Splitting up hotel stay...which hotels and what days?

[Happy100]

We have never been to Oahu and since we are a very active family we plan on hiking, pearl harbor and various other sight seeing. We enjoy our Disney cruises immensely, so we plan on staying a few nights at least at Aulani. With Aulani being so pricey and us wanting to sight see I am thinking splitting up our stay with 2 hotels would work for us.

We are a family of 3. Our son will be 13 on this spring break trip in April-18.

We want to stay on Waikiki beach at a hotel with clean, quiet rooms, decent view and pool. Easy access to beach is fine. Which hotel?
3 or 4 nights at Aulani? Any particular nights better to stay at Aulani in terms of activities/entertainment offered; weekend vs. weekdays.

Any must activities for Pacific NW outdoorsy family?

 

[DVCRSheridan]

We have never been to Oahu and since we are a very active family we plan on hiking, pearl harbor and various other sight seeing. We enjoy our Disney cruises immensely, so we plan on staying a few nights at least at Aulani. With Aulani being so pricey and us wanting to sight see I am thinking splitting up our stay with 2 hotels would work for us.

We are a family of 3. Our son will be 13 on this spring break trip in April-18.

We want to stay on Waikiki beach at a hotel with clean, quiet rooms, decent view and pool. Easy access to beach is fine. Which hotel?
3 or 4 nights at Aulani? Any particular nights better to stay at Aulani in terms of activities/entertainment offered; weekend vs. weekdays.

Any must activities for Pacific NW outdoorsy family?

If your main reason for splitting hotels would be for convenience for activities (especially hikes, snorkeling, Pearl Harbor etc...) I wouldn't stress too much about that. It's not overly long or difficult to get anywhere on the island from Aulani. In 3 stays at Aulani, we never once missed out on or thought twice about doing something because of location. Going into our 1st trip we really thought it was gonna be tough going around the island, but soon found out it was no big deal (except for the Honolulu/Waikiki traffic).

As for staying in Honolulu/Waikiki, I guess I can't really speak to that because we've stayed at Aulani every time, BUT I can say that we avoided Honolulu/Waikiki whenever possible. It just wasn't what we went to Hawaii for. We weren't interested in going to Hawaii for a big city, horrible traffic, high-rises etc... Now don't get me wrong, we did go into the city a few times for various stuff (zoo, food, aquarium, beach...) but that was maybe 3 times total in a total of 7 weeks that we've been there. Like I said, just wasn't really what we were looking for, but everyone's different. If you guys are interested in that then by all means go for it! A good friend of mine stayed at Hilton Hawaiian Village and loved it. I don't know that we would. We enjoyed staying out of the city and doing more of the natural type stuff. Hikes, snorkeling, just driving around the island and along the coast...

 

[cgattis]

As PP said, not sure your motivation for splitting, but if it's cost (as it was for us), we stayed at the Marriott Waikiki Beach. I'm a Marriott Rewards member, so I only really looked at their properties. The hotel was fine (nice large rooms) and convenient to many quick restaurants and the beach. I didn't like staying in the city at all, but it gave me quick access to those sights around "town" at a lower cost than Aulani and I didn't feel I was missing anything while I was gone (like I did when we left Aulani LOL).

I think the activities are the same most every day (I mean, they vary daily but I don't think there are more or less on the weekend days). Definitely stay 4 nights if you can; we did 5 and still had things we never had time for.

 

[Happy100]

As PP said, not sure your motivation for splitting, but if it's cost (as it was for us), we stayed at the Marriott Waikiki Beach. I'm a Marriott Rewards member, so I only really looked at their properties. The hotel was fine (nice large rooms) and convenient to many quick restaurants and the beach. I didn't like staying in the city at all, but it gave me quick access to those sights around "town" at a lower cost than Aulani and I didn't feel I was missing anything while I was gone (like I did when we left Aulani LOL).

I think the activities are the same most every day (I mean, they vary daily but I don't think there are more or less on the weekend days). Definitely stay 4 nights if you can; we did 5 and still had things we never had time for.

Yes cost is the motivation. I can't reconcile myself to paying $750 per day just to sleep there since we will be doing some sight seeing around the island. We have points at both Marriott and Hilton so was thinking about those options. However is there another beach we should stay at versus Waikiki? We are open to staying anywhere on the island.

