Aulani 2017 - Part 2

Continued from Thursday's post - Aulani Part 1

When I left you, we had just finished Day 2 of our 4 day, 3 night stay at Aulani. Here's how we spent our last full day at Aulani and the morning before we left for the airport to head to Kauai.

Sorry in advance that some of the photos are blurry. All the photos taken in the pool were with my water proof case for my phone. It had gotten a little foggy the day before when it was raining and I just realized that some look a bit blurry in parts.

Day 3

Day 4

The Magic Kingdom Mamas had recommended that when at Aulani, you walk down the street a little bit to check out Paradise Cove (they used to have a blog post on Aulani, but I think they just updated their website and I can't seem to find it anymore). So, the morning of our third day, we walked down to check it out. It was very secluded and very quiet and we were almost the only ones there that morning. It was absolutely gorgeous and the photos don't do it justice. Had we not had a five year old who wouldn't sit still with us, I would have loved to sit and read and picnic there for a while.

After the beach, we headed across the street to the coffee place for some drinks and some breakfast and then we headed back to the resort for some pool time. We spent the majority of the day at the different pools, in the lazy river, and at the splash pad (Mason's FAVORITE place) as well as enjoying some choice beverages in a pineapple (the Mai Tai's were THE BEST there and on the last day I HAD to have one IN a pineapple - it cost like $9 more but was so worth it!).

We headed to story time at the fire pit with Uncle and Moana, ate dinner, took in one last sunset, and packed up our stuff to head to Kauai the next day.

In the morning, technically day 4, we took one last picture with our wrist bands, had some breakfast, and headed to the airport to continue our vacation with our family!


So, the burning question...
Is Aulani really worth the price? 

Yes and no.

Yes because I think you should definitely go at least once.
No because it was a quite expensive 4 days and I think it is a bit overpriced for what you get.

There is no denying, the resort is GORGEOUS and amazing. I LOVE that they kept it very Hawaiian while still having some touches of Disney. They had character breakfasts (that we didn't do because we could see them here at Disneyland and they were pricey), they had character sightings where you could take pictures, there were things like food items that were Disney themed, and more. Overall though, you felt a very overwhelming sense that you were in Hawaii, not Disneyland, if that makes sense. Would I pay money to be there during the peak season? HECK NO. October was perfect for us. We never had to fight for a pool chair. There were no waits in the restaurants. We got an upgraded room for free. When it was raining outside, the indoor areas were not crowded. There are SO many perks to going in off season, not just the price discount. Sure the weather might be better and hotter in the summer (it was like 75-ish when we were there which was nice outside, but not quite hot enough for the pool for my liking) or it might be more fun and decorative around the holidays, but you could not pay me enough money to be there with all those other people. Nope. Nope. Nope. It's the same reason I avoid Disneyland during the peak times. It's just not fun. I mean, did you see the pictures of Mason at the splash pad on the 3rd day? I mean, he was ALONE for like half the day when he was playing there! That is such a rarity at a Disney place EVER.

Would I go back?

Yes and no lol. I originally said no. I mean, it was fun while it lasted, we experienced it once and I do think it is quite overpriced. BUT having said that, looking back on these photos, and seeing other people's pictures of them there, make me want to go back. It is truly a gorgeous resort with tons of things to do (we never left the resort except to walk across the street to eat). You literally could drop your kids off at the kids club and go to the spa or hang by the adult pool or do whatever (we didn't, but you could). Or you could spend all day with your kids and just explore the area, enjoying the sights and relaxing. Having said that, if we were to go back, I think we'd do Aulani for a couple days, all inclusive, not leave the property, and then head to Honolulu for a few days and explore around over there. I've never been to Oahu besides this trip and I'd really like to explore a bit and see Pearl Harbor.

Any questions about anything I didn't cover... just ask!

Aulani 2017 - Part 1

I debated doing a vacation recap (1) this far after our trip because I was worried I wouldn't remember most of the details and (2) at all because most people find them boring, but when I mentioned it the other day in one of my posts, people seemed excited about it, so I thought I would share.



