Trip Report--Family of 5 visits Aulani, Kauai, & Maui

[ErinF]

Hello! Welcome to my 1st ever trip report! As a family, we’ve taken 6 trips to WDW and 3 trips to DL over the past 11 years, but since Aulani trip reports aren’t as common, I thought I’d give it a try and do a nice comprehensive report that will maybe be beneficial to some people. I’d also like to think I’m paying it forward because I learned a lot reading lots of other people’s trip reports.





Overview:

On this vacation it was myself, Erin (41), my DH Ty (42), and our 3 kiddos, DS Mason (15), DD Katie (13), and DS Sam (10). Our trip was Sunday, June 2nd through Saturday, June 15th. We stayed 3 nights at Aulani, then flew to Kauai for 4 nights, and then finished the trip with 5 nights on Maui. The plan was to relax and chill at Aulani, explore more in Kauai, and then end with more relaxation on Maui. We had a red eye flight home to Texas the night of June 14th so we arrived home the morning of June 15th a little blurry-eyed but full of wonderful memories of our amazing Hawaiian vacation.




A little background:

DH had visited all 4 major Hawaiian islands on 3 different trips with his parents during high school and college. Then he and I went to Hawaii on our honeymoon in July of 2000. We spent one night in Honolulu because I wanted to see iconic Waikiki and then we spent 6 nights in Maui. We got to go back to Maui in October of 2006 for 5 nights. In recent years we’d been talking about going back to Hawaii and bringing the entire family.

We started planning this trip during the summer of 2018. In July we secured a rental of DVC points for a 1-bedroom Island View for our 3 nights at Aulani. I did lots of reading and research on the Aulani DIS boards and the TripAdvisor Hawaii boards. I love to do research for trips and do lots of planning, that’s part of the fun for me. But the months seemed to draaaaaag on counting down to our Hawaii vacation. Finally it was springtime which made it feel more like the trip was around the corner. I began to buy and order all the fun things that one must buy and order when going on a vacation to Hawaii (at least that’s what I told myself and DH, ha ha!). This included snorkeling gear for some of us; a GoPro with lots of accessories; waterproof phone cases; lots of sunscreen; neck pillows for the flights (because we’d be on the longest flights the kids had ever been on, including the direct red-eye home where I was hoping we’d get some sleep. Spoiler: there was not much sleep to be had!); and miscellaneous other items that put a major dent in the wallet but were completely “necessary” for this vacation!!

On to the trip report!

 

[ErinF]

Day 1—Sunday, June 2nd: travel day and partial day at Aulani

Our travel over to Hawaii was on American Airlines and included a short layover at LAX. Our flight from DFW was scheduled to leave at 7:05am and arrive in LAX at 8:37am. Then we were scheduled to leave LAX at 9:45am and arrive in HNL at 12:46pm. I fully admit that having roughly an hour layover kind of stressed me out! I worried about missing the connection which would start this trip out on a really sour note…not to mention the fact that we’d lose precious time at Aulani! Then of course there was the fact that we’d be maneuvering to a new gate and trying to find some food to get to take on our flight. However, DH seemed to be ok with this scheduling, and I defer to him for all flight related planning (he was an airline pilot for 6 years back in the early 2000’s and is a general aviation enthusiast).

I woke up first, about 4:15am. Ty was up shortly after me to get ready and do all the “leaving for vacation prep” around the house. I checked the radar app on my phone because we’d had some storms in the area in the middle of the night. Most of the rain was still west/northwest of DFW, and I was hoping it would stay that way. We woke up the kids about 5-10 minutes before we left in order to preserve as much sleep as possible for them and since they had very little to do to get ready. My dad was supposed to pick us up at 5am to take us to the airport, but I knew he would be here early, and sure enough, I looked out at 4:45 and he was parked at the curb. We loaded up everyone and everything—we had 6 suitcases and 5 carryons—and hit the road. From our house it took 25-30 minutes to get to DFW.



