North Shore activity recommendations/General itinerary

[RivGirl]

Aloha! We are planning our first visit to Aulani, and to Hawaii, this spring. Family of four, kids will be 11 and 15. I want to include a drive along the North Shore of Oahu one day, but I'm having trouble picturing what it would entail other than driving and looking at the big waves. How much time should I allow? A whole day vs half day? Anything to consider in terms of traffic flow and returning to Aulani? Any particular spots or activities that would be especially great for our family? We like hikes (already planning to do Diamond Head and Manoa Falls...but one more wouldn't hurt), and we like beaches. We are not surfers. We also like food as entertainment.

Thanks for any tips that can help me envision this part of the trip... I just want to make sure it's a worthwhile diversion from Aulani itself (we are spending 4 nights there) and not just an item to be crossed off a list because everyone says so.

Here's my current fuzzy itinerary, in case that helps put my question in perspective. It's a 7 night split stay on Oahu, 3 nights in Waikiki, 4 nights at Aulani.

Saturday - arrive for a 3 night stay in Waikiki
Sunday - Diamond Head in the morning
Monday - Manoa Falls in the morning
Tuesday - transfer to Aulani, pools/beach/dinner in the room
Wednesday - breakfast at Makahiki + North Shore drive?
Thursday - Kualoa Ranch morning, Aulani Luau that night
Friday - no plans
Saturday - leave early that morning

I'm planning to do just a 2 day car rental directly from Aulani (I have my reasons, and I'm good with Lyft for the Waikiki stuff and airport transfers...), so Kualoa and North Shore need to be back to back days. I could see switching the North Shore to Friday, leaving Wednesday as an all-Aulani day.

 

[VGCgroupie]

Personally if you have never been to Aulani I would spend more time there. My first trip I booked a few of excursions away from Aulani and regretted it. But then again one of those was Waikiki and we strongly disliked Waikiki.

Traffic in Oahu is no joke, it can be really bad (this last trip it took 45 min to drive 3.9 miles back to Aulani from Target) To me that eats into my vacation time and I dont like that. We did love Kualoa Ranch and would do that again and deal with traffic for it no problem.

I have heard if you just want to drive the North Shore the Shaka App is really good for it. https://www.shakaguide.com/

 

[GrimGrinningGuy]

North shore was our fav part of the entire trip
Go to Haleiwa. Awesome little town. And stop and get breakfast at Konos and then get matsumoto shave ice (get it with the beans!!) best shave ice on the island. We went up to Haleiwa twice in a week we loved it so much

 

[maxbuffmelvin]

Personally if you have never been to Aulani I would spend more time there. My first trip I booked a few of excursions away from Aulani and regretted it. But then again one of those was Waikiki and we strongly disliked Waikiki.

Traffic in Oahu is no joke, it can be really bad (this last trip it took 45 min to drive 3.9 miles back to Aulani from Target) To me that eats into my vacation time and I dont like that. We did love Kualoa Ranch and would do that again and deal with traffic for it no problem.

I have heard if you just want to drive the North Shore the Shaka App is really good for it. https://www.shakaguide.com/

I agree. On my first trip, I had planned numerous off-site activities, but ended up scaling back since we thoroughly enjoyed our time at Aulani. In subsequent weeklong trips to Aulani, we may schedule 2-3 off-site activity days.

Since your Aulani stay is short, spending two days at Kualoa Ranch and the North Shore may be too much. Perhaps, you can move the Kualoa Ranch trip to your Waikiki days, since I think they offer shuttle service from/to Waikiki. Alternatively, you may be able to combine a visit to North Shore and Kualoa Ranch in one day. I have visited the Polynesian Cultural Center twice and ended up driving both the North Shore and Kualoa Ranch during my visits to the PCC.

 

[PetePanMan]

We love the North Shore. Some absolutely fantastic beaches. We love Waimea Bay (and jumping off the big rock depending on time of year / surf). Haleiwa is a cute little town with a cool vibe and many good restaurants. We did shark cage swim excursion a couple years back out of Haleiwa. It was a great experience