I thought Disney planning was stressful! Yikes Aulani.

[pixiedust2u]

My “45 day window” opened on Saturday, so I thought. We are spending 9 days at Aulani in June. I called to book Aunty’s and activities only to find out your 45 day make is not in fact a window and opens individually for each day of your vacation

So I have to do this again for each day of dining at the 30 day mark….

Then again for each day that opens at 14 day window????

This is NUTS!!!! I have a million reminders and alarms in my phone. Aulani, I hope you’re worth it !

 

[VGCgroupie]

Agree Aulani is way too convoluted. I have been before and I still now feel lost for our trip in August because they have changed things since a year ago

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Agree Aulani is way too convoluted. I have been before and I still now feel lost for our trip in August because they have changed things since a year ago

It’s really rough on Pacific time because you may need multiple 3AM booking days.

Honestly though, I would settle for a clear chart outlining each window and rules that are uniform. Last I checked, dining and activities were daily but cabanas are length of stay??

 

[VGCgroupie]

It’s really rough on Pacific time because you may need multiple 3AM booking days.

Honestly though, I would settle for a clear chart outlining each window and rules that are uniform. Last I checked, dining and activities were daily but cabanas are length of stay??

Yes I think that is still the case. I have a chart from a FB group but it would be nice if Aulani website would have it all in an easy to figure out format.

 

[VGCgroupie]

My old school photo of my computer screen. .

 

[pixiedust2u]

What I did that helped was type out our plans for each day. Then I highlighted in red the date we needed to book whatever activity I was going for that day ie. (Make your own Mickey ears, book 45 days out 5/11/2025)

 

[VGCgroupie]

Not liking that Pau Hana and Auntys are now both at the same time

 

[pixiedust2u]

View attachment 964889My old school photo of my computer screen. .

I saw this or some version of this posted on FB and other sites. What I didn’t realize is that with the exception of the spa and cabanas is that it was day by day. Can you imagine if this was the way of WDW, DL or DCL. People would be outraged.

 

[jimmymac613]

My “45 day window” opened on Saturday, so I thought. We are spending 9 days at Aulani in June. I called to book Aunty’s and activities only to find out your 45 day make is not in fact a window and opens individually for each day of your vacation

So I have to do this again for each day of dining at the 30 day mark….

Then again for each day that opens at 14 day window????

This is NUTS!!!! I have a million reminders and alarms in my phone. Aulani, I hope you’re worth it !

I booked a lot of things at Aulani for a trip last month. For Cabanas or Casabellas I was able to book for the whole week on the first day that we were staying there and not have to call back every day.

 

[pixiedust2u]

I booked a lot of things at Aulani for a trip last month. For Cabanas or Casabellas I was able to book for the whole week on the first day that we were staying there and not have to call back every day.

Yes, for cabanas and spa you can book for your whole window. For everything else it’s day by day.

 

[WinterSolider]

Yellowstone National Park has lodges that sell out at 2am on the 5th of the month 13 months in advance. Booking the Old Faithful Inn makes booking Aulani look like child's play. I don't understand why anyone thinks that Disney is uniquely complicated. Anything that has more demand than supply is going to have some kind of planning and/or reservation requirement. That means paying extra, booking super early, or entering some kind of queue which may be in the middle of the night. Have you tried buying a Nintendo Switch 2? Because chances are, you couldn't get one despite signing up for reservation lists, midnight alerts, and waiting in virtual queues for hours.

Also, OP, for your first trip to Aulani I think you're way over-thinking it. I would book maybe 1 or 2 Aunty's Beach House activities, one character meal at Makahiki, and the luau. Planning official scheduled on-site activities every day is overkill and will prevent you from seeing more of Oahu than just the resort.

 

[WinterSolider]

Can you imagine if this was the way of WDW, DL or DCL. People would be outraged.

Booking day-by-day is normal for every other kind of vacation except for cruises. WDW is the thing that's weird, Aulani functions like a normal hotel.

