Lama pa'ipa'i on the Lanai – an Aulani TR -Aloha and Mahalo Aulani! Link to PTR 11/5

[KristiMc]

Wow - great view! I can't wait to visit there in the future. It is tentatively on our 2016 summer schedule .

 

[GoofyFan1515]

Okay, how did I miss that you started this TR? Good thing I read your siggie so I wasn't even further behind!!!

Guess I will be perpetually behind............not that that is unusual.......

 

[rentayenta]

I like this view much better! And woo-hoo on having your villa ready so early.

Nice abs! I also have a bright yellow bikini.

Very smart to head across the street to pick up provisions. Did they have a decent choice of products? I guess it really doesn't matter as almost anything is better than getting gouged at the resort.

I'm pretty sure if you've got to be homeless, Aulani is the best place to be.

 

[Poolrat]

Great View----

That looks and sounds like an amazing pool and lazy river.

Good to know the liquor store is across the street.

 

[rndmr2]

Great new room and view! The pool and beach at Aulani are both so pretty. sorry it was so complicated to find the Towels and wristband station. So cool that there is a Lazy River there. I love lazy rivers, so relaxing.

 

[merbobear]

Awesome view! I'm glad you guys were able to get out of that "we are wasting our day away" mode and set your watches to Island Time It's difficult to adjust to vacation sometimes, because we are all so used to our days being scheduled and segmented and trying to avoid the chaos of one segment falling out of place. The even more difficult adjustment (for me) always comes at the end of vacation, "Wait, they expect me to be at work right now? And staying on task?!" lol

 

[teekathepony]

Oh what a gorgeous view from your room!

Too bad about the running around looking for things - (stairs, towels, etc) but it sounds like you made up for it in that awesome lazy river! Love the pp pic, you look so relaxed!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[MeMom]

So pretty - and the lazy river sounds heavenly!
If I were brave enough to get into swimwear, I could spend some quality tube time floating around and around on that.

 

[Pinkocto]

Cynthia! I'm going to blame you for having me rethink next years birthday plans. Aulani looks so amazing! Love the new view, it's gorgeous! I know you were saying the lanai is smaller with the room like that but it looks nice.

Malia is awesome, glad Jeff got his glasses. I hope they didn't charge him for shipping since they messed up.

Sorry about the confusion getting back to the pool. Would you get a car next time, did you use it a lot?

 

[Chilly]

Sometimes you just need to sit in the sun and relax. Fabulous view from your room. Lovely photo on the lazy river.

 

[Misskitty3]

Great update!! Those ABC stores sure are handy!!

 

[Mndisneygirl]

Awesome view! I'm glad you guys were able to get out of that "we are wasting our day away" mode and set your watches to Island Time It's difficult to adjust to vacation sometimes, because we are all so used to our days being scheduled and segmented and trying to avoid the chaos of one segment falling out of place. The even more difficult adjustment (for me) always comes at the end of vacation, "Wait, they expect me to be at work right now? And staying on task?!" lol

Agreed!

 

[afwdwfan]

I see that there is a big industrial park south of Aulani, and although I found some tanks like that one with Google streetview, I couldn't find that specific one, so wasn't able to narrow down which company's it is. Sheesh, of all of the industrial sites I've visited over my career, I never gotten to go to one in Hawaii!

Tell me about it. I used to work for the USDA. I traveled all over the country doing audits at grain elevators and my last couple of years on that job, I was trained to do sugar processors every 6 months in Northern Ohio and Michigan. Typically in January.

There was also sugar processor that had to be audited every 6 months in Hawaii. The guy who always got that assignment sat behind a desk in KC and never went into the field any other time. :headache Funny how those sorts of things seem to work out.

Which it wasn't but mentally we were both freaking out a little like MUST.GET.IN.SUN.NOW! We knew we were being illogical but boy we were both on the same page with it.

As long as you both wanted the same thing...

This is on the very back side of the pool as you face the ocean. Kind of interesting, one row of loungers the back row) faced the ocean, the rest toward the pool. We were actually facing the pool but I took the picture the other way. Go figure.

Screw the pool. I'd want to turn my lounger around.

Seriously. At 11:30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! Not only did she hook you up with a room that met your wishes, but also ready that early!!!

