Post-trip follow up.

[vicious_pretty]

We arrived last Thursday at 1 pm and had a flight out 11:50 Monday night. We booked a standard room but they knew it was our 15th wedding anniversary so they upgraded us to a partial ocean view, which was SPECTACULAR.

We did the character breakfast and dinner at the same restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed both. We ate at Ulu's twice and for sick both times. We ate at Off the Hook once, at sunset, and it was great (and the view was excellent!)

Monkeypod was one of the best meals of our life, and the food at ABC next door was consistently very good (and very affordable!) Make the Monkeypod reservation in advance!

We took an Uber out to Kualoa Ranch and did the JP tour (not the ATV, we didn't want to get dirty if we were gonna ride in someone else's car.) It was pricey but painless, got an Uber there within 10 minutes and the one back was just dropping someone else off.

As a couple with no kids we didn't need specific poolside chairs; we used a cubby when riding the lazy river and then usually hit the infinity pool before heading to the beach. Most of our swim time was spent at the beach, and we never had any trouble finding chairs there.

I recommend getting up real early one morning and get down there by 7 am for any picture taking you'd like to do sans crowds.

We did walk over to Paradise Cove to see the sea turtles (and we did!), the sand there is also filled with teeny seashells so we brought a few home.

Overall: this is not something we would be able to afford often, we considered it a "once in a lifetime trip" when booking, but when we got home my husband immediately reworked our budget so we can hopefully go again in two years.

Happy to answer any questions if anyone has any!

 

[PetePanMan]

A couple Quick questions:

Re “Off the Hook” at sunset. Do you know if they now use the tables on the deck in front of Ama Ama (still closed) or just the usual ones around the covered bar area?

Re Monkeypod: did you do happy hour or dinner? Any recommendations?

thx for any info

 

[vicious_pretty]

A couple Quick questions:

Re “Off the Hook” at sunset. Do you know if they now use the tables on the deck in front of Ama Ama (still closed) or just the usual ones around the covered bar area?

Re Monkeypod: did you do happy hour or dinner? Any recommendations?

thx for any info

I think we were on the deck in front of Ama Ama; we were nowhere near the bar itself. (Like if you were approaching there was a hostess stand, the bar is in front of you with a collection of seating, we were seated to the far right of this on a little strip against a building.)

My husband had the special that night, which was a fish and lobster lemon pasta dish that blew his mind, I had the kalua pork and pineapple pizza with pesto, and it was delicious. It was one of those meals where as you are finishing it, you're so bummed it's gone.

Edited to add: we went for a 5:45 dinner, there was live music and we were seating right next to the stage, but it wasn't distracting - it really added to the ambiance.

 

[gatechfan99]

A couple Quick questions:

Re “Off the Hook” at sunset. Do you know if they now use the tables on the deck in front of Ama Ama (still closed) or just the usual ones around the covered bar area?

Re Monkeypod: did you do happy hour or dinner? Any recommendations?

thx for any info

Yes, we ate at Off the Hook last week and it was the exact spot we had dinner at with AMA AMA in 2019. For lunch, there wasn't much crowd and they told us to sit wherever we'd like, but for dinner, they actually took us there and seated us. Definitely recommend showing up to eat there about 30-45 minutes before sunset.

 

[mort1331]

what is the jp tour,,,just keep hearing about the atv tours,,,same just different vehicles?

 

[vicious_pretty]

what is the jp tour,,,just keep hearing about the atv tours,,,same just different vehicles?

The ATV tour you drive your own lil jeep, from my understanding it's a lot of fun but you can get very dirty and you don't make as many stops for photos, etc. More a driving tour. The tour we took someone else drove us, and it was an open air bus that fit 8 people, and made lots of stops for photo ops.