Checking in and security were a breeze, thank you TSA PreCheck, and soon we were sitting at our gate. Ty went off with Katie and Sam to get food and drinks at Starbucks. The line was pretty long but we had plenty of time. Our boarding time approached and they weren’t showing any signs of starting. Then they announced the cleaners were still finishing up inside the plane so it would be a bit longer. Our flight officially changed to being delayed `15 minutes with a departure time at 7:20am now. Finally it was time to board.



We pushed back from the gate, and then taxied some. Then we stopped. Our pilot announced that the airport was currently changing over from north takeoffs/landings to south ones so it would take a bit longer. Ugh! After 10-15 minutes of sitting there, we began taxiing to our runway and took off.

Our flight was fine, but the captain did tell us that he had weather to maneuver around so that was another time sucker. I listened to music using my new Bose noise canceling headphones Ty had gotten me for my birthday in March, and I watched some episodes of Parks and Recreation and Frasier (2 of my fave series!) that I’d downloaded from Netflix on my phone. I tried not to fret too much about our connecting flight, and before I knew it, it was time to land. We landed about 9:05 and made it to the gate about 9:15. For those keeping score, that was 30 minutes before our HNL flight was supposed to depart. Thankfully, the flight attendants made an announcement that there were 30 of us making connections to Hawaii, so if you weren’t rushing to make a connection, could you kindly let those of us that were off the plane first? To my surprise this actually worked and we got off the plane in no time! We rushed as quick as we could manage (we had carried on 3 of our suitcases). Our plane had parked at a gate in terminal 4 and we had to find our way to the underground tunnel to get us over to terminal 5. But it proved pretty easy as there were American employees stationed along the way holding signs saying “Hawaii” with arrows pointing us in the right direction. We reasoned there must be many flights coming in with people making these connections.



We made it with enough time to make a quick restroom stop and they hadn’t even begun boarding yet. Ty figured he had enough time to quickly go grab some food and asked me what to get. I had packed us a number of snacks like crackers and chips, with the assumption we’d have no time to buy food, but maybe he could get some fruit? He came back with 2 bottles of water, gummy bears and some mixed nuts.



Our boarding ended up being a little delayed (I don’t think they gave a reason) and our departure time became 10am. We had time to catch our breaths and before we knew it we were excitedly boarding the plane. We pushed back from the gate, taxied and took off much faster than we had from DFW. We were quickly ascending above the June gloom that was covering LA and heading out over the Pacific.





Everyone was happily entertained with their devices and we spent time eating our snacks plus they had some food service (that you had to pay for), so the 5 hour flight went by fairly quickly. Here’s a glimpse out our window of Kapolei.



They announced that we we had made up time in the air and we ended up landing early! However because we were early there was another plane still at our gate, so we had to sit and wait about 20 minute for our gate. (boo!) That was kind of torture and Katie and Sam were starting to bicker with each other. Finally we were off the plane and heading to baggage claim. Our suitcases came off quickly so then it was off to wait on the Hertz shuttle. We rented from Hertz on all 3 islands because we have a sweet friend who is a Hertz employee and has us on her Friends and Family list meaning we get 40% off rentals. I checked often and our discounted rates with Hertz were always better than Costco rates. We had made a reservation for a full size car, but were upgraded to a Ford Explorer. We were basically only going to be driving to Aulani and then back to the airport 3 days later, but it was nice to have plenty of space for all our luggage and the 3rd row seat was great so the kids didn’t have to sit all together.

We were all loaded up and leaving the airport in our rental at 1:50pm. There was no traffic since it was a Sunday. We made a stop at the Target in Kapolei. I only spent about $40 on bottled water, snacks, fruit, chips, and some breakfast food items. I was planning on cooking one dinner in our villa, but didn’t want to buy anything like meat that needed to stay cold since I didn’t know if we’d get into our room right away. I had read someone on this board say that Bell Services at Aulani didn’t have fridges for cold storage. (I'm still not clear if that's the case or not.)

We left Target and it was just about another 10 minutes before we were pulling up at Aulani. Here’s one of our first glimpses of the resort as we neared it.



