Mele Kalikimaka--Our Almost Christmas Aulani & Maui Trip (w/LOTS & LOTS OF PICS)!

[lilpooh108]

A little about us:

Hello! Come join us on this trip report! Our family members for this trip consists of DH, Me, DD (2YO) w/egg, dairy & peanut allergies, my mom & my dad. We bought into DVC since I’ve been Disney obsessed since childhood. The Disney bug struck the day I was 6, on my first trip to Disneyland. Fast forward years later, I started getting APs to Disneyland at age 16 and would drive there with friends after school. Once DD came along, we realized that we needed to stay in places w/kitchens to accommodate her food allergies, so DVC fit the bill. My parents love Disney also, and this past summer they traveled on the Disney Wonder to Alaska on DVC points. They had a great time.

When DVC announced Aulani, DH and I were super excited. We both have loved Hawaii since our 20's. We were married on the Big Island and would love to retire some day in Hawaii (well I would, anyway, DH says he’d be fine moving to San Clemente for retirement). On this trip, we stayed 3 nights in Maui and 4 nights in a 2 bedroom Island View at Aulani. We left Aulani on 12/24, so it was almost Christmas.

There will be LOTS & LOTS & LOTS of pictures in my trip report. DH and my dad are both DSLR fans so most of these pics were taken by them (and some by me).

Since we’re all Disney-philes, I thought I’d point out some highlights & lowlights of our Aulani stay before the trip report begins:

Highlights at Aulani:

--Starlit Hui—do not miss this show! The production and the choreography in the show is some of the best that I’ve seen! The show (IMO) was better than most performances I've seen at luaus!

--Hawaiian Cultural Experiences—we attended the daily “classes” in the Pau Hana activity room. The directors of this program, Marcus & Mikey, were really enthusiastic and led the classes with great energy. Each program was worthwhile to attend. We did the: (1) Ukelele class; (2) Hawaiian language/pendant making class; (3) Aloha Fun w/Disney & Friends; and (4) Keiki Hula. There were some Orlando big wigs in town the week we were there (week of Christmas) and it seemed that they were paying special attention to these classes. Chip & Dale showed up at the end of the Aloha Fun class and Minnie showed up at the end of Keiki Hula to dance with the kids. What a nice surprise for the children!

--Good soundproofing in the rooms. Although the villas were full, I hardly ever heard noise from our neighbors (unlike at other DVC resorts). It was great.

--Courteous Housekeeping staff—unlike any other DVC resort we’ve ever stayed at. They would turn off the vacuum if you walked by them in the hallway, they knocked on T&T day to offer toiletries, replenish laundry detergent, replenish towels. We received “turndown” service (on accident) after asking them to reclean our fridge after check in (it smelled of rotten food, but we bought Oxy at Target and spray cleaned everything ourselves anyway). No one ever bothered us on check out day to see when we were leaving.

--Aunty’s Beach House—the staff was very very careful with checking who was going in and out of the beach house. All guests have to sign in and show room keys. Kids wore bracelets (like on Disney cruises). The beach house is HUGE. There is a movie room, video game room, princess room, crafts room, hangout room and even a backyard with a jungle gym. Lots of fun for the kids!

--Awesome bedding—unlike the older DVC resorts, Aulani has great sheets, a great duvet with a duvet cover, and a great bed. Goodbye gross old comforters, hello beautiful white sheets & Mickey Hawaiian quilts!

Wish List/Room for Improvement at Aulani:

--Scheduling/Announcement of the Starlit Hui-- Although we were “lucky” enough to catch this show, I wish that Aulani would actually play this show more frequently. For example, our stay was Tues through Sat and we caught the show on a Wednesday. Had we checked in Thurs and stayed through Sunday, we would have missed this show completely. Also, upon check in, no one told us about the show and when it would start or details regarding the show. I only learned of the show through the Disboards and through a CM who encouraged us to go.

