Need suggestions for planning an Aulani & Disneyland vacation!

[MarkW]

We live in Connecticut and would like to visit Disneyland as well as Aulani (using our DVC points) next summer. We are thinking about killing two birds with one stone by making one big trip out of it, especially since we'll be flying from the east coast. Our thought is that we would fly to CA and visit Disneyland for a few nights and then fly to Aulani for about a week. Has anyone out there planned a trip like this before? If so, we'd love to hear your thoughts to help plan ours. We'd like to learn from the experiences of others to help us plan a great trip. Any help anyone can provide would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[haj697]

I am interested in this as well. We are planning the same exact trip, but not until summer 2017.

 

[cbnsoul]

Well, we actually planned this very trip from the midwest last year and a few months before we were supposed to go, backed out. Just didn't think we wanted to deal with all the flying, and especially, the time change.

We were gonna fly into LAX then take the Disneyland shuttle bus (run by Grey Line) to VGC for 2 nights. The night before our flight to Oahu, we were planning to take the shuttle back to the airport then get the hotel shuttle to the Hilton LAX so we would be close to the airport for our morning flight. We were going to rent a car on Oahu as we wanted to tour the island and be able to drive to restaurants. One of the Aulani threads mentions an agency with good rates but I can't recall the name right now (sorry, I know that isn't very helpful!) We were planning to go to the Starlight Hui and possibly the Polynesian Cultural Center for their luau too. I had rented a cabana for a day (you have to call the hotel to do so) although the locations varied from near the ocean (with some views better than others) and others near the kids play area. I believe they have added more now that the additional construction is done. I saw middling reviews for the restaurants. We were still planning to go to both Ama Ama and Makahiki at least once since we won't go back often but they are pricey (as are many Hawaiian restaurants, hence the car )

On the trip back, we only planned to stay at the Hilton LAX once we arrived form Honolulu then fly back home the next morning. That at least broke up the flights somewhat. If we had more time, I would have gone back through SFO and spent a few days in San Francisco before coming home. Hope that helps, at least a little.

 

[JOANNEL]

We did it last sept. Fabulous vacation. Flew to Aulani on a Saturday. Stayed nine nights. Flew too LA on a Monday spent four days in DL then back to Florida. Disneyland is very easy to do in three or four days.

 

[wdrl]

When planning a VGC/Aulani trip, the biggest hurdle to overcome is finding availability at VGC at the 7-month mark. VGC is a small resort and it can be hit or miss whether the dates you want will be available. Aulani is easier to book at the 7-month mark, but June seems to the one month when non-Aulani owners have reported some difficulty in booking villas.

As a fallback option, think about booking a cash stay at one of the Disneyland Hotels. VGC is a great resort and it has direct access to California Adventure. It might be easier getting into VGC on a cash stay rather than trying to book it with non-resort points.

We had a 7-night roundtrip California Coastal cruise booked for October 2013 and wanted to book four nights at VGC either pre or post cruise. At the 11-month mark, we contacted David's about renting the 84 VGC points necessary to cover our stay. Initially, David's didn't have any VGC points to rent, so they put us on a wait list. It took a few weeks but David's finally found an owner wanting to rent their points. There were some other people ahead of us on the wait list, but they needed more points, so we were moved to the front of the list. BTW - when the 7-month window opened for our dates, I checked and discovered I could get one or two of my days, but not all four.

Good luck!

 

[MarkW]

Thanks for all the suggestions and help!