JUST BACK-ANY QUESTIONS?

Disneybridewifemama

Disneybridewifemama

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 17, 2013
We just got back from our magical 6 night stay at Aulani. We had an ocean view villa-room 1456 in the ewa tower. This board was so helpful in planning our trip, I want to return the favor. Ask me anything!
 
what was the chair situation like? we were there the week before and were able to get chairs pretty much every day with very little effort, but it seems that the experience varies from person to person and week to week. what was yours like?

and in general, what was your favorite part?
 
I was pleasantly surprised that we didn't encounter a single chair issue our entire seven days, both at the beach and the pool/lazy river areas. However, we did see people out at 6:30 EVERY day to save entire rows of chairs and not one single time did a cast member move unattended towels. One day, two shaded chairs sat unattended for 4+ hours next to me and cast members did nothing. But it never affected us personally and we never had a hard time finding a chair to rest in. But if you're the type that wants front row seats, shaded and multiple seats in a row, it WILL be frustrating for you. Mainly we only looked for one chair for the three of us and lucked out quite a few times and got shaded ones. But I did see and hear many many MANY angry people regarding the chair situation. We just didn't let it bother us. I do think they should enforce their one hour rule. I also saw people leaving one single sandal, or other small items on multiple chairs. I get saving ONE chair to hold your stuff and have a seat in between lazy river swims. But saving a whole row is so rude and the rules never seemed to apply to those type of people. But after reading on here, I went into this never expecting to find a single seat. So, I was pleasantly surprised to never have an issue. But if we had a bigger family or party with us, it would definitely have been a problem.

My favorite part was definitely waking up early (thank you, jet lag) and enjoying coffee on the deserted beach and watching the sun rise.image.jpeg
 
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that was our experience as well. granted we did go down fairly early (between 7:30 and 8:15) due to our three-hour jet lag, there were several occasions during which we moved from the lazy river to the infinity pool around 10 or later, and we were always able to find a couple chairs for the 4 of us, esp. at the lagoon. i didn't pay particular attention, but i did see on one occasion a CM walking up to a row of ocean-view, front-row chairs, and folding the towels in their special way. but the family showed up very quickly and they occupied those chairs for the rest of the morning that we were there.

like you i expected to find NO chairs whatsoever after reading the many posts, but with our expectations set we didn't have any problems at all.

your favorit part sounds like a great memory! :)
 
My daughter LOVED aunties. No surprise there, she loves kids clubs. She did stitches space goo and surfs up with chip and dale. We pre registered, so no early morning lines for us. She played quite a few times during the free play hours. The stuff was amazing and she had a wonderful time. She was also signed up for aunties aloha party and fish are friends but we canceled because they were in the middle of the day and we didn't want to interrupt beach/pool family time.
 
We honestly loved the character breakfast. The food was the best of any character breakfast we've ever had. Our daughter loved the interactions with characters and the dancing with auntie. We did a lot of cooking in our room and/or the grills. But we did do Ama ama for breakfast one day and had THE MOST DELICIOUS pancakes ever. image.jpeg
 
Any tips/tricks you learned that you hadn't read about on here before you went? Glad to hear about Aunty's!
 
I would say that if you wait till around noon and head to the beach, a lot of families are leaving for nap time (you'll witness quite a few meltdowns) and that seemed to be the best time to get a lot of front row beach chairs. We would spend the morning in the lazy river and then the afternoon at the beach and it worked perfectly. Also at that time we never had an issue getting sand toys or a boogie board. I'm so glad we didn't bring any of that from home.

Also, my "never afraid of anything" 6 year old was not a fan of snorkeling. It ended up being such a waste of money for us, she stayed in for about ten minutes and was freezing and scared and wanted out. I wish we wouldn't have spent the money on the reef pass. But I'm really glad we tried that BEFORE fish are friends. I knew I could cancel that and save money since she wasn't a fan of the fish.

We had a wonderful experience with the photo pass photogs and came home with over 300 beautiful photos. Well worth the $99 and I didn't have to carry my camera around or worry about leaving it on a chair while in the water. We got some really fun underwater pics In the lazy river. Look for Bob! We had fun completing the photo scavenger hunt and getting or free print.
 
Awesome! Thank you!! I am wondering how my kids would do with the snorkeling too. I am thinking we will try it in the lagoon first, then see if they want to try it in Rainbow reef. Great tips for the beach too! Thank you =)
 
Thank you for sharing your advice on getting chairs at the beach :beach: I think we will visit the pools in the morning as you did and then head to the beach. We are planning on bringing a small cooler. Was there an ice machine on each floor?
 
I can't speak for every floor, but there was definitely one on our floor. We packed lunches and drinks in our soft sided cooler and brought it down to the beach/pool each day. Such a big money saver for us. And we got some delicious Hawaiian rolls at Costco to make the sandwiches on.

This bag was $12 on Amazon and worth every penny. image.jpeg
 
Mommyof3inVA said:
Thank you for sharing your advice on getting chairs at the beach :beach: I think we will visit the pools in the morning as you did and then head to the beach.
Click to expand...

i totally second @Disneybridewifemama 's strategy. we did the same too: lazy river + slides + infinity pool in the morning, followed by lunch, then beach/lagoon in the afternoon. we did not have trouble getting chairs either. the lazy river gets pretty crowded as the day goes on, and sometimes you get all these tubes bumping each other because there are so many people in there at the same time!
 
I LOVE hearing that you grilled and cooked in your room! Can you give me some info on what you grilled and cooked. We plan on doing the same during our trip and I'd love to hear your experience. We have a family of 3 as well.
 
We only had a studio- so we didn't have a full kitchen.

I bought a huge piece of salmon at Costco and marinated it. Grilled it and had it with corn and rice a roni microwable cups night one. Had salmon and salad night two. Both so delicious and so easy. We had yogurts, granola and fresh fruit and oatmeal and cereals for breakfast and did turkey sandwiches on Hawaiian rolls for lunches. We did pizza from pizza corner one night and had the leftovers the next day. It is definitely do able and saves SO MUCH money.
 
sounds perfect! I love the idea of turkey on hawaiian rolls. I hope I can talk DH into grilling. We love to grill at home but I know I'll need help getting it back and forth to the room:)
 
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