--Better announcements regarding the classes/activities—Although class sizes are limited, it seems that most of the guests (for better or worse) were not aware of the various activities going on. For example, Hawaiian Santa was available for pictures in the Kaiona ballroom on 12/23. It seemed that Aulani placed him in the ballroom, expecting a large turnout…instead…the event was sparsely attended. I hope this does not lead to cancellation of events, as even those events which were offered were few and far between.

--More activities—although we took advantage of daily classes and events, there were really only 1 or 2 which occurred in the afternoons. With a full staff of activities directors/CMs, I’m not sure why only 30 minute classes are offered about twice a day.

--More experienced staff—it was very clear that interactions with CM varied depending on their level of experience and enthusiasm. The “quality” of the staff was uneven across the board. I think more training is necessary. The week we were there, there was tons of managers & higher ups monitoring the various programs and general guest interaction. My guess is that there will be lots of feedback on the CMs after the busy season and things will improve.

--More meet & greets—Aulani only offered 4 meet & greets a day (12pm to 2pm), and some characters were not repeated throughout the week, such as Goofy & Donald. Why? It’s just people in costume…I mean? More staff is necessary? I can’t imagine what the schedule will look like in low season if this was the offering for the week of Christmas. Also, the meet & greets were always in the same spot. For a family staying a week, this might get boring. I think an “Epcot” approach might be more successful, for example, if characters pop up in different areas throughout the day, etc.

--Better ventilation for the bathroom/shower—I can already anticipate mold/mildew growing in the shower a few months from now. In our unit, there was no vent for the bathroom and no vent in the shower. The shower looked new, but already had that damp moldy smell to it. Unless Housekeeping really keeps up w/maintenance of the shower, mildew will be a problem.

--Categorization of the rooms—As I’ll explain (and as you’ll see from our pics), our “Island View” 2 bdrm should really be re-categorized as a standard view 2 bdrm. Although we were assigned the 9th floor, the lobby and the parking structure starts on the 3rd floor. So our room faced the valet parking structure (only 2 floors below us) and we “enjoyed” all the lights/noise/sound that came with the parking structure.

--More seating in the lobby or lounge areas—As you will see, pool chairs and tables & chairs by the pool were hard to come by. We got take out for lunch one day, and literally had no place to sit. Since our “Island View” looked into the parking structure, we wanted a nice outdoor place to sit. There is nowhere to sit. The lobby only has two couch sections with tables. The seating off to the side only consisted of long lounge chairs. The lobby is beautiful, but there just was not enough seating for people looking to relax without: (1) ordering a drink; or (2) grabbing a chair by the pool.

--More dining options--There are 2 upscale dining options at Aulani: (1) Ama Ama and (2) the Makahiki Buffet. Both are upwards of $35/$40 pp or so. There is poolside dining for "casual" dining. We tried the poolside dining for DD on our first night, and the food was pretty lame and the service was slow and lacking. I really wished Aulani had counterservice with seating areas for familes to dine in at the resort w/o spending a fortune. We bought take out and cooked in the villa on all of our nights there.

That said, here are 2 beautiful pictures of Aulani to start.

For now, we travel to Maui…

 

[lilpooh108]

Day 1--Maui

Arrived in Maui and at Honua Kai Resort & Spa at around 5pm. Honua Kai is a “full ownership” condominium resort which is still being actively sold by the developer. The condominiums are managed by a property management company and there is daily housekeeping. Linens are not changed daily, but towels, toiletries, dishwashing soap and laundry detergent are replenished daily. The housekeeping is IMMACULATE there and we were definitely appreciative of the cleanliness of the resort after our recent October BWV trip which was less than stellar. We were assigned a lovely 2 bedroom corner balcony condo with sweeping views of the resort and a “peek a boo” view of the ocean. The balcony doors completely open up to the balcony, and this was our view:

Lovely! It was hard for us to “pay money” to rent a condo since buying into DVC. However, we paid a great rate and loved the spacious condo. After putting groceries away, we had a nice casual dinner at Aloha Mixed Plate in Lahaina. The food has gone slightly downhill from the last time we were here, but it’s always a nice choice for pretty good food with Oceanside views of the harbor at sunset.

