Timeframe for reserving your chairs @ the pool.

[AustinTink]

My experience has been around 3 the pool area starts clearing out and seats are much easier to find- except the wet crumpled towel ones.

That’s good to know. We will most likely swim in the late afternoon since we have the latest possible dinner reservations booked for most nights.

 

[Anal Annie]

What does it look like around 3pm when people are coming back to the resort after excursions or naps? Is it a madhouse?

A lot of people who have been there all day are cleared by around then - time to shower for dinner / put the kiddos down for a nap etc. Should not have too much problem finding something suitable in the late afternoon.

 

[AustinTink]

A lot of people who have been there all day are cleared by around then - time to shower for dinner / put the kiddos down for a nap etc. Should not have too much problem finding something suitable in the late afternoon.

That’s great! Late afternoon is our usual pool time when we travel. We usually follow it with a late dinner at 8 or 8:30. But, since Ko Olina shuts down early we bumped our dinners up to 7:30. Can’t wait to get there!

 

[AustinTink]

From what I saw from other responses, it's like this at other DVC resorts as well...

Definitely in Florida. I have never had an issue at the Grand Californian though. Always found a chair without issue.

 

[DVCSunDevil]

So today is our 2nd resort / pool day after having spent the ENTIRE day yesterday on the North Shore. Here are my observations this morning. We decided to try for a new / different location today from what we had on Sunday. The full lounge chairs that face the lagoon with the nice views that are still within hearing distance of the Hawaiian music playing at the pool are definitely the more in-demand chairs. There are a couple of secluded spots with the chair / ottoman type chairs that get passed over in favor of the full loungers. The chair / ottoman setups were still available at 8:30 when I walked around (we once again came down around 10 of 8:00). I could see these prime spots filling early from our balcony around 7:00 tho so I knew we wouldn't get one of those as I don't think I will ever make it down THAT early. We ended up picking a spot in the middle of the 2nd row back facing the lagoon in order to get at least 1 chair under an umbrella. We are close to Ama Ama and Off The Hook. IF we didn't want ANY shade we could have gotten a chair in the front row as all the umbrellas were gone. The people next to us that we are sharing the umbrella with have not been here yet at all. Only signs of life are a towel on each chair and 2 Aulani refill cups on the side table. I walked over to survey the loungers that are on the deck below Ama Ama and I think we may try for those on our next pool day (Thurs). My observations there are that it is a very quiet location but not as convenient for a quick dip in the pool. Also, not as many umbrellas so get there early to snag the umbrellas. The upper deck can can hear the waterfall in front of Ama Ama for a little white noise ambience but the lower deck is definitely very quiet if you like complete silence without any stimulation at all...

Yep, those two rows facing the lagoon are definitely the most sought after chairs. The week of Easter, those chairs were completely taken by 5:15am with people starting to take them around 4:30am (according to the pool manager we talked to). We were able to get four of them at 6:30am on our last full day, since the resort had a lot of people checking out the day before.

 

[TinkFan74]

I’m confused, about to be a first time visitor… don’t you need wristbands to get in the pool area? Aren’t they only available starting at 8am? So how does one stake out a pool chair before getting a wristband and at what point do I need one?

I just got back, and we always got our wristband for the next day in the early evening. This seems to prevent bigger lineups in the morning.

 

[Anal Annie]

Last update....today is our last full day. (We got rained out on our last "pool day" on Thurs.) I could see from our room that the front row of chairs by the infinity edge pool were gone by 6:30. I got down by 7:30 and went to the other section in the middle that faced the lagoon. Some guy had come down and split a pair of goggles on 1 chair and put 1 flip flop on 2 other chairs and he was sitting on the 4th. Most of the rest of the front row was also taken except the chairs w/o umbrellas but they actually had people sitting in 6 of them. Goggle guy on the other end went for towels at 8:00 and brought them back to throw over the chairs then he left and has been gone for the last 52 minutes.
This is the irritating part. We're actually here to USE our chairs for the day. 2nd row back isn't a bad spot but it would have been nice to have "front row" witj an umbrella just once.

Here's a new trick I just watched. Some guy came and put towels on 2 of the front row loungers (w/o umbrellas) then he took a picture of them (not sure why the pic). THEN he went to one of the rows behind us which face the pool and have the early morning sun and he took 2 more lounge chairs. Talk about a chair hog!!

 

[Anal Annie]

Looks like I double posted...sorry. Got an error during the process. But read this one!

Last update....today is our last full day. (We got rained out on our last "pool day" on Thurs.) I could see from our room that the front row of chairs by the infinity edge pool were gone by 6:30. I got down by 7:30 and went to the other section in the middle that faced the lagoon. Some guy had come down and put a pair of goggles on 1 chair and split 1 flip flop each on 2 other chairs and he was sitting on the 4th. Most of the rest of the front row was also taken except the chairs w/o umbrellas but they actually had people sitting in 6 of them. Goggle guy on the other end went for towels at 8:00 and brought them back to throw over the chairs then he left and has been gone for the last 1 hour & 15 minutes. This is the irritating part. We're actually here to USE our chairs for the day. 2nd row back isn't a bad spot but it would have been nice to have "front row" with an umbrella just once.

Here's a new trick I just watched. Some guy came and put towels on 2 of the front row loungers (w/o umbrellas) then he took a picture of them (not sure why the pic). THEN he went to one of the rows behind us which face the pool and have the early morning sun and he took 2 more lounge chairs. Talk about a chair hog!! Amd he isn't sitting in any of them.

