Travel to Aulani from NC---questions

[NC State Tigger]

I need help. I am trying to begin planning a trip to Alauni for Spring 2013 (May?). There will be 6 adults and and 1 child (almost 3 a time of travel) traveling from Raleigh NC.

We don't fly a lot. Most flying has been to Florida---so no experience with long flights. The thought of being on a flight of 8-10 hours is really bothering me, but fewer flight changes seems to be a plus.

I would appreciate any input from more experienced DISboard travelers. Is there an airline you would recommend? We don't fly enough to have FF miles for the trip, so I am open to suggestions for any airline. I read reports of airlines making changes to flight times and types af plane, but would hate to see everything I plan changed several times. They have just released airline schedules for the time I hope to travel, but I will not be able to book Aulani till 7 months prior. So now I am just researching and trying to educate myself on options for travel.

I really want to avoid the type of aircraft that has 3 seats on each side of the center isle---we have "big boys" in our family and being stuck in the center seat for hours would be awful.

Thanks in advance for any advise.

 

[WsPrincess]

We don't have a lot of choices for flights since we are pretty locked in with our miles/credit cards so we are looking to fly Delta. Also we live near a Delta hub so it helps with choices. I think your best bet is to go on a site like Orbitz and see what airlines fly there from your local airport. From there you can see which ones offer the best connections and times that work for you.

From what I have seen, most longer flights use larger planes so they can fit more people on. When going to Europe (so similar flight time though less layovers) it seems to mostly be a the 3-5-3 seats with 2 aisles. I am not sure how it is with Hawaii though. Maybe so no one is in the middle you could shoot for an exit row for some of the guys or split into groups of 2 for better seat choices. It is hard one though because for most flights we are on even to Florida it is 3 and 3 for the seats so someone is always in the middle but we put the 2 kids in those seats.

Good luck.

 

[WDWLVR]

You may want to look at breaking the trip up a bit as well to help with jet lag. We did non-stop flights back in 2007 and the "red eye" back was a killer. This time we're flying into San Franciso and spending at day at the Disney family museum before flying out to Aulani. This gets us in to Oahu mid-day instead of late afternoon and driving in rush hour traffic. On the way home we're flying into LAX and spending a few days at Disneyland.

As for seats - check which airlines fly out then check out their planes on www.seatguru.com It tells you which seats are best and shows the layout of the plane.

 

[saintstickets]

Our flying experience is similar to yours. Other than our honeymoon to Hawaii 30 years ago, DW and I have flown very little since. We booked our flight to Aulani recently to return for our 30th anniversary. For what it is worth, here are a few things I have garnered thus far...
- Book your flight early, but not too early. I tracked the prices for several months and finally booked at about 2 1/2 months out. You can use sites like Kayak, Yapta and Farecast to name a few, that will track flight costs for you and alert you when the prices change.
- Go to a site like SeatGuru to see what seat numbers are rated the best. Use that information to reserve specific seats on your flight.
- Sign up for Beat of Hawaii and Groupon. Beat of Hawaii emails you weekly with deals on airfare. I believe I read that Hawaiian Air now has flights from near you in Charlotte. Groupon will offer all kinds of deals on snorkeling, catamaran rides, etc in Honolulu.
- We are flying from Mississippi so our choices were limited. American Airlines will stop in Dallas and the flight is 8 1/2 hours from there to Honolulu. United/Continental will stop in Houston with the same flight time to Honolulu. Delta will stop in Atlanta and the flight time to Honolulu is about 10 1/2 hours.
- Check your luggage to make sure it is within the airlines specs. They measure length x width x thickness and it has to be within certain parameters for carry on and checked luggage.
- Check the TSA website to see what can be included in your carry on to avoid having to throw something away at the airport.
- There are several excursions offered thru Disney at Aulani but we found that we could book them ourselves and save $'s.

That's some of the things I have found so far. Hope you have a wonderful trip. Keep checking the DISboards for Aulani trip reports. I have found a lot of information about where to go, what to take and just as important, what not to do!

 

[cleophus12]

I wish I could offer you some encouragement as far as your flights go, but our flight in May was difficult. We were originally scheduled to fly from CLT to ATL and then on to HNL. About a week out, Delta changed us to CLT to SLC which seemed pretty good so the trip would be broken up about half way. However, our trip into SLC was very rough and we were layed over there for 7 hours due to maintenance issues. We arrived in HNL at 10:30 pm, got to our hotel, and went straight to bed. So we lost our afternoon in Honolulu. Coming home wasn't much better. We checked Delta.com at least a dozen times to see if our flight was leaving on time and the website said it was. When we got there, we waited 3 hours extra before leaving--that was 3 hours we could have spent at Aulani instead of the airport. Hope you have better luck. Even on the best of days, the flight is tough, so I hope you don't have any problems.

 

[NC State Tigger]

Thanks for the information from all who have posted. I will check the sites everyone has suggested (some I am already checking).

Still looking for ideas and suggestions.


Donna

 

[PGOKW]

Hi there fellow North Carolinian!

My husband and I, along with our friends, just returned from a stay at Aulani. We flew Delta out of RDU. We flew from RDU---ATL----LAX on the way to Honolulu and Honolulu---ATL---RDU on the way back. All our flights were on time. Delta made one small change in our flight time but it was only a difference of 15 minutes. I didn't think I'd like the straight flight back from HNL to ATL but it wasn't bad at all and we got home much earlier in the day.

Our friends were not as lucky. They flew out on United and had problems with every leg of their flight. They were delayed for hours and missed all their connections. United ended up putting them on American Airlines for 2 of the flights.

I hope you have a wonderful time at Aulani. It truly is an amazing resort.

 

[cj9200]

We just got back from Aluani. On the way out, we flew American from Miami to Dallas and then from Dallas to Honolulu. The Honolulu flight was a 3-5-3 configuration. We were lucky and got an exit row just past first class. That was only two seats.

On the way back we broke it up by stoping in LA for a few days. Like that much better. Two, five hour flights were better than flying 10+ hours in one day. Also helped with jet lag.

Saying that though, the flight from Dallas wasn't as bad as I thought. I was dreading that flight. DD (she is 18) slept most of the way and even though I can't sleep on a plane, it was OK. Worth it when we got there. Loved Aluani.

 

[Kez250]

we flew in Feb from BOS -EWR-HNL and same on our return

for us the worst part the EWR-BOS which is only a short flight but seemed much much longer - probably because of the mammoth flight we had just got off of

we flew Continental/United - while we were there they did the official switch to United and we were bracing ourselves for all kinds of issues, lost reservations/changed flight times etc but somehow there were no issues at all.

I would say a large part depends on the 3yo - my kids do ok with long flights, but they are older - we set them up with movies on iPads and they watch and doze and actually on the way back they slept a lot. However if that isn't the case for yours then you might find it useful to get a stopover closer to midway through your flying time so that the little one can at least use some of that stored energy

You'll have a great time Aulani is a wonderful resort