After dinner, we shopped along Front Street in Lahaina and had delicious shave ice at Ululani’s Shave Ice. YUM. DH got the Sunset (guava, mango, pineapple w/haupia ice cream). Delish. I got the coconut w/condensed milk and azuki beans. It was just OK, so I stole most of his shave ice. Front street tired us out so we called it a night after the shave ice.

We did not plan on being very active on this trip. Our planned stops were: (1) Maui Ocean Center; (2) Paia; (3) Haleakala; and (4) Iao Needle. I won’t bore you w/details but will point out highlights & pics from the Maui portion of our trip.

 

[lilpooh108]

Day 2--Maui Ocean Center, Paia and Whaler's Village

We did the Maui Ocean Center, Paia and Whaler's Village on this day. DD had never been to an aquarium and we had a great time. Here are some picture highlights.

After the aquarium, we drove 20 minutes to Paia to eat at the Paia Fish Market. For anyone who has been to Paia, Mama’s Fish House is the place to go. However, we felt like trying a new place and weren't disappointed with Paia Fish Market. Ordered the Mahi Mahi plate w/half Cajun rice and homefries and a fish burger. Here are some pics of the food and of the restaurant.

Dinner at Hula Grill at Whaler’s Village, and caught the 8pm hula “show” at the Barefoot bar. It was great! Ordered an Ahi sandwich and grilled Mahi Mahi plate.

 

[lilpooh108]

My parents have never been to Haleakala. Although they planned a Sunrise at Haleakala tour, the weather wasn’t cooperating so they changed it to a Haleakala (mid day) and Iao Valley Tour.

A sunset shot at Haleakala from a prior trip:

Dinner at Lahaina Grill. Delicious! We all had the Opakapaka which was breaded in panko, pan friend with a light tomato sauce and risotto. OMG. Really delish. My dad had the grilled salmon w/asparagus which he proclaimed was the best ever.

 

[lilpooh108]

We all loved the Opakapaka so much that we drove to Paia Fish Market before our flight to HNL just to have more. If you go here, get there before 11:30 am to avoid the lunch rush. There is only communal seating, so there will be some competition for seats and street parking. It was so packed that some people scoping for seats tried to sit “with” us before we were even done eating (rude, but I guess understandable). Also, stop at Ono Gelato on your way out. The girls are super friendly and the gelato is SO ONO. Really it is, we had the passion fruit and mac nut coffee. YUMMM.

Aulani
Checked in pretty late after hitting 5pm traffic coming out of the airport. We were warmly greeted by Rudy, who was the friendliest employee we met at Aulani during our trip. He explained the meaning of Aulani, the design of the lobby and gave us Kukui nut leis. Most of the CMs here were nice, but there was a big discrepancy between the level of competency/knowledge/friendliness depending on who you met. Here are some pics of Aulani which were taken on different days from our trip but it’s a nice intro to the resort. In addition to using our DVC points for the stay, we also paid $51.xx for occupancy tax for 4 nights in a 2 bedroom. Parking is included for those staying on DVC points.

Some thoughts on the Island View Room: After checking in, we learned that “Island view” is anything that faces the mountain side, which is 6th floor (I believe) and above. This means that if you book a standard view, you will very likely stare into the parking structure. I booked an island view, and I was on the 9th floor overlooking the valet parking structure. We hated the view. We could hear traffic and see lights from the parking structure. I guess it could have been worse--if we were lower we would have stared into the parking structure.

Here is our view:

At night, the light from the parking structure streamed through our balcony door. We liked to keep the balcony door open (with the screen closed) for the breeze, but found it disturbing to hear the traffic and see the lights. It was a huge let down after having had an awesome view in Maui. Oh well!