To say that we were thrilled with our view and location is an understatement.

Kind of puts the view from that other room to shame.

Malia was gone a good 10 minutes.

Malia is awesome! I'm glad he got his glasses and everything was fine!

On the second round we happened across a photopass photographer in the river. Who caught us in our zen float mode.

Zen float mode looks like a lot of fun. All that seems to be missing is a cupholder on the raft...

All I know is that somehow, in those 120 minutes we reset our clocks and truly got on island time. No longer did we feel like our day was getting away from us, it seemed as if we had hours left in it, and we did. Relaxed and content we headed up to the room.

I'm glad you were finally able to let go and just enjoy being in Aulani! I'm sure that was truly the zen moment.

 

[eandesmom]

I love that picture of the two of you! You look like you are having a fabulous time!

We were! We were river junkies that is for sure.

The sky is so blue... very beautiful!

The weather was perfect

Looks like there is a hotel that shares the same beach?

All beaches in Hawaii are public so anyone can use the actual beach whether they are staying at the property or not. Ko Olina has 4 coves, or Lagoons, the Lagoon that Aulani is on is called Kohola but no one ever referred to it that way. The white building is the JW Marriott and Ko Olina Beach Villas so also a combo of resort and timeshare.

Love your pool side drink strategy!

Ultimately we are cheap!

The room is beautiful, but maybe a tad tight if more than two people were in it, yes? The view is quite amazing!!!

cant wait to read more!!

In general I think studios are tight for more than 2 but I feel that way about regular hotel rooms as well. I do think it would feel tight. If all you planned to do there was sleep though and kids were smaller it could be ok.

Wow! That place just screams relaxation! So beautiful!
That Malia is one awesome CM!

Remind me what category room you had?

Maila ROCKED! We were in an Oceanview studio.

Stunning view

Sounds like a cool and relaxing day once you got everything all sorted out. Yay for not overpriced poolside drinks!

Yes, we are all about saving money. Not to say we won't splurge at times but if you can buy a whole bottle of rum for the price of 2-3 drinks well...we can do the math

I'll be interested to see where the sun sets in comparison to your room. Yours is the first Aulani TR I've read that shows the building maps (or that I've paid attention to them ), so I'm perplexed at the sun location vs Ocean View concept. I guess I should have paid closer attention to Aulani's location on Oahu and the island shape.

Very good observation!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had those same questions prior to arrival and though I did quite a bit of research and asked a lot of questions...we still arrived not really knowing for sure what we would see or not see.

Wow - great view! I can't wait to visit there in the future. It is tentatively on our 2016 summer schedule .

It is such an amazing resort, you should definitely try to get there! I am hoping for 2015 with the E's.

Okay, how did I miss that you started this TR? Good thing I read your siggie so I wasn't even further behind!!!

Guess I will be perpetually behind............not that that is unusual.......

I'm just happy you found it! Aloha and

I'm behind everywhere, I can relate!

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Catching up after a few hectic days away from the DIS!

Too much to multi-quote, so I'll just give you some quick-hitters...

Too funny that you also got the concrete monolith view! I'm sure you had a good laugh over that one after reading about it in lurkyloo's TR.

I'm not sure what that industrial site is in the view, but I will confess I thought of a certain scene from The Naked Gun.

Jeff secretly loves the characters. You know it. And now we know it. He may as well give in. Anyway, still not sure we'll pay for 5 people at the buffet, but I appreciate the lowdown!

The OV room, though? Awesome! Malia seems like a miracle worker at this point. And the lazy river sounds wonderful. Glad to see you finally settling into vacation mode. The internal clock business sounds like it will take some getting used to!

 

[Jennifer48]

What an amazing view! So much better than the first room!

 

[eandesmom]

I like this view much better! And woo-hoo on having your villa ready so early.

We were SO happy with the early villa though it was a little funny as we had just finished with the sunscreen and ready to sit back and read.

Nice abs! I also have a bright yellow bikini.

NOT.

