Thinking about Aulani April 2017

[Patricia1]

I read through many of the posts and am seconding guessing our possible April 2017 stay.
Family of 3, DH, DD (12) and myself. We Looove Disney resorts and want her first Hawaii trip to be special.
Questions for Aulani experts:

• Will DD enjoy kids club? is she too old? She loves the DCL kids clubs still
• We would get a 1 bd, so the food part isn't too difficult to figure out but are planning on some restaurants. Best restaurant recommendations?
• Are Pool/Lazy River really that difficult to use?
• Is the Ocean View worth the points? Looks like they're all beautiful
• Best thing to experience at Aulani
• We would do adventures outside of Aulani as well

Thanks in advance for any advise and input!!

 

[kdonnel]

I don't remember the pool or lazy river being difficult. I do remember sitting near the zero depth entry point and watching running kid after running kid round the corner and slip and fall. Two in rapid succession drew blood because of the fall. Another appeared to break their arm based on the odd way it was bent once they stood up. It has been a few years, I wonder if they made the ground less slippery.

We have only gone the first week of April. The weather has always been great and the resort full but not overcrowded.

No real experience with the kids club. My kids have always seen them as a form of torture. I did see people lined up on our last trip. Seemed like it was popular.

Our favorite things to do away from the resort are swim at Waimea Bay and eat malasadas. Sometimes the waves at Waimea were too intense and the life guards wouldn't even let you get close to the water. Had to settle for watching the waves.

Our favorite thing to do at the resort is hang out in the lagoon and play on the floating mat. I hope they still put that out each day this April.

We have had a standard view, ocean view, and this coming April a pool garden view. The ocean view is by far the best but if getting one or not saves money for a future trip I would opt for standard.

 

[Patricia1]

After watching a few YouTube (family) videos lurking and getting info from kdonnel and other sites ... I Booked!!

 

[hilarys]

We will be back at Aulani for our third visit the first week of April in 2017. My daughter will be 12 (and son will be 14). My daughter has always loved the clubs on DCL, but has never taken to them at Aulani. They do have some cool teen/tween activities so hopefully they will get involved with those. My kids just love going on the lazy river. On our last visit, lots of people we knew happened to be there at the same time so they always had buddies. I am hoping this is the case again or that the kids make some friends to hang out with like they do on the cruise.

We spend the majority of our time on Hawaiian vacations relaxing, but usually go do one hike, an off-property beach, and twice we have done tours of Kualoa ranch which my kids love.

We love to have a villa so that about half the time we can have relaxing dinners in the room. We also have breakfast at our own pace in the villa and can pop upstairs for lunch or snacks while at the pool.

My kids love Aulani and picked it for our upcoming spring break trip over WDW.

 

[nkereina]

We're just back from 7 days at Aulani. Just DH and I on our honeymoon. I'll be posting a full trip report soon, but wanted to comment on your post. We loved the resort, especially the lazy river. Neither are difficult to use, not sure what was meant by that. We did eat offsite a few times, including Pizza Corner and Monkeypod in the immediate vicinity. Both were very good. There were lots of options in Kapolei near the Target/Safeway where you can stop for groceries. We ate at Kua Aina Burgers in that plaza which was a decent inexpensive QS lunch. During the cours of our week there, we ventured to the North Shore and Kualoa Ranch which were a lot of fun. We did Pearl Harbor and Diamond Head before getting to Aulani.

 

[happymommy]

I used to live on Oahu, and my son was born there. We've taken our kids back 8 times (going next summer again), but we own at the Marriott Ko Olina Beach Club next to Aulani.

No way would my kids want to do any sort of kids club in Hawaii or anywhere. We do things together in Hawaii! And DD has been since she was 5, and learned to snorkel at about 7 or 8.

I'd recommend looking into the Bishop Museum - my kids liked it a lot!

I cook dinner almost every night when we're there. I grill or something, so if we're out we have a nice lunch.

If you like sushi, the best nearby is Sushi Bay in Kapolei.

How long are you going for? We shop at Costco a lot as well as Target. It is helpful to buy a big bottle of liquor for a fraction of what a drink costs at the bar!