Target was close by, so we drove to Kapolei for a late 9pm dinner (at Thai Lao) and did a Target run. DD was very excited to see Target. She forgot we were on vacation while we were in Target and asked to go home (hahaha). I guess Kapolei is a newer suburb and looks kinda like where we live. We called it a night after that.

 

[lilpooh108]

Our plan was to stay at Aulani all day and partake in the scheduled activities at Aulani. We started the day pretty early (9am) in order to get a “good” chair by the pool. It was pretty hard to get a good chair. I can’t even imagine the resort being fully built, at full capacity. We saw many people arriving later in the morning with nowhere to sit. At around noon we were done w/the pool and moved on to character meet & greets which included Mickey & Minnie, Goofy & Stitch.

Here are some random shots of the resort:

After doing character pics, DD and I went up for a nap. The others went to Costco for a grocery run and to grab stuff for dinner. The dining options at Aulani really didn’t appeal to us.

DD actually ate at the pool the night we checked in but since it took 30 minutes to get her grilled chicken and French fries (which they actually messed up our order & forgot to give us our room key back), we really didn’t feel like trying out the “casual” dining option again. We noticed while we were waiting for DD’s food that service in general, was really really slow. While we’re all for fine dining, the reviews on the food at Aulani (at both Ama Ama & Makahiki) did not seem spectacular. Our only reservation that week at Roy’s next door was cancelled due to a fire in the Roy’s kitchen. We decided to eat in for the week, buying take out and what not. Here's a night shot of Aulani from the beach:

After dinner in the Villa, we caught the Starlit Hui at 7pm. We REALLY enjoyed the show. The pre-show included activities like leaf weaving and
flower making for the kids. Older kids were welcome to participate in a hula lesson and were invited on stage to do the hula during the E Komo Mai opening song. The show itself lasted from 7:30 pm to 8:15 pm.

I don’t have many pictures from the show, since we took mostly videos of the show. But it is definitely worth going to! After the show, some characters come out for pics. Unlike DCL, the character picture portion of the post-show IS NOT well-organized. All I can say is get in line fast and you may or may not get pictures taken with the characters.

After the Starlit Hui, DH and I drove really fast to Waipahu to catch Leonard’s Malasada Wagon before it closed at 9pm. We bought a dozen filled malasadas. YUM. (Chocolate filled, haupia filled & custard filled fried portugese donuts). We enjoyed these off the lobby on the balcony before calling it a night.

They don't look that tasty in this picture but trust me, piping hot donuts filled w/chocolate is DELICIOUS. Have you noticed I like to take pictures of food?

 

[lilpooh108]

We decided to visit the Dole Plantation for some Dole Whips and as a bathroom break on the drive up to Haleiwa for shrimp. Aulani is definitely a lot closer to North Shore compared to driving out from Waikiki. It took only 25 minutes or so to get to the Dole Plantation, then 10 minutes to Haleiwa. Here are the Dole Whips we ordered, Dole Whip w/pineapple topping & Dole Whip in souvenir cup. Dole Whips from the mothership of Dole Whips (i.e., the Dole Plantation)? DELICIOUS!

We also took DD on the Pineapple Express ($8/pp). The train ride is nothing to write home about.

On a prior trip we did the maze so after the train we drove to Haleiwa for our 2 shrimp stops. First up, Macky’s:

I would recommend the Spicy Shrimp or the Butter Garlic. I’m a fan of Giovanni’s and stupidly ordered the “original” thinking that like Giovanni’s, the original would come w/butter garlic. Wrong. It was just plain boiled white shrimp. Ugh. The nice lady gave me butter garlic on the side when I realized my mistake.

