Do you spend more at WDW or Aulani?

[cruisehopeful]

Assuming flight costs are the same, do you overall spend more money at WDW or Aulani? Include other transportation that isn't airfare, all food and entertainment + souvenirs.

 

[Tigger's ally]

I voted Aulani. Everything on the island is just so expensive. Our trip this past summer all together cost me $38,000. Yeah that was for the whole family and roughly $11000 were flights. That still left $27,000 for the total and I have never spent that much at WDW. We did the same things too with the exception of the luau.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the trip. Aulani is drop dead gorgeous and my grandtinker loved the man made reef even though the water felt like winter.

 

[CarolynFH]

We haven’t stayed at Aulani, but we’ve visited Hawaii multiple times, and it’s easily more expensive than WDW. We were on the Big Island about a month ago, and a dozen eggs (might have been 18, can’t remember) were $10 at the local grocery. Restaurant prices are even higher. Gas was $4.75 a gallon.

 

[davidhr]

Coming from the northeast, Hawaii doesn’t feel that expensive to me. We spend slightly more at WDW just because we do more stuff that requires tickets. In Hawaii we do our own stuff.

As we’re only two, now the Delta companion certificate covers HI flights so our flights are not that expensive.

 

[Memorymakerfor4]

I keep a spreadsheet of all DVC trips and expenses and it's WDW, mostly due to ticket prices at the parks. Dining costs were about the same. The trips were about a year apart.

We're headed back to Aulani soon and I need to price out the activities we want to do. I kept airfare out of my comparison like you asked, but I will say that our airfare to HNL increased quite a bit, almost double what we paid last time. Our WDW airfare has increased a little, but not that much.