waimea Canyon.
We then headed back to Aulani as we needed to clean up and head out to Waikiki for Breanna's birthday dinner. We hit the Cheesecake Factory as that is what she wanted (keep in mind there are no CFs in our area so it is a big treat for us, just like Panda Express!) I could have done without this as everyone was exhausted and it was crazy busy in Waikiki (as it always is) but it was her big day and I wanted her to enjoy and remember it.



The next day was our first in the DVC studio so I am including some pics of the different things

First, the pull out and its special instructions. Many of you will have seen this before but I never had I thought it was cool and a little funny!

Here is the lanai with its water feature

Also, when we were in the hotel room we had to pay for parking so we had used the valet as it was the same price as self parking but once we moved to the DVC room it was included so bye bye valet! I noticed this sign on the first trip to the parking structure so keep this in mind when you are leaving the garage.


In the next part, we are headed to Kailua beach and we crash Magnum PIs house...

 

[MissDaisyofTexas]

I'm enjoying your photos and report!

 

[alohamom]

Why thank you Miss Daisy!

 

[alohamom]

PART THREE

The next day was our last full day on Oahu and Aulani before we were heading over to the Big Island so we spent some time around the resort before heading out to Kailua and exploring the other side of the island. The hurricanes had passed and things were back to normal at Aulani. We really noticed the crowds this day, the beach was crowded and it was fairly early in the pic below



The Ka Maka Grotto pool was my favorite, I just loved how they made it feel like underside of a reef-Nemo style!





I loved this view from between the rocks out to the ocean



We ate and hit the road over to Kailua on the Windward/East side.
We made a few stops along the way including Makapuu Lookout, I think Mark is saying "I can see our house from here"



we also stopped at Halona Blowhole and caught a few pics of it 'blowing"



Mark had heard that the house that was used as the "Robin Masters Estate" on Magnum PI was for sale and it was on the way to Kailua right on the Kalanianaole Highway (say that 10 ten times fast!) Having done some more digging, he found that you can actually see the house if you walk the beach that runs in front of it.
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/24636086/magnum-pis-robins-nest-hits-the-market-at-15-million

This is a pic of the kids outside the gates



We had watched a few episodes with the kids and they were up for an adventure so we found a place to park the car in a beach access and off we trekked. Remember that all beaches in Hawaii are public so we were not trespassing, well that is what I kept telling myself anyway-LOL!






I have more photos to add of the house itself and the beach gates but I am still having a tough time with Photobucket. I will add them in in the next couple of days, as well as some of Kailua and Waimanalo beaches

 

[iadreamer]

Enjoying your report! Where did you get boards to body surf on the North Shore? Thanks!

 

[alohamom]

Enjoying your report! Where did you get boards to body surf on the North Shore? Thanks!

Thanks so much and glad you are enjoying! We actually didnt have boards, we literally used our bodies rather than boogie boards, the waves in the summer were strong enough to be fun and gentle enough to not be dangerous. You can get boards of all sizes fairly reasonably at the ABC store (Island Country Markets) across from Aulani if you dont have a car. If you do have a car, there is a Target a few minutes down the highway with ok prices for that sort of thing too.

 

[alohamom]

Well, I guess I have been a little bit behind on getting some more of this report done!
I left off with up wading through the water to get a look at the Magnum PI house. It was so silly and fun, we were all giggling as we went but when we finally made it there it was really overgrown so you could not see too much of the house and grounds. Here are a couple of shots



You can see a bit of the roof of the guesthouse in this one



Next we headed towards Kailua beach. We stopped in town to eat before hitting one of our all time favorite beaches.



The kids have always loved it here, the sheltered bay makes for lovely warm water ans just enough waves to have fun. The soft sand makes it a perfect 10 in our books!

 

[sager1969]

We are going to celebrate our 20 year anniversary this December at Aulani too! Love your family! I would have totally stalked the beach for a glimpse at the house for fun. Thanks for sharing!
Aloha!

 

[alohamom]

Congrats on your 20th anniversary-Aulani is a great place to celebrate anything and I see from your trip list it looks like you know it! I cant wait to go back too, I never thought I would love it so much!

 

[Alexsandra]

Oh can't wait to see more