We found the Haleiwa “branch” of Giovanni’s 0.2 miles later. Ugh, gross. The seating here is gross (chickens, flies). The flavor is a little better than Macky's, but the size and sweetness of the shrimp was lacking. And the shrimp here was smaller than the ones I’ve had at the Giovanni’s in Kahuku (in 2010). I compared my pictures of the 2010 portion and the 2011 portion and yes, the shrimps are smaller. Yes, I’m the type of person who takes pictures of my food and compares them.

Giovanni's (Haleiwa location) shrimp:

DD was tired so we drove back to Aulani for a nap and for my dad and DH to attend the Ukelele class. They really enjoyed it and DH actually learned the scales during the 30 minute lesson. Here are some pics of Marcus & Mikey teaching the class.

Shortly after that, we took DD to Aloha Fun w/Disney Friends held on the Rainbow Reef Lanai. This was basically a 30 minute long “program” for kids w/games (Simon says). Chip & Dale visited at the end. They also took a “class” picture. Super cute.

We ate a quick dinner in the villa then drove out to Waikiki for shopping on the “strip.” We also ate at the Waikiki branch of Ailana’s shave ice (Thanks for the recommendation, Spleen!). Pretty yummy. Check out YELP if you haven’t heard of them yet.

 

[lilpooh108]

Today was 12/23. Hawaiian Santa was visiting today (and strangely not, on 12/24 or 12/25). We lined up in a short line to see Hawaiian Santa.

He asked me to sit on his lap. He had shorts on. I declined.

After visiting Santa, my parents took DD to Aunty’s Beach House to play. DH drove me to Walmart to buy coffee, chocolates and other “souvenirs.” DH went to Tanioka’s for some awesome fresh poke (ahi, marlin & tako), lau lau, kalua pig and spam musubi.

After eating Tanioka’s for lunch, we attended Keiki Hula at 2pm. DD had a blast! Marcus led the class and was great at putting together a short dance for the kids to learn. Minnie surprised the kids at the end of the class. It was a great touch!

At 3pm, DH, dad and I went to the DVC preview center to tour the Grand Villa. We got “squeezed” in to the “member update tour” since we were informed by the DVC rep that members could not tour the grand villa w/o taking an update tour. Our DVC tour guide (Andrea, from Honolulu) was super nice and did not try to sell us any points at all. There was another lady on our tour occupying all of her attention/time (she apparently did not even know what her UY was) so it was easy for us to take lots of pics of the Grand Villa w/o being disturbed.

VIEW FROM THE GV!!:

According to Andrea, the guides who speak Japanese are selling at twice the rate compared to those who do not speak Japanese.

After our GV tour, we went on the beach and took lots of beautiful sunset pics. The sunsets at Ko'Olina are spectacular:

For dinner, we grabbed spicy tuna bowls and other sushi from Sushi Bay (in Kapolei) to eat back at the resort.

After dinner, DH and I walked to the Storytelling by the Firepit. The problem was the firepit was broken and had no fire in it so it was hard to find. This was a reoccurring theme (I thought) at Aulani. The activities were great once you found them and got there, but most people didn’t seem to know about them and some venues were hard to find. “Uncle” told us a story about a Hawaiian princess who turned into a flower in order to be reunited with her lover, who was not royalty and so their love was Kapu. Beautiful story. Too bad only 6 people (including us) attended. The night ended with a light rain. Here's a pic of the "light up" shapes that you can sometimes see on the floor/walkways:

 

[lilpooh108]

This was our last day! We cleaned up the villa, took DD down for a last minute picture w/Stitch and uh, “checked out” at the hotel. DH signed up for express check out when we checked in. This was not well explained and we were looking for our summary of charges sheet under the door. Apparently, express check out means that you get emailed a summary of charges sheet to your email on file. No one told us this, and I only figured it out by randomly checking my iPhone while waiting around. Thought I’d pass this random note on…

Thanks for following along w/my long long trip report. I leave you with some pics of Aunty's Beach House and other beautiful pics of Aulani! Let me know if you have any questions!

Aunty's Beach House:

Lovely resort shots: