Psychodisney
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2005
We've been home for a week from our trip to Disneyland and Aulani! Still have one suitcase to unpack! We had such an awesome trip and I know there are a lot of people looking for Aulani and Oahu info so I thought I'd share our experiences and excursions. I'll skip the Disneyland stuff...not that it wasn't great too!
Day one: We arrived at the Honolulu airport at 11:30 am and promptly gathered our bags and jumped on the Alamo bus to pick up our minivan. It's a short bus ride and there were several agents working which equalled a short line. We headed out to pick a car and were disappointed to see how dirty and worn the minivans were. We're used to the cars in Orlando being like brand new. I guess they don't turn them over very frequently in HI. We settled on the best Dodge Grand Caravan we found. We were off to find Snorkle Bob's to get rental snorkle gear for the week. We brought our GPS from home. It took several minutes for the GPS to find satellites and realize we were in HI! We found Snorkle Bob's no problem(they have a parking lot) and drove by the original Leonard's Bakery which we promptly went back to . The specialty is the malsadas which we read about on someone else's trip report! They are like a filled donut, very heavy and delicious! We also had a burger at a little place before heading west to Aulani! One word on the GPS. Make sure yours is updated.....otherwise Aulani isn't on there!
We hit some stop and go traffic which really lightened up by the time we got west of Honolulu. After the approx 40 minute ride we pulled up to Aulani and were greeted with leis and a birthday button for my DH. Our room was ready(about 2:30), so DH went and parked the car while we chatted with the hostess. She was full of info and so friendly. The resort is beautiful. It's a lot to take iin all at once. We headed up to our villa, 1008. We had a dedicated 2BR ocean view. I had debated about spending the points for an ocean view, but I'm so glad I did! We had a great view of the ocean to our right, the pool and the island to our left. Once we were settled, my DH, DD13 and I headed to Target and Costco. We picked up tons of provisions and dinner (costco pizza) and headed back to cook dinner and enjoy the evening. We were planning on going down to the fire pit for stories but it was drizzling and we were exhasted so turned in early.
More later.
Day one: We arrived at the Honolulu airport at 11:30 am and promptly gathered our bags and jumped on the Alamo bus to pick up our minivan. It's a short bus ride and there were several agents working which equalled a short line. We headed out to pick a car and were disappointed to see how dirty and worn the minivans were. We're used to the cars in Orlando being like brand new. I guess they don't turn them over very frequently in HI. We settled on the best Dodge Grand Caravan we found. We were off to find Snorkle Bob's to get rental snorkle gear for the week. We brought our GPS from home. It took several minutes for the GPS to find satellites and realize we were in HI! We found Snorkle Bob's no problem(they have a parking lot) and drove by the original Leonard's Bakery which we promptly went back to . The specialty is the malsadas which we read about on someone else's trip report! They are like a filled donut, very heavy and delicious! We also had a burger at a little place before heading west to Aulani! One word on the GPS. Make sure yours is updated.....otherwise Aulani isn't on there!
We hit some stop and go traffic which really lightened up by the time we got west of Honolulu. After the approx 40 minute ride we pulled up to Aulani and were greeted with leis and a birthday button for my DH. Our room was ready(about 2:30), so DH went and parked the car while we chatted with the hostess. She was full of info and so friendly. The resort is beautiful. It's a lot to take iin all at once. We headed up to our villa, 1008. We had a dedicated 2BR ocean view. I had debated about spending the points for an ocean view, but I'm so glad I did! We had a great view of the ocean to our right, the pool and the island to our left. Once we were settled, my DH, DD13 and I headed to Target and Costco. We picked up tons of provisions and dinner (costco pizza) and headed back to cook dinner and enjoy the evening. We were planning on going down to the fire pit for stories but it was drizzling and we were exhasted so turned in early.
More later.