 

[AZMermaid]

How long was goggle guy gone? Did three other people come for the two row guy? Now I’m invested haha

 

[Anal Annie]

How long was goggle guy gone? Did three other people come for the two row guy? Now I’m invested haha

Goggle guy was gone at least 90 minutes!! We were down there until about 3:30. He never ever did come & actually USE the chairs for more than about 30 minutes at time!!! Very annoying to see them sitting unused all day like that. He did have about 7 or 8 people it seemed in his party so the people that came for these brief periods always alternated. But they could have taken chairs anywhere else if they weren't going to SIT in them.

 

[Boopuff]

That’s my beef with chair hogs! They save one chair for every person, but rarely does an entire family (especially kids) just sit, read and sun! Sharing is caring!

 

[jdkdorn]

When we were there the beach chairs were never more than 20% occupied, but pool areas filled!

What time of year were you there? We are going the last week of January.

 

[GBBTomorrow]

you’re on a conference call at 6am, that is not a vacation

Just because you define vacation a certain way doesn't mean everyone else does.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

What time of year were you there? We are going the last week of January.

We are here now. I’d say that 95% or more of the beach chairs had something on them when I was strolling by at noon yesterday. We only needed one to drop our bags and ended up settling for dropping them in the sand behind an occupied chair after asking the owner if they minded (they were gracious and offered us to use the chair itself for up to 45m while they were grabbing lunch).

FYI, I took an empty chair from a chairhog holding about 8 l-10 mostly empty chairs in front of AMA AMA for hours, but he either didn’t put anything on one of them or it got cleared before I showed up, so after the 45m mark past when I arrived, I put my kid’s flip flops on it and around the hour mark I climbed on it, he lost his mind and started screaming obscenities in front of his own kids. He kept telling me he had a right to use them because he had been holding them since 5:30AM (it was about 11AM) and I referred him to the sign that chairs not being used for over an hour were subject to being cleared.

The shortage of ocean view chairs (and failure to explain and enforce the chairhog policies, which are already quite lenient) is definitely creating these situations where people are waking very early to hoard chairs just in case they might need them. I think there’s a similar situation at the pool but we never try to get more than a random chair to drop stuff over there, so I can’t say for sure…but I can say that if you go down around 7:30 the week of NYE, the prime chairs are gone.

 

[Budzooka]

We are here now. I’d say that 95% or more of the beach chairs had something on them when I was strolling by at noon yesterday. We only needed one to drop our bags and ended up settling for dropping them in the sand behind an occupied chair after asking the owner if they minded (they were gracious and offered us to use the chair itself for up to 45m while they were grabbing lunch).

FYI, I took an empty chair from a chairhog holding about 8 l-10 mostly empty chairs in front of AMA AMA for hours, but he either didn’t put anything on one of them or it got cleared before I showed up, so after the 45m mark past when I arrived, I put my kid’s flip flops on it and around the hour mark I climbed on it, he lost his mind and started screaming obscenities in front of his own kids. He kept telling me he had a right to use them because he had been holding them since 5:30AM (it was about 11AM) and I referred him to the sign that chairs not being used for over an hour were subject to being cleared.

The shortage of ocean view chairs (and failure to explain and enforce the chairhog policies, which are already quite lenient) is definitely creating these situations where people are waking very early to hoard chairs just in case they might need them. I think there’s a similar situation at the pool but we never try to get more than a random chair to drop stuff over there, so I can’t say for sure…but I can say that if you go down around 7:30 the week of NYE, the prime chairs are gone.

We saw that same guy yesterday making a scene and yelling about people saving chairs all day and he couldn’t get one in that same spot. He was kicking chairs and screaming obscenities at the cast members. Surprised he didn’t get kicked out. Guess he wanted to prove a point today and saved a whole row the entire day even though he was only using a couple of chairs.

Some people are just jerks.

 

[WinterSolider]

What time of year were you there? We are going the last week of January.

We always go early February and my experience has been nothing like what people have described in this thread. We've never waited more than 90 seconds for towels and we've never had trouble getting seats together for a family of anywhere between 7 and 11.

 

[jimmymc]

We always go early February and my experience has been nothing like what people have described in this thread. We've never waited more than 90 seconds for towels and we've never had trouble getting seats together for a family of anywhere between 7 and 11.

Time of year and weekend vs weekday matters a lot for Aulani crowds.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Time of year and weekend vs weekday matters a lot for Aulani crowds.

I guess we need to start shifting our travel patterns once our kids are off to college…. Sorry kids, we hear aulani is more civilized during the school year!’

 

[Tigger's ally]

I guess we need to start shifting our travel patterns once our kids are off to college…. Sorry kids, we hear aulani is more civilized during the school year!’

Yeah, just tell them you are doing research.

 

[AstroBlasters]

We saw that same guy yesterday making a scene and yelling about people saving chairs all day and he couldn’t get one in that same spot. He was kicking chairs and screaming obscenities at the cast members. Surprised he didn’t get kicked out. Guess he wanted to prove a point today and saved a whole row the entire day even though he was only using a couple of chairs.

Some people are just jerks.

I wonder what he would have done if someone would have taken out their phone and started recording him….. People like this should really be banned from Disney property as they are a danger to cast members and guests.