It was now 3pm local time. The resort was beautiful on the outside but very busy! I had kind of expected that since it was a Sunday afternoon and I’d read so much about how weekends are busy and a lot of locals stay for the weekend and check out on Sunday. But it was still a sight to see all the hustle and bustle at the entrance! Thankfully we didn’t have to sit in our car too long before being directed to a spot where valet could help us and point us to the little check in desk outside. (I had done online check-in.)

Here's the water station at the desk.



There was a small wait as another family was being helped, but then just as it was our turn I received a text saying our room was ready! We were in room #1677! I knew this meant we were on the top floor and I was almost positive this fit the criteria in my room request. Now, the CM who began to help us with check in was named Joy and she was the sweetest CM! She presented us with our leis and then walked us into the lobby to go over all their handouts and give us some basic directions. This went a long way in setting the stage for our stay because that front drive area was a little hectic.



Continued in the next post...

 

[ErinF]

Day 1 Continued (Sunday, June 2nd: travel day and partial day at Aulani)

Our "we made it to Aulani finally!" photo:



We found the Ewa Building elevators easily and headed up to see our room. We had a pretty nice view for Island View!




For those wondering, my room request was “Ewa Building, floor 6 or higher, rooms ending in 71 through 87.” I had read someone here recommend using this exact phrasing to get the somewhat ocean view from an Island View room. Also, we were directly above the Halawai Lawn so we could see the luau and other events going on down there (more on that later). Our luggage arrived to our villa soon after we did. We did a little unpacking and organizing before putting on our swimsuits so we could go down and explore and start having fun!



Our first stop was the towel/wristband station. The CM that helped us gave us regular wristbands instead of DVC ones. I didn’t really know the difference but she brought it up and said that if we wanted the DVC wristbands to just bring our DVC card the next time. Ok, we’re not DVC members, just staying on points. But no biggie, we didn’t really care. (Note: for the next 3 days all the CMs that would help us always gave us the DVC wristbands after entering in our room# in their computer ) We walked around for a bit to get the lay of the land and to find a chair to put our stuff on. We ended up finding an empty chair or two over near the infinity pool so we left our things and started there. That ended up being one of my favorite spots, the view is just beautiful from there.



Sam even remarked, “Now this is paradise!”



After spending some time in the infinity pool, we headed over to the lazy river. The kids loved the lazy river! Well I loved it just as much as they did!!





They were having so much fun splashing around and getting wet when we’d go through the cave and other places where there’s water squirting. I was just content to peacefully float along in my tube. After a while we decided to go check out the beach.



My kids don’t actually have a ton of experience with beaches. We go swimming a lot in pools, but we’ve only spent a combined few hours at SoCal beaches on DL trips and then we took a short beach vacay to Port Aransas here in Texas this past Spring Break. I wasn’t sure what the kids would think of the Aulani cove with it’s smallish waves. Well, they loved it! They were really having a great time splashing in the little waves and swimming around.



Before we knew it, our adrenaline rush that had kicked in upon arriving at Aulani was fading. It was around 5:30 or 6 now which was 10:30/11pm to our bodies. Ty took the kids up to the room to get showers and I headed over to the Ulu Cafe to grab some dinner. I ordered a cheese pizza and got a chicken Caesar salad for most of us to share. For anyone who’d like to know, I saved the receipt and the large cheese pizza was $20 and the salad was $12.95, for a total of $34.50 with tax. Sam doesn’t love pizza so I think he probably just ate some fruit and chips, and Mason has a wheat sensitivity so I think he had a little salad, fruit, chips, and some pepperoni (which I’d packed).

Ty and I remembered then that we hadn’t moved the car from valet yet. It’s free to valet your car the first day, but we needed to move it to the parking garage before the day was over. We had wanted to check out the restaurants and shops across the street, so we left about 7 to go get the car and we just went ahead and drove across the street. We walked around for just a few minutes and then grabbed a few things at the Island County Market (nicer ABC store). It was a little before 8pm when we parked the car in the garage and as we were walking back to our room, I wondered out loud if at least 1 of the kids had gone to sleep already. We walked in to find all 3 were fast asleep! I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised as that was 1am our body time and we’d been up since before 5am. Ty and I stayed up a little while longer. He enjoyed some of his Hawaiian favorites that he’d just purchased, fresh papaya and Guava Nectar. We were in bed by 9.