I seriously considered titling this TR "Yes, I know I'm too old to wear a bikini and I don't care"



It was a little frustrating though. I really thought we would get a lot of cute photopass pics with us throughout the trip based on other TR's and while Jeff balked twice at character photos and maybe one other time, really when I was looking for the photographers (like anytime we were mildly dressed up lol), I couldn't find them. The only time we seemed to consistently see them was at the pool or beach. Which means pretty much in all of our PP pics I am in a swimsuit and though I brought and wore several...all the pics are in the yellow suit.

Good thing I love yellow. LOVE it.

Very smart to head across the street to pick up provisions. Did they have a decent choice of products? I guess it really doesn't matter as almost anything is better than getting gouged at the resort.

I'm pretty sure if you've got to be homeless, Aulani is the best place to be.

ABC Stores are pretty cool. They are a cross between a drugstore and a mini target if you ask me. Pretty much a full liquor store with a good selection of beer and wine. Prices are equal to that at Safeway, Costco is probably less but I didn't compare as those bottles are a bit bigger than we needed. ABC has a small selection of groceries, things like produce etc you will pay only a little less or equal to Aulani but the selection is much larger. Decent selection of snack items, huge selection of cheap souvenirs, sunscreen and vacation needs like floaties, towels, etc. And probably an entire aisle dedicated to macadamia nut candy. It also has a very nice deli that offers breakfast and lunch and possibly some hot items later as well. I took pictures of the menu.

All that said, for resort prices the food and drink in the general store (wine, alcohol) while limited in selection at Aulani wasn't nearly as overpriced as say...the T shirts. And DVC gets a 10% discount on everything, including groceries. For main groceries though, Costco, Target and Safeway are all only about 10 minutes away.

Great View----

That looks and sounds like an amazing pool and lazy river.

Good to know the liquor store is across the street.

More than a liquor store but yes, across the street

The river (and slides, we will get to that) are amazing. The pool we were less thrilled with but only one is open right now. Didn't matter to us, we lived in that river.

Great new room and view! The pool and beach at Aulani are both so pretty. sorry it was so complicated to find the Towels and wristband station. So cool that there is a Lazy River there. I love lazy rivers, so relaxing.

I think I made something complicated that wasn't. We love lazy rivers as well and this is a really really good one! We were quite pleased with the new room.

Awesome view! I'm glad you guys were able to get out of that "we are wasting our day away" mode and set your watches to Island Time It's difficult to adjust to vacation sometimes, because we are all so used to our days being scheduled and segmented and trying to avoid the chaos of one segment falling out of place. The even more difficult adjustment (for me) always comes at the end of vacation, "Wait, they expect me to be at work right now? And staying on task?!" lol

Ah yes, the first day back syndrome. Always brutal! I would actually say that for us we adjusted a bit faster than usual, it typically takes a good 2-3 days for us to unwind. It was nice to let that feeling go, we both had it in spades and it left us about the same time which was pretty cool. I guess the good part is we both knew we were being illogical but couldn't help that feeling of the day slipping away, even when it wasn't.

Oh what a gorgeous view from your room!

It was, we were thrilled!

Too bad about the running around looking for things - (stairs, towels, etc) but it sounds like you made up for it in that awesome lazy river! Love the pp pic, you look so relaxed!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

The stair thing was kind of funny. And annoying all at the same time. The river MORE than made up for all of it, we were very relaxed!

 

[eandesmom]

So pretty - and the lazy river sounds heavenly!
If I were brave enough to get into swimwear, I could spend some quality tube time floating around and around on that.

Swim shorts and a T shirt! So much fun, and SO relaxing!

Cynthia! I'm going to blame you for having me rethink next years birthday plans. Aulani looks so amazing! Love the new view, it's gorgeous! I know you were saying the lanai is smaller with the room like that but it looks nice.

It's smaller than the non angled but it was plenty big enough for the 2 of us. Much bigger than say the BWV balcony! It would be tight for 4 to be out there for long but it's doable.

I will gladly enable you to rethink next Birthday's plans, Sheree's DH is already blaming a cruise on me...I'm happy to help! It is amazing. We will be back!!!

Malia is awesome, glad Jeff got his glasses. I hope they didn't charge him for shipping since they messed up.

Sorry about the confusion getting back to the pool. Would you get a car next time, did you use it a lot?

Malia was a rock star, I mentioned her specifically in our survey. They didn't charge him extra for the shipping but I don't think he got any kind of credit on what he'd paid already.