This post will probably be heavily photos, but I want to start with a little back story first. So maybe 9 months or so ago, my step mom asked my brother and I if we would be interested in taking a trip to Hawaii for her birthday in November. I won't share her exact age (for her privacy purposes), but let's just say it was a big milestone. I talked to Seth and after some convincing, we decided we were in.

A little something to note: my ONLY hesitation was that Mason is in real school now (as in elementary school vs just preschool) and I was worried about him missing so much school (and how the school would react). Turns out, it's JUST kindergarten (as so many people told me), don't miss out on a family trip for that. So, I took their advice, said yes, and we got an independent study from the school and everything was fine.

So, Kauai was planned for late October. At first, that was just the plan, a week in Kauai. But then as things got closer (literally like August/September), I thought "when will we have an all expense paid trip to Hawaii come our way again and when will we have the opportunity to take Mason out of school like this again?". Answer? Never. So I did what anyone would do and looked in to adding on a couple days in Aulani! It wasn't as expensive as I imagined since it was the off season (though, don't get me wrong, it was NOT cheap) and changing our plane tickets was actually a LOT easier and cheaper than I imagined (by some miracle, the price to change our departure date and destination city was only $150 for the three of us!). With all that falling in to place, we booked Aulani and booked an inter island flight to get us from Oahu to Kauai.

With that long intro... here are some pictures from our first two days at Aulani!

Day 1

Day 2

Day 1 was the day we arrived, Sunday, October 22, 2017. We departed Los Angeles at 8:20am and arrived in Honolulu, Oahu at 11:30am. We had scheduled a taxi to pick us up since we didn't rent a car in Oahu and it took about 30-40 minutes for us to get from the airport to the hotel (the airport is on the south east side of the island and the resort was on the south west side). We checked in, got settled in our room, and then made our way down to the pool area to find some lunch (and some drinks 😉). Something to note about our room: given how late we were booking, for the Sunday-Wednesday stay that we wanted, they didn't have the cheapest room available, we had to go one up to what I think they called the "garden view". I figured this would be great as we'd get a view of the pool area with all the greenery. Upon checking in, we were informed that we could get an upgrade for free, only catch was that it was a handicap accessible room and there was a handicap shower. Sounded fine to me, so we agreed. We got our keys, went up to our room, and it hit me - handicapped shower means NO TUB. I don't know why it didn't click earlier (I just thought it would be a larger tub or something), but that wasn't going to work for us. So we called down to the front desk, explained that we had a son with autism and that he would ONLY take baths, no showers, and we needed to change rooms. They were very nice about it, so Mason and I waited as Seth changed our room. We went from having a gorgeous pool view to... a view of the parking lot and mountains. Womp womp. I messaged our travel agent, saying I paid a LOT to have a view of the garden, so she called and apparently the view of the mountains is considered "garden view". Annoying. But whatever. We weren't planning to be in the room much anyway. So we went down to have some lunch, did a little exploring, and went swimming. We also of course hit up the shave ice booth (SO GOOD - add the Mickey ears (for fun!) and get it with ice cream on the bottom and condensed milk on top - you will be in heaven, trust me).

Day 2, Monday morning, started off fine, but we heard there was a huge storm rolling in. It was currently slamming Maui and was expected to hit us later that day. So, we walked around the resort a bit more and then walked down a path that took us along the beach and past other resorts until it started raining. It wasn't hot, but it wasn't cold either, and we definitely didn't come to Aulani to sit around in our room all day, so we got on our swim suits and headed to the pool. We were some of the only people in the lazy river that day and it was glorious. We swam until we got too cold and then we went back to our room, got dressed, and made our way to the community center to rent an iPad to do the Menehune Trail tour. Since it was raining, the only option was the indoor tour, but it worked fine for us and Mason had a blast. The rain let up a bit later and we were able to walk across the street to the shopping center for dinner. All in all, we were having a blast so far at Aulani!

I didn't originally plan on making this a two part recap but it was getting a bit picture heavy and I took a lot of pictures on Day 3 (when it was sunny again!) and I don't want this to get too long. Stay tuned for our last couple days at Aulani and whether or not I think it's worth the price.