My first impressions of Aulani as I reflected on this first day: very busy, but still great personalized service! Absolutely beautiful grounds! Smaller than you might think (or I thought) but in a good way; I mean nothing seems too far away to walk to, like it’s not all sprawling and too spread out. Beaches and pools are awesome! And all the kids were thrilled, especially Sam (DS 10) and thankfully Katie (DD 13) who is harder to please/impress right now at this particular age/stage.

 

[eagle29]

Great details and pictures!
looking forward to hearing more!!

 

[alohamom]

Wonderful report so far! Following along...

 

[DisneyinPA]

Great report! This is so much on my bucket list. We are DVC family and the only thing holding us back is the expensive airfare from the east coast for a family of four. Following along........

 

[BigTex71]

Following. I look forward to the Maui and Kauai portions, too.

 

[dachsie]

Looking forward to the rest of your report! I hope I am as lucky with my room request.

 

[ErinF]

Great details and pictures!
looking forward to hearing more!!

Thanks for reading! I tried to take good notes so I could remember some of the little details that I most certainly would have forgotten weeks later.

Wonderful report so far! Following along...

Thanks for following along!

Great report! This is so much on my bucket list. We are DVC family and the only thing holding us back is the expensive airfare from the east coast for a family of four. Following along........

I hear you on the expensive air fare, it's not cheap! Hope you get to go some day soon!!

Following. I look forward to the Maui and Kauai portions, too.

Thanks for following! I have already pre-written through the Kauai portion so I'll get to that fairly quickly!

Looking forward to the rest of your report! I hope I am as lucky with my room request.

Thanks! I hope you get lucky with your request, too!!

 

[ErinF]

Day 2—Monday, June 3rd: full day at Aulani

The kids and I were all up by 6am. I felt pretty well rested—the bed was super comfy! I had gotten cold in the night though. Ty loves to keep it pretty cool, he is warm natured, but I am the opposite and am very cold natured. There’s basically only a couple of sheets on the bed. There are 3 blankets in the villa but I’d given one to Katie to use on the fold down bed and I’d given the boys each their own blanket. They were sharing the sofa bed and I just figured it would make it a little less contentious if they each had their own blanket. This is pathetic, but I solved my cold-while-sleeping problem by using the 2 beach towels we’d packed from home as extra covers. I don’t know why I didn’t just think to ask housekeeping for an extra blanket!

I fixed breakfast in the room while Ty walked across the street to Island Vintage Coffee for his morning java fix. I’m a weirdo and don’t drink coffee. Here's some pictures he took:





And here's a picture he took from right outside the elevators on the 16th floor. (Actually, based on the fact that there are towels and things on chairs, he must have taken this a little later in the morning.)



Sam was enjoying his cereal out on the lanai.



Mason and I were all ready in our swimsuits first, so we walked down to explore a little bit more. I also realized that we’d forgotten to put our vehicle identification paper that Aulani gives you on the dashboard of our rental. So we walked to the garage and took care of that. We walked out to the balcony above Makahiki where we looked down to see Mickey greeting guests before the character breakfast.



We walked around over to the Halawei Lawn to look up at our room. Sam was back out on the lanai so we waved to him.



We also walked down in front of Ama Ama where there’s this lovely spot to lounge with the beach in full view. If you don’t have kids that need lots of supervision (or that just want to always hang out and be more active with you like mine) then this is a wonderful spot to lounge. For reference the time stamp on this photo is 7:45am.



Ty, Katie, and Sam walked down to meet us shortly after this and we got in line to get our wristbands and towels. We found a couple chairs for our towels and things.

Then Mason and I went back up to the room because we hadn’t put on sunscreen yet. While up there I called the character hotline to write down the times/places that the characters would be meeting that day.



I really wanted to make sure I got a family picture with Mickey. While we were in the room, Ty, Katie and Sam walked over to the next lagoon to the south to check it out. I’d read that it was quieter over there and so Ty thought it might be a good place to do some intro snorkeling with the kids.





Continued in the next post...

 

[ErinF]

Well, I tried to finish posting the rest of Day 2 last night, but the pictures stopped uploading to the DIS. I tried again this morning, but the pictures still won't upload. Hmmm, I guess I'll try again later today or tomorrow.

 

[DisneyinPA]

That stinks. Get wait for more!

 

[ErinF]

Day 2 Continued (Monday, June 3rd: full day at Aulani)

After getting our sunscreen applied, Mason and I started out in the lazy river.





Ty came back with Katie and Sam and he got his gear to go back to that lagoon and snorkel a bit. (Ty LOVES to snorkel.) The kids and I did a few laps in the lazy river. Sam loved going under any kind of falling or spraying water and getting drenched!



We took a few runs down the tube slide.







Then it was a little more lazy river before heading over to the infinity pool.



Ty found us there and we all walked over to the next lagoon together. Katie is the most adventurous so she took right to snorkeling with Ty. Mason just wanted to swim around a little with his mask, while I tried to help Sam get a handle on snorkeling. He did alright but didn’t want to stay too long. There were a decent amount of fish to see, so that was enjoyable.







Continued in the next post...

 

[ErinF]

Day 2 Continued (Monday, June 3rd: full day at Aulani)

We walked back to Aulani with plans to rope drop Papalua Shave Ice.



Well, we weren’t first in line, but there were only a couple of groups in front of us. The line at opening time (11am on this day) did eventually get a little long.





Mama’s Snack Shop next to Papalua had also just opened so we got some lunch items. We ordered the Ono Sandwich with fries and chicken tenders with fries. Ty ate the fish sandwich and thought it was good. His fries were mostly given to the boys who also ate food we already had in the villa. Katie and I shared the chicken tenders with fries (supplemented with food on hand in our villa) and they were just fine. We sat on our lanais for some down time after lunch. A wedding had been set up on the lawn below us and now it was taking place.



They had a ukulele player playing Tale As Old As Time while they walked down the aisle and during the ceremony. It was a sweet little wedding. They had Mickey and Minnie take pictures with them and help them cut the cake.



And all the while the ukulele player was dishing out Disney songs. We heard him play Under the Sea, Circle of Life, and the Mickey Mouse song…M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E. That got a chuckle from me! We saw at least one wedding or wedding couple every day of our stay, it’s a very popular place for Japanese couples to wed or at the very least take wedding pictures on the beach out front. (There is the Ko Olina Chapel right next door.)

We went back down about 1:15 because Mickey was meeting at 1 and 1:30. We joined the line and were just one group back when they stopped the 1:00 meet so that Mickey could go “reapply his sunscreen” and come back at 1:30. We waited just a few minutes before Mickey was back out to start meeting again.





Minnie was also meeting at this time, as well as Pluto. My kids just aren’t that into meeting characters so just Ty and I posed for a photo with Minnie and then I grabbed a photo of Pluto with Goofy who just happened to be walking by.






After seeing the characters, we wanted to go to the fish feeding at the koi pond which happens every day at 2pm. They freely hand out the fish food to anyone who wants to feed the koi.



To be continued in the next post...

 

[ErinF]

Day 2 Concluded (Monday, June 3rd: full day at Aulani)

More koi feeding:



Ty decided he wanted to go back out and snorkel some more. The rest of us did a few laps in the lazy river and then did the tube slide again.



We saw Moana wander by while we were in the lazy river and she waved at us!



Around 4pm we came back to the room for some snacks and to take showers and recharge a bit. We headed across the street about 5:15 to find some dinner.



We decided to try Just Tacos since it had something on the menu that appealed to everyone in our family. I haven’t read many people mention it in their trip reports, but we really enjoyed it! Our food was great, our service was excellent, and our seating out on the patio was very relaxed and serene.