 

[DVCRSheridan]

Yes cost is the motivation. I can't reconcile myself to paying $750 per day just to sleep there since we will be doing some sight seeing around the island. We have points at both Marriott and Hilton so was thinking about those options. However is there another beach we should stay at versus Waikiki? We are open to staying anywhere on the island.

There's a Marriott of some sort next to Aulani, have you checked that out? If you have Hilton points I'd check out the Hilton Hawaiian Village. I've heard nothing but raves about it from people who've stayed there. What about Turtle Bay on the North Shore? Although that's probably quite expensive as well. Hmmm...

 

[trs518]

Have you looked into an AirBnB or VRBO? That might be cheaper than a hotel.

 

[longboard55]

The dining choices are also a big cost factor. I do not think you can really evaluate Waikiki by just stopping on a drive. Walking sunset along the beach with all the music playing is just magical.

 

[cgattis]

Yes cost is the motivation. I can't reconcile myself to paying $750 per day just to sleep there since we will be doing some sight seeing around the island. We have points at both Marriott and Hilton so was thinking about those options. However is there another beach we should stay at versus Waikiki? We are open to staying anywhere on the island.

I really don't think there are any big chain hotels anywhere else on Oahu. I did a little looking after we got back, thinking I might find something up closer to Koko Head, but I'm just seeing little independent stuff.

 

[wanderlust7]

Definitely do Aulani on weekdays if you can. Weekends are a lot busier.

We've stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, in the Lagoon tower (part of the Hilton Grand Vacation Club). The unit was great and we lucked out with an awesome ocean view. It's a huge complex - multiple pools, a lagoon you can peddle boat on, fireworks every Friday, Starbucks on site, penguins, and a wide, long, uncrowded beach. It's on the edge of the Waikiki strip, so not as convenient to some of the restaurants. But the pro would be it's a tad easier to get out of Waikiki. Parking is expensive, as it is at all Waikiki hotels I believe. There are a few car rental places across the street if you want to deal with renting for a day, return, then rent again when you need the car again.

 

[cgattis]

Walking sunset along the beach with all the music playing is just magical

See, I found Waikiki Beach neat in an iconic sort of way--I've seen it a million times in movies and pictures, but I was finally there. But I did not find it magical in the least, with homeless people sleeping all around and quite a bit of trash on the sidewalks. (And I don't mean to degrade homeless people; I just couldn't think of that as magical.) It was way more magical to me to find ourselves the only people on a given beach, waterfall, etc., but I generally don't care for very urban areas.

I agree with what Kevin says on the podcast--Oahu has something for everyone. You can have that secluded experience or the urban bustle, all within less than two hours driving from anywhere! It's definitely the island with the most variety.

 

[cgattis]

Definitely do Aulani on weekdays if you can. Weekends are a lot busier.

In general, I'm sure that's true, but in the summer and other schools-out times, I'm not sure there's any difference. My friend was there over Memorial Day and could see the higher weekend crowds. But when we were there just two weeks later, we arrived on Saturday and expected it to be busy but hoped it would drop off some on Monday. I really couldn't tell any difference over the days we were there, Friday through Wednesday. OP, if you're not tied to a school calendar, definitely take advantage of that! Will help with airfare too.

 

[kaseyC]

Yes cost is the motivation. I can't reconcile myself to paying $750 per day just to sleep there since we will be doing some sight seeing around the island. We have points at both Marriott and Hilton so was thinking about those options. However is there another beach we should stay at versus Waikiki? We are open to staying anywhere on the island.

We just got back and did something similar. We spent a week in Maui at Honua Kai. We then traveled to Oahu and spent 2 nights in Waikiki and 5 at Aulani. In Waikiki, we stayed at the Laylow, part of Marriott's Autograph Collection. We booked two rooms since we are a family of 5. It's a cool, little hotel. We loved it and it's location. Right next to the International Market Place that has great shopping and dining. It's also only a few blocks from the beach.

http://www.laylowwaikiki.com/

 

[Happy100]

In general, I'm sure that's true, but in the summer and other schools-out times, I'm not sure there's any difference. My friend was there over Memorial Day and could see the higher weekend crowds. But when we were there just two weeks later, we arrived on Saturday and expected it to be busy but hoped it would drop off some on Monday. I really couldn't tell any difference over the days we were there, Friday through Wednesday. OP, if you're not tied to a school calendar, definitely take advantage of that! Will help with airfare too.

