Vernie822
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2014
- Messages
- 3,152
Hi everyone! I'll keep this brief as my husband and I just got married, honeymooned, and moved to a new state, all within a month!
I already posted a small write-up of what we thought of Aulani, but I wanted to share some more of our thoughts including pictures. I know we learned a lot by reading trip reports here, so I hope you all can find this helpful as well.
I'm Ashley, and my husband is Justin. Here we are at Aulani:
Pre-Trip Planning:
Pre-honeymoon we had some other major life events.. our wedding! So as much as I would have liked to focus more on planning our Hawaii trip, I really couldn't. We did what we could but a lot of our time was devoted to wedding planning, however I think we did just the right amount of planning.
Here's how our itinerary shook out:
Sat 9/3: Eat, drink, be married!
Sun 9/4: Fly from PIT to LAX, spend the night at a local hotel.
Mon 9/5: Fly from LAX to OGG (Maui)
Tues and Weds: Full days in Maui
Thurs 9/8: Fly from OGG to HNL
Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues: Full days at Aulani
Weds 9/14: Fly from HNL to LAX; Get to Disneyland and have dinner @ Napa Rose chefs table.
Thurs 9/15: Disneyland
Fri 9/16: DCA
Sat 9/17: Fly from LAX to PIT.
It was definitely a jam-packed trip, but we got enough relaxing in as well. We ended up spending a lot more time at Aulani than we thought we would, but we didn't want to leave.
We originally planned on flying to LAX Sunday, and then spending Mon/Tues/Weds at Disneyland. That got us to Aulani on Thursday-Wednesday as planned, but then gave us less time in Maui than we had hoped. So we reversed it and it worked out really nicely.
Flights
We ended up booking two separate one-way flights. It worked out this way because we had enough Southwest points to cover our trip to LAX (and we were stopping in Disneyland). Also, my brother nicely gifted us a $500 United voucher he received when his flight to Germany got cancelled last summer.
We also purchased inner-island flights on Hawaiian Airlines from OGG to HNL. These were about $70 per person. I used cash back on my Discover credit card for these.
So I believe we ended up paying $1,100 for 2 RT flights, including our inner-island flights and trip insurance. Pretty good if you ask me!
PIT to LAX
Pittsburgh to LAX was uneventful. We had a layover in Phoenix with just enough time to use the bathroom and get ready to board. We did purchase Early Bird with Southwest for our flights which we don't usually do, but we were glad we did since both of our Southwest flights were pretty full.
We spent the night at the Renaissance LAX. We got a pretty good deal through Orbitz. Most of the hotels in the area had a shuttle, so it was really easy to hop on and get to the hotel. In the morning they took us to the airport for our next flight.
We had dinner at an In-n-Out burger within walking distance to the hotel. I had to try it once while in California, and it did not disappoint!
I already posted a small write-up of what we thought of Aulani, but I wanted to share some more of our thoughts including pictures. I know we learned a lot by reading trip reports here, so I hope you all can find this helpful as well.
I'm Ashley, and my husband is Justin. Here we are at Aulani:
Pre-Trip Planning:
Pre-honeymoon we had some other major life events.. our wedding! So as much as I would have liked to focus more on planning our Hawaii trip, I really couldn't. We did what we could but a lot of our time was devoted to wedding planning, however I think we did just the right amount of planning.
Here's how our itinerary shook out:
Sat 9/3: Eat, drink, be married!
Sun 9/4: Fly from PIT to LAX, spend the night at a local hotel.
Mon 9/5: Fly from LAX to OGG (Maui)
Tues and Weds: Full days in Maui
Thurs 9/8: Fly from OGG to HNL
Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues: Full days at Aulani
Weds 9/14: Fly from HNL to LAX; Get to Disneyland and have dinner @ Napa Rose chefs table.
Thurs 9/15: Disneyland
Fri 9/16: DCA
Sat 9/17: Fly from LAX to PIT.
It was definitely a jam-packed trip, but we got enough relaxing in as well. We ended up spending a lot more time at Aulani than we thought we would, but we didn't want to leave.
We originally planned on flying to LAX Sunday, and then spending Mon/Tues/Weds at Disneyland. That got us to Aulani on Thursday-Wednesday as planned, but then gave us less time in Maui than we had hoped. So we reversed it and it worked out really nicely.
Flights
We ended up booking two separate one-way flights. It worked out this way because we had enough Southwest points to cover our trip to LAX (and we were stopping in Disneyland). Also, my brother nicely gifted us a $500 United voucher he received when his flight to Germany got cancelled last summer.
We also purchased inner-island flights on Hawaiian Airlines from OGG to HNL. These were about $70 per person. I used cash back on my Discover credit card for these.
So I believe we ended up paying $1,100 for 2 RT flights, including our inner-island flights and trip insurance. Pretty good if you ask me!
PIT to LAX
Pittsburgh to LAX was uneventful. We had a layover in Phoenix with just enough time to use the bathroom and get ready to board. We did purchase Early Bird with Southwest for our flights which we don't usually do, but we were glad we did since both of our Southwest flights were pretty full.
We spent the night at the Renaissance LAX. We got a pretty good deal through Orbitz. Most of the hotels in the area had a shuttle, so it was really easy to hop on and get to the hotel. In the morning they took us to the airport for our next flight.
We had dinner at an In-n-Out burger within walking distance to the hotel. I had to try it once while in California, and it did not disappoint!
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