It was our first time staying at Aulani, and we loved it! Now we are looking into buying a DVC contract there off the resale market. Our party was small (3) - just me, my wife, and our 5yo. My wife and I have been to Waikiki plenty of times, and are usually going out and about driving to different restaurants/areas. It was our first time going to Hawaii with our son, and he loves just hanging out at the beach/pool so staying in Aulani was great for that.
Since it was our first time at Aulani, I don't know how crowded it normally gets so hard for me to compare. To me, it didn't seem overly packed, considering we were there over the weekend as well (Friday to Monday). It was 7/26-7/29 so approaching the end of summer. For the chairs, we're not really morning people so we didn't try getting chairs at the pool/beach early on. By the time we went to the pool around 11am, pretty much had to be like vultures stalking people that appear to be getting up to leave. Hoping those who went early on were packing up to get ready to go out for lunch by the time we got out there. We got pretty lucky though and didn't have to walk around for too long before getting a chair, but then we were also only looking for a pair of chairs and could do with just 1 as well. After Aulani, we stayed at Moana Surfrider in Waikiki and it seemed a lot more packed there than it did compared to Aulani. Packed like sardines at the beach outside Moana, whereas there was plenty of space at the Aulani lagoon.
