Trip Report February 2016 (14 family members) Part 1

[mjh2901]

So anivasary trip for two for 10 days at aulani through Costco turned into 14 for 7 days. Before I get into the details I want to give an overall impression.

Aulani is hands down the best run resort I have ever been to. Its clean, well run and full of surprises. WE all want to go back as soon as possible. Unlike most other trips I was not missing my dog and wanting to go home by day 5 or day 8 when we where on the plane home.

The family met at SFO in california some arriving that morning from Ohio. Gate 86 all 14 on one boing 777 in two rows.

We arrived after Costco closed with half the group renting a minivan and half the group taking the shuttle... What turned out to be a private shuttle after loading all the luggage.

One of my personal changes was no more cutting corners to save money. Let them load the luggage and tip well. It made a huge difference.

Check took a while our reservations from Costco online had my wife Amy Hathaway Swapped with my Sister Amy Hathaway-Smith. We placed my sister her husband and two kids and my mom and dad in one 2 bedroom suite with kitchen and my wife and I took standard deluxe room, with my cousin and 5 others in another 2 bedroom room. My cousin had called aulani 6 times trying to make sure we all got onto the same floor. I think the check in staff was relieved to see us off to our rooms on the same floor. My dad had a rented scooter waiting for him at resort. He can walk but not far and very very slowly and carefully.

Our package had 1 meal per day per person at the ULU cafe, which is to the side of the water fun areas. This is really meant for lunch but we hit it for dinner before collapsing in the rooms.

Day2: It begins
Suffering from time change half the group where up at 6 watching sunrise joined by the rest at 7:00 at ulu. My family actually threw stuff onto chairs claiming a spot for the day, 7 lounge chairs fro 14 people. I have heard the arguments back and fourth on chair claiming and so fourth. There was always at least one person from our group on one of those chairs (my dad seen on the scooter) but usually there was 3 to 4 people there. And we all watched the staff fold the towels and place them on the top of the lounge chairs, hoping they would come back and claim one of our family members stuff so we could laugh at make fun of said members as they went to get their stuff, sadly this never happened.

Our normal view during the day.
We did diner in our rooms as a group (costco lasagna) and hit the show that evening. What a good show, perfectly timed to end before little ones lost patience.

End part one ( I cant upload any more images )

 

[mjh2901]

Part two
Show from day one



Day two was again spent on the beach and on the hotel property. I heard you can spend a week here without leaving, and yes you can. I took advantage of the BBQ stations cooking rosemary red potatoes, Marinated chicken and Grilled Zucchini for the gang. My personal goal when planning this meal and packing my spices in my luggage was to have anyone that walked by regret spending all that money in Ama Ama for diner.... And I heard someone say that walking.. goal achieved. Those Barbecues are a fantastic resource. I noticed they seemed new on the inside so someone must take the grills out in the morning and run them through an industrial dish washer. Tools are available at the community room and they tell you to bring them back in the bags dirty. What more could you want, diner and no clean up! I fed 14 with 30 bucks worth of chicken potatoes and zucchini. Island prices.


The next day was snorkeling on the catamaran. We lost three due to sea sickness. But the other 11 had a blast. The trip was booked seperately in the morning but its the same company Aulani uses if go through the concierge.


End Part 2 More to come

 

[mjh2901]

Part three
Day 4: Pearl harbor
A few of us took our Marine to Perl Harbor. We arrived at 8 and got 8:30 boat tickets. I am not going to describe the memorial. Just leave the group with this. Its Powerful, and everyone should go once.



We had to take our Ex Marine to curry apparently its a thing all Marines will understand who have been on Okinawa.


The rest of the day was of course spent in the water at the resort.


In the community room painting animation cells.



And finally the scavenger hunt. This activity is amazing, designed for kids but you have to try it. You check out an ipad at night from the community room. There are 4 hunts outside and 1 inside. We did 2 in one hour outside. The ipad has Auntie giving lessons on culture and history, talking to experts and giving clues. You find the object in the resort and click a button on the pad and the object "Activates" What I thought would be an hunt for objects turned into controlling the sections of the resort with an ipad. They would go to the kiddie pool, hit a button on the ipad and the fountains in the pool started spraying 5 feet in the air something they did not do during the day, and a figure embede in the rock lit up.

This was one of many embedded features. The designers planned this from the beginning we where all amazed, how they turned an empty water park into an ipad controlled adventure.

We had way to much fun and I would suggest to disney if you can do this with a downloadable in Disneyland you could give a huge number of guests access to an all day activity that would keep them almost away from the rides. Don't skip this.


More to come. For now its time for bed.

 

[mjh2901]

Part 4
Day 5
I had sun stroke at the end of day 4 and spent day 5 in our room, leaving only for dinner. We brought our Apple TV which plugs in below the TV on ports covered by the first drawer on the right side of the furniture below the TV. Its not exciting but it was very comfortable, My caring wife took me to pizza for lunch across the street, very nice. We watched the entire Fuller House season on netflix which dropped the night before. I was impressed, first that they accommodate your devices on their TV's and second the Wifi can handle AppleTV streaming. Lesson learned, drink lots of water, stay in the shade, don't fall asleep on the lounge chairs. A down day was perfectly fine, this trip has run non stop. Everyone at the pool by 8:00am and leaving at 5:00pm only straying from the water and our seats for excursions and food and returning seconds after those finish.

 

[crystal1313]

Loving it so far! Thanks for sharing =)

 

[mjh2901]

Part 5
Day 7 I lost a day somewhere the resort is that freaking good.
Turtle Beach

Oh my God. A 5 minute walk from the resort, through a parking lot and down a secret sandy path and you are at the best beach on the island, a natural cove with breaks preventing waves, the turtles just hang out here swimming around. There is fantastic snorkeling, and did I mention Tortuga. There are rules.
1. Do not feed turtles
2. Do not touch turtles
3. Do not chase turtles
4. Turtles can touch you
And my suggestion
Be like coral. Turtles are comfortable around coral so act and move like coral, which is don't move.
After all the excitement and a few hours of play a few of us sat in the water in a large circle talking. Apparently our lack of actual movement had curious turtles swimming around and through us bumping into us and checking us out all the time. I will shut up now and just post pictures.



Dinner was the entire group across the street at the Monkey Pod. We ate there twice on the trip the food made even the pickiest of eaters happy. The drinks prevent me from remembering anything bad. Prices can be anywhere from 12 bucks for a burger to 39 dollars for the filet special, and all of it worth it.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

Monkey pod rocks why can't a resturant like that be in Aulani? Thanks for sharing

 

[mjh2901]

Part 6 Last day.
We had a van scheduled to pick us up at 11:15, a check out time of 11:00 and the water park opening at 8:00 am. What did we do? Thats right, breakfast and in the pool by 8:00am

Towels and junk laid out in the morning, however we where actually in the pool that early.


Plenty of Tubes



Starting out in the endless river

Or lazy river

I could spend all day in this... Wait I did spend an entire day in this.

So quiet in the morning

The final cave and waterfalls

Everyone slid

Everyone floated

So the water park consists of two water slides, a tube slide and a dark tunnel slide that you use sans tube. They are fast and we rode them many times. Let me show you with a little gopro action

I was very impressed with how they run the pools and the water features. First there are life guards everywhere, second I never heard them blow a whistle or yell at a single guest. I have never experienced that in a water park. Usually its whiltle blows and stop that all day long.

 

[crystal1313]

Ok, turtle beach is down towards the 4 seasons that is currently being updated? (Old JW Marriott) We HAVE to go there! My kids would flip out to see the turtles like that, and I would too!!

 

[mjh2901]

Conclusion:

So what do I really have to report. The Aulani Resort is 5 stars in my book. I can see how you can spend a week there and never leave. All my group wants to do is return. I want to cover a few things
First, the refillable mugs, you can purchase mugs that you refill your entire stay for 20 bucks each. They are worth the money if you live on soda. If you are required to live on things that are not made by mixing fructose and water you should do what I did and bring a Hydro Flask a double walled stainless steel bottle that can be hot to the touch on the outside while keeping ice frozen for 24 hours. Fill it with ice at the drink station, and hit the water button (all soda fountains have a small water tab), cool filtered water. My wife and I both had mugs I refilled mine a couple times a day with ice tea or fruit juice (does not contain actual fruit juice). My Coke Zero swilling family was happy though. For most people its well worth the money.

Second, the Rainbow Reef. its 20 bucks a run or 40 bucks for length of stay access, we bought length of stay and used it once. Its colder than the ocean, has no turtles and is perfect for kids getting the idea of snorkeling. We used it once, after finding turtle beach rainbow reef was just stupid, and it was barely used during the week almost empty every time a walked by. I never saw them doing the assisted breathing that week, either I missed it or there was not enough reservations. If you have a little one that loves the fishes its probably worth it. I should have asked if you buy a single session if you can upgrade to length of stay afterwords. I would not have. Its a personal decision and I am not going to dis it. Especially if you get seasick and throw up on a boat, Rainbow Reef might be your best bet.
Here are my images from the reef
https://goo.gl/photos/ySmLzJjxMuM2dGCC9

The chairs, well we where there in off season, we could not sleep in so we had chairs every day. It did not seem like an issue during the week, but this is off season. I can see it being a nightmare and they should rope them off and not let people reserve them at 5am it gets a little nuts, and they should enforce there policy, put the towels up and clear an hour later. The beach always had space. And we could get 2 chairs any where at any time.

What we did not do, go to any at resort restaurants. First I think my family is cheap, second we had picky eaters that do not like fish and the ama ama menu was scary to them, and the buffet seamed a waste. We kept ULU Cafe in business and where never disappointed. However now that I am home I desperately want to hit a diner for pancakes.

OK that is it, My first trip report on the DisBoards. I may edit these posts later after a nice drink.

See you in Disneyland my home park!

The brave crew

 

[alohamom]

you should do what I did and bring a Hydro Flask a double walled stainless steel bottle that can be hot to the touch on the outside while keeping ice frozen for 24 hours. Fill it with ice at the drink station, and hit the water button (all soda fountains have a small water tab), cool filtered water.

OH MAN-best tip EVER! I think this is fantastic, especially just before taking off to explore. Glad to hear you guys had a great time too!

 

[Gorechick]

Great report! Sad we didn't venture over to the turtle beach, we kinda knew about it. Can't wait to get back to Aulani too!

 

[jtba]

thank you for your detailed TR! it is getting me all excited for our upcoming trip! i particularly enjoy your water slide video as it looks like great fun.

question: can an adult go down the slide with a child at the same time? my daughter might be a little fearful the first time so would be nice if we can go down together.

Part 6 Last day.
We had a van scheduled to pick us up at 11:15, a check out time of 11:00 and the water park opening at 8:00 am. What did we do? Thats right, breakfast and in the pool by 8:00am
View attachment 154328
Towels and junk laid out in the morning, however we where actually in the pool that early.

View attachment 154329
Plenty of Tubes


View attachment 154330
Starting out in the endless river
View attachment 154331
Or lazy river
View attachment 154332
I could spend all day in this... Wait I did spend an entire day in this.
View attachment 154333
So quiet in the morning
View attachment 154334
The final cave and waterfalls
View attachment 154335
Everyone slid
View attachment 154336
Everyone floated

So the water park consists of two water slides, a tube slide and a dark tunnel slide that you use sans tube. They are fast and we rode them many times. Let me show you with a little gopro action

I was very impressed with how they run the pools and the water features. First there are life guards everywhere, second I never heard them blow a whistle or yell at a single guest. I have never experienced that in a water park. Usually its whiltle blows and stop that all day long.

 

[mjh2901]

thank you for your detailed TR! it is getting me all excited for our upcoming trip! i particularly enjoy your water slide video as it looks like great fun.

question: can an adult go down the slide with a child at the same time? my daughter might be a little fearful the first time so would be nice if we can go down together.

They have tons of double tubes and I saw parents going down with very very small kids/toddlers.

 

[Soccerluvinmama]

Part 5
Day 7 I lost a day somewhere the resort is that freaking good.
Turtle Beach

Oh my God. A 5 minute walk from the resort, through a parking lot and down a secret sandy path and you are at the best beach on the island, a natural cove with breaks preventing waves, the turtles just hang out here swimming around. There is fantastic snorkeling, and did I mention Tortuga. There are rules.
1. Do not feed turtles
2. Do not touch turtles
3. Do not chase turtles
4. Turtles can touch you
And my suggestion
Be like coral. Turtles are comfortable around coral so act and move like coral, which is don't move.
After all the excitement and a few hours of play a few of us sat in the water in a large circle talking. Apparently our lack of actual movement had curious turtles swimming around and through us bumping into us and checking us out all the time. I will shut up now and just post pictures.

View attachment 154318 View attachment 154319 View attachment 154320 View attachment 154321 View attachment 154322 View attachment 154323 View attachment 154324 View attachment 154325 View attachment 154326

Dinner was the entire group across the street at the Monkey Pod. We ate there twice on the trip the food made even the pickiest of eaters happy. The drinks prevent me from remembering anything bad. Prices can be anywhere from 12 bucks for a burger to 39 dollars for the filet special, and all of it worth it.

Is this the same beach/cove as Paradise Cove?

 

[Soccerluvinmama]

Ok, turtle beach is down towards the 4 seasons that is currently being updated? (Old JW Marriott) We HAVE to go there! My kids would flip out to see the turtles like that, and I would too!!

There was a cove called "secret beach" right next to the old Marriott (it's not really going to be a secret anymore though because they tore out all of the bushes that kept it hidden), but the water there was so rough, plus all the rocks, that no one ever goes in that water. Is this turtle beach the one that shares a cove/beach with Paradise Cove luau?

 

[saradela]

Wow! Great report...thanks

 

[Mokat76]

AWESOME trip report. Thanks. You're making my 3-month wait painful but exciting.

 

[ski_mom]

Great trip report! I love your shirts too! So cute!

 

[AquaDuck1]

Loved your trip report!!! Thank you for sharing. Can't wait to be there in June.