Let me tell you about Aulani - what a beautiful, fabulous resort. I hope that at some point of each of your lives you have opportunity to visit this beautiful place! We chose to visit in February - winter season in Hawaii. While the temperatures were in the high 70's and low 80's during the day, the winds were fierce. We did swim some, but getting out of the water was a 'chilling' experience. It was much warmer to sunbathe at the lagoon.
The CM's are like family; very friendly, helpful and full of conversation. It is worth the price of the refillable mug - $18.99 - just for the coffee alone. While I do enjoy my coffee, I'm usually a 'morning only' coffee drinker. At Aulani I was drinking coffee all day long.
We began each morning with a walk along the lagoons up to the point and the marina. It would take us about an hour and the walk is nearly 3 miles. There are a total of 4 lagoons. While at Disney in December we would count the deer along the path over to Ft. Wilderness. At Aulani, we counted the stray cats - one day as many as 23! Local residents would feed them. This photo shows the walkway with a beautiful rainbow over Aulani.
One day we made our way up to the North Shore where we spent a considerable amount of time at the beach watching the sea turtles and hoping one would come into shore to sun himself. Please meet Olivia Dawn, a 210 pound sea turtle. As a point of information, the turtles come to the warm sand to sun themselves and help aid in their digestion. There are about 28 turtles - all named and recognized by the volunteers that guard over them - that come to this particular beach.
We spent an afternoon whale-watching; a tour booked through Aulani's tour desk. What a wonderful experience! One of the big fellow's even did a back-flip for us. Thrilling!
We also spent a day over on the big island doing an Eco Volcano tour. While the tour was again a very educational experience, should you decide to do this, please do you homework and book with a reputable tour company. This excursion was booked through our local AAA and was plagued with problems: the plane was over 2 hours late taking off (Go! Airlines
), 4 very young children that were very bored 2 hours into a 12 hour tour, no time for dinner, the 'expert' tour guide failed to get us back to the airport on time and our flight had already departed. $700.00 later, we're on the last flight off the island and flying with Hawaiian airlines. This photo taken from a significant distance shows the molten glow of magma.
As a word of caution and something we knew, when traveling up the west coast be extremely careful. This area is plagued with homeless and is a constant source of headache for the local police with robbery. We were indeed victimized.
Our rental car was broken into - the trunk where we had stored our backpacks, purses, wallets ipad and cell phones. Some things were taken, some not and believe it or not, some were even returned to Aulani's front desk several hours after the incident. We had gone up the coast to watch a surfing championship......
Aulani is beautiful! I'd go back in a heartbeat. Even the long flight was tolerable. Maybe someday....
DDad and me near the path we walked daily taking in the beauty before us. Beside Aulani is one of 3 wedding chapels in Ko Olina. We would see weddings on a regular basis beginning as early as 9 AM! If (when - sshhh) we ever go back, I think I'd like to go in September or October. We've been in June and now in February. Yes, I think September would be good!