We did have a car the entire time we were there. While you could do a few things without it, and I guess book any excursions all through Aulani, we found it much easier to have a car although I think compared to a lot of folks we kept the driving to a minimum and while we definitely got out, we really did take advantage of the resort and even with that, didn't see everything we could have that was right there!. We easily could have stayed longer, which surprised both of us.

Sometimes you just need to sit in the sun and relax. Fabulous view from your room. Lovely photo on the lazy river.

And it's as simple as that...it really does make everything better...and melt away...sometimes.

We were lazy river junkies! It was also the only time we saw the PP there so we got lucky.

Great update!! Those ABC stores sure are handy!!

I love the ABC stores. I think this was the first time I didn't buy cheap tees there for souvies though and we didn't even get any macademia nut candy to bring home which is kind of pathetic! Although wow, Costco sells these giant packs of them that are a killer deal, that'd be the way to go for sure.

Agreed!

 

[eandesmom]

Tell me about it. I used to work for the USDA. I traveled all over the country doing audits at grain elevators and my last couple of years on that job, I was trained to do sugar processors every 6 months in Northern Ohio and Michigan. Typically in January.

I feel your pain, I always had to go to Boston in Feb. BRRRR!

There was also sugar processor that had to be audited every 6 months in Hawaii. The guy who always got that assignment sat behind a desk in KC and never went into the field any other time. :headache Funny how those sorts of things seem to work out.

It does figure!

As long as you both wanted the same thing...

that does help!

Screw the pool. I'd want to turn my lounger around.

Well since we sat down only long enough to put on sunscreen it was pretty irrelevant. we found other spots later that became our go to spots that were better (for us anyway). With the rows of chairs as they were, no way you could actually turn it around..they pack them in there.

Wow! Not only did she hook you up with a room that met your wishes, but also ready that early!!!

Magical Malia!

Kind of puts the view from that other room to shame.

Yes it does, doesn't it.

Malia is awesome! I'm glad he got his glasses and everything was fine!

You have no idea. Those glasses arriving saved the day and very possibly the vacation.

Zen float mode looks like a lot of fun. All that seems to be missing is a cupholder on the raft...

I can assure you that Jeff made that comment more than once! Zen float mode is the bomb. I highly recommend it.

I'm glad you were finally able to let go and just enjoy being in Aulani! I'm sure that was truly the zen moment.

What's even nicer is when you don't even realize it's slipped away...you are just THERE.

Catching up after a few hectic days away from the DIS!

Too much to multi-quote, so I'll just give you some quick-hitters...

Too funny that you also got the concrete monolith view! I'm sure you had a good laugh over that one after reading about it in lurkyloo's TR.

A very good laugh!

I'm not sure what that industrial site is in the view, but I will confess I thought of a certain scene from The Naked Gun.

Tesoro refinery. Interestingly enough we are in the midst of getting new office space over there and it sounds like we won't be all that far from it.

Jeff secretly loves the characters. You know it. And now we know it. He may as well give in. Anyway, still not sure we'll pay for 5 people at the buffet, but I appreciate the lowdown!

It's not cheap that's for sure, even for the 9 and under set. I had really planned on the other option, we'd have spent half as much but it was fun. You can eat the continental items from O'leo on their patio and see the entertainment without participating in it so that is an option I think.

The OV room, though? Awesome! Malia seems like a miracle worker at this point. And the lazy river sounds wonderful. Glad to see you finally settling into vacation mode. The internal clock business sounds like it will take some getting used to!

Magical Malia to be sure! The lazy river is addicting. Less than a day on the internal clock but it was in overdrive for a couple of hours. Probably more expected for me as I basically went straight from the office to the plane...Jeff had already taken 2 days off so I don't know what his excuse was.

What an amazing view! So much better than the first room!

SO much better! And SO many more points worth every one though.

 

[disneyfan61]

Great update!!

Love the views from your room. Just Beautiful.

I LOVE lazy rivers. The water looks so beautiful & clear.

And drinks by the pool?? Oh yeah. When DH & I celebrated our 25th at the Beach Club someone had wine sent to our room & one day I put the wine in my mug & down to the pool I went.

And I only wished I looked as good as you in a bikini. My bikini days ended when I was about 26.