Unfortunately we are tied to a school calendar and I am finding it shocking how much cheaper it would be off season to stay at Aulani. We live in WA state and even though we have one of the latest spring breaks in the country, first week of April, Aulani's prices are double off season prices from what I am seeing. Our flights will be high but not as high if we weren't traveling from the west coast.

 

[Happy100]

Definitely do Aulani on weekdays if you can. Weekends are a lot busier.

We've stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, in the Lagoon tower (part of the Hilton Grand Vacation Club). The unit was great and we lucked out with an awesome ocean view. It's a huge complex - multiple pools, a lagoon you can peddle boat on, fireworks every Friday, Starbucks on site, penguins, and a wide, long, uncrowded beach. It's on the edge of the Waikiki strip, so not as convenient to some of the restaurants. But the pro would be it's a tad easier to get out of Waikiki. Parking is expensive, as it is at all Waikiki hotels I believe. There are a few car rental places across the street if you want to deal with renting for a day, return, then rent again when you need the car again.

I am leaning towards Hilton Hawaiian Village Thursday-Sunday. I love the fireworks on Friday since we will be staying a Friday night. I was thinking it may be a tab bit less busy on Sunday-Thursday at Aulani but agree with other posters that this may not make a difference during a spring break week.

 

[Happy100]

Have you looked into an AirBnB or VRBO? That might be cheaper than a hotel.

We have used VRBO many times for our Oregon/WA vacations so I will definitely check it out.

 

[DVCRSheridan]

Unfortunately we are tied to a school calendar and I am finding it shocking how much cheaper it would be off season to stay at Aulani. We live in WA state and even though we have one of the latest spring breaks in the country, first week of April, Aulani's prices are double off season prices from what I am seeing. Our flights will be high but not as high if we weren't traveling from the west coast.

We run into this all the time with my wife being a teacher. Everything's more expensive at the time we have to travel. Luckily having DVC saved us with Aulani, otherwise we never would've been able to go and definitely not for the amount of time we've gone. We figured out what our honeymoon at Aulani wouldve cost without DVC... $17,500 for the hotel alone!

 

[alohamom]

I am leaning towards Hilton Hawaiian Village Thursday-Sunday. I love the fireworks on Friday since we will be staying a Friday night. I was thinking it may be a tab bit less busy on Sunday-Thursday at Aulani but agree with other posters that this may not make a difference during a spring break week.

The Hilton Hawaiian Village is a very crowded place and I would read every review you can about it before you choose it. The pools can be very cold so dont let that be the reason you choose them.

 

[longboard55]

waikiki is a beach place, pools are not that popular. Its not like most resort areas, I would not worry too much about the pool. If you really need one the sheraton has the best one

 

[alohamom]

waikiki is a beach place, pools are not that popular. Its not like most resort areas, I would not worry too much about the pool. If you really need one the sheraton has the best one

and the Sheraton is kind of just at the center of Waikiki where the HHV is sort of at the end of the strip

 

[nkereina]

We stayed at Waikiki first so we could accomplish Diamond Head and Pearl Harbor at the start of our trip, while adjusting to the time change from the east coast. We stayed 3 nights in Waikiki which was perfect for us - arrived 2pm on our arrival day and just walked the strip, had dinner, and went to bed early. Next day was Diamond Head early and then more shopping in Waikiki including Ala Moana Center, and third day was Pearl Harbor and Aloha Swap Meet which took up most of the day. Left the morning of the fourth day. We did not have a rental car during this time to avoid parking fees/hassle and traffic. We did organized bus tours to both Diamond Head and Pearl Harbor which worked out well for us. We stayed at the Marriott Waikiki Beach which was recently renovated and nice, but still a good price point. It was directly across the street from the main area of Waikiki Beach and easy walking distance to everything, centrally located. We did not use the pool but it was pretty basic. Nothing special there. We weren't there for the pool though - that would be at Aulani!

We island hopped a bit, and then came back to Oahu to end our trip with 6 nights at Aulani. If you can schedule it right, I would avoid weekends at Aulani because it was much more noticeably crowded with locals on Saturday and Sunday. Died down a lot during the week.