Think about it. When you visit anywhere besides Disney, you're using different companies for your lodging, your dining, and your recreation. The concept of "length of stay" is meaningless because some random restaurant in Manhattan isn't going to have any idea when you're checking in at the Marriott so of course you're going to have to book day-by-day.

Length-of-stay reservations are the exception, not the rule, and it's kind of silly that you think this is some big outrage.

 

[pixiedust2u]

We travel extensively, throughout US and have internationally, both land trips and cruises on various cruise lines.

I’m the planner, I do the research, the booking etc. The difference is in most, not all, other circumstances you can “start” booking 60days, 90days etc in advance, the difference with Aulani and Disney I guess in general 1. If you miss your booking window even by a day you can out of luck and what you’re trying to book can fill up and 2. What you are able to book often is impactful to the rest of your overall plans.

So for example if I’m booking a spa appointment at Aulani, and want to coordinate it with Auntys, and spa opens at 180 days, and Aunty’s at 30 days and then you get to 30 days and forgot and looked a few days later and Aunty’s is filled up, then what? You call spa, but they don’t have any appointments left that coordinate with Aunty’s? Or there’s a day that’s available, but it ends up being the same day/time we booked character breakfast? It’s a whole carefully coordinated dance.

We are in Oahu for 9 days, we’ve booked a luau, a private food and site seeing tour, a photography session, surf lesions in the North Shore, Kualoa Ranch, and a couple dinner reservations. Absolutely none of these activities requires that I get up at 6am on a specific date to book or risk the day/time I want being not available. I realize Diamond Head will be a challenge, but it’s one thing out of all the other stuff we have planned.

I’ll end in saying I for the most part enjoy the planning, if i didn’t, I’d choose a different type of vacation or ask a TA to do all of this for us. It was just a surprise and overwhelming once I realized how the booking actually works.

 

[pixiedust2u]

Yellowstone National Park has lodges that sell out at 2am on the 5th of the month 13 months in advance. Booking the Old Faithful Inn makes booking Aulani look like child's play. I don't understand why anyone thinks that Disney is uniquely complicated. Anything that has more demand than supply is going to have some kind of planning and/or reservation requirement. That means paying extra, booking super early, or entering some kind of queue which may be in the middle of the night. Have you tried buying a Nintendo Switch 2? Because chances are, you couldn't get one despite signing up for reservation lists, midnight alerts, and waiting in virtual queues for hours.

Also, OP, for your first trip to Aulani I think you're way over-thinking it. I would book maybe 1 or 2 Aunty's Beach House activities, one character meal at Makahiki, and the luau. Planning official scheduled on-site activities every day is overkill and will prevent you from seeing more of Oahu than just the resort.

We have a lot planned off resort. That’s why my booking dates are so specific, because I’m trying to coordinate what I already have booked. If we didn’t have plans to coordinate around I’d just want until the end of our booking window and loop back and book whatever.

It’s not the advanced planning or scheduling that gets me. It’s that one thing often is very impacted by another within whichever Disney “bubble” you are booking. So when you have booking windows that open at all different dates but booking one thing can offset another it gets messy and overwhelming.

Also lol about a Nintendo switch 2 I hope you got one if you tried.

 

[peder]

I wouldn't worry about the booking window too much. Aunty's isn't anything you can't miss, but also I found that dates don't fill up immediately. I personally would not be up at 3am booking times after seeing availability linger for days/weeks.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I wouldn't worry about the booking window too much. Aunty's isn't anything you can't miss, but also I found that dates don't fill up immediately. I personally would not be up at 3am booking times after seeing availability linger for days/weeks.

The free Auntys days in my experience book up quick and dont come back, since its free people dont have enough respect to cancel in advance. They do however have many openings when you check day of due to no shows

 

[TikiRob]

The free Auntys days in my experience book up quick and dont come back, since its free people dont have enough respect to cancel in advance. They do however manny openings when you check day of due to no shows

Same with ukulele and such. Might be better to have a nominal fee like $5-10 or at least a cancellation fee.