Ty loved his dinner choice which was the Tequila Lime Shrimp; I had the Taco Salad which was great!



Afterward we walked to the Island Country Market to grab some more fresh cut papaya for Ty (I think he had it for breakfast the next morning) and some salad and sausage for tomorrow night’s dinner. I took this next picture in the store because I thought I’d share that I saw people using these cutting boards to get character signatures on (with a sharpie). What a great idea for a keepsake! And it’s only $13.99 so not too expensive.



The boys and I started walking back while Ty took Katie to Island Vintage Coffee for a frappacino.



Once we were all back in the room, Ty and I left the kids to head down and walk around a little bit at sunset. We walked all around the outside of Aulani and even walked next door to the Four Seasons to check it out.



Back to the room and we found the kids out on the lanai watching a bit of Moana which was being shown down on the Halawei lawn.



Sam fell asleep first at 8:45 and the rest of us were asleep by 9:45, still adjusting to the time change.

 

[DisneyinPA]

Great report. Looks like the weather was perfect. How were the crowds around the pools and lazy river? Did u have to wait in line long for the slides? Matt

 

[Nalshersmom]

Day 2 Continued (Monday, June 3rd: full day at Aulani)

We walked back to Aulani with plans to rope drop Papalua Shave Ice.

View attachment 414835

Well, we weren’t first in line, but there were only a couple of groups in front of us. The line at opening time (11am on this day) did eventually get a little long.

View attachment 414836

View attachment 414837

Mama’s Snack Shop next to Papalua had also just opened so we got some lunch items. We ordered the Ono Sandwich with fries and chicken tenders with fries. Ty ate the fish sandwich and thought it was good. His fries were mostly given to the boys who also ate food we already had in the villa. Katie and I shared the chicken tenders with fries (supplemented with food on hand in our villa) and they were just fine. We sat on our lanais for some down time after lunch. A wedding had been set up on the lawn below us and now it was taking place.

View attachment 414838

They had a ukulele player playing Tale As Old As Time while they walked down the aisle and during the ceremony. It was a sweet little wedding. They had Mickey and Minnie take pictures with them and help them cut the cake.

View attachment 414839

And all the while the ukulele player was dishing out Disney songs. We heard him play Under the Sea, Circle of Life, and the Mickey Mouse song…M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E. That got a chuckle from me! We saw at least one wedding or wedding couple every day of our stay, it’s a very popular place for Japanese couples to wed or at the very least take wedding pictures on the beach out front. (There is the Ko Olina Chapel right next door.)

We went back down about 1:15 because Mickey was meeting at 1 and 1:30. We joined the line and were just one group back when they stopped the 1:00 meet so that Mickey could go “reapply his sunscreen” and come back at 1:30. We waited just a few minutes before Mickey was back out to start meeting again.

View attachment 414840

View attachment 414841

Minnie was also meeting at this time, as well as Pluto. My kids just aren’t that into meeting characters so just Ty and I posed for a photo with Minnie and then I grabbed a photo of Pluto with Goofy who just happened to be walking by.

View attachment 414842


View attachment 414843

After seeing the characters, we wanted to go to the fish feeding at the koi pond which happens every day at 2pm. They freely hand out the fish food to anyone who wants to feed the koi.

View attachment 414844

To be continued in the next post...

We also saw several married couples, all of them Asian.

 

[leafyeon]

Love the trip report! Very detailed and easy to follow. Can't wait to hear about the rest of your adventures!

 

[alohamom]

Thanks for all the photos of the lagoon next the Aulani one.
I never thought of trying to snorkel there.
We have only tried in the Aulani and Marriott ones and both were not that great for snorkelling compared to other areas of the island and I had just assumed all the Ko Olina lagoons were similar.
From your pictures I can see the rocky outcropping that lies on the beach could be a great little section to explore
I will give it a try next time for sure!

 

[Ravello]

Thanks for your detailed trip reports! I’m in the midst of planning our Aulani/Maui trip for June 2020. Your reports are such a great help!