Agreed. We arrived the day after Christmas and stayed until Jan 4, so peak season and it was busy but not like there weren’t any chairs anywhere. No chance getting premium spots unless you’re going down before sunrise but we were always able to find something. And we rented a casabella one day, so that was nice to not have to worry about it.If you’re not picky I don’t think it matters too much! Christmas and NYE were a busy time at Aulani but we were still fine without camping out. There are also a ton of chairs on the beach that are not as popular since they’re farther from the pools, so we dumped our stuff off on one of those chairs one of the days.
But we spent a lot of time out on the island too. So we would get up and go explore and then come back to the resort in the afternoon and some folks have already started to pack up.
Bottom line is I wouldn’t worry about it that much. Yes, it’s bad but not that bad.