Aulani and Disneyland

[lishie]

We're back after a two week vacation. 10 days at Aulani on Oahu and then a 4 day stop in Anaheim for Disneyland.

The trip exceeded all my expectations.

Hawaii was even more amazing than I imagined. The resort was great, and the boys loved their child care center, which is included with your room cost. They went for a few hours almost every day, and were usually sad to leave when we came to pick them up. It was so nice to have peaceful dinners. And the kids could eat dinner at the kids club for $9 each, which was reasonable to us, we'd have spent more if we bought them dinner at the restaurants.

Spent about half the time at the resort and the other half sightseeing around the island. The boys loved just swimming and boogieboarding at the beaches.

Loved Disneyland as well. Few rides had waits of longer than 15-20 minutes. So easy to park hop. We enjoyed the new Soarin and the new Frozen show. We'll definitely be heading back to DL.

[Deleted]

I'm so jealous, that place looks awesome! I think the flight is just too long for us at this age. Do you have any pictures? Were meals included?

[mmmomof2]

I didn't realize childcare was included at Aulani! That makes the price much more reasonable. I found a deal at the Hyatt on Maui and I was curious how much it would be to send the girls to the kids club for a date night - it was like $150 for 2 hours! Did you rent a car at Aulani?

[ilikedonuts]

Have you been to Hawaii before? We are planning aulani and DL for 2019 for our 10 year anniversary and are bringing the kids as well. Everyone keeps telling me we shouldn't stay at aulani the entire time and to stay on another island as well, but I'm lazy and want to just stay put (and don't care if we really miss other stuff).

Glad you guys had a blast!

[lishie]

Jun 27, 2016 11:04:09 GMT -5 @notquiteblushing said:

I'm so jealous, that place looks awesome! I think the flight is just too long for us at this age. Do you have any pictures? Were meals included?

I wouldn't have done it at that age with kids either. We did a flight to Vancouver for an alaska cruise two years ago, and I decided to try Hawaii now that the boys are 5 & 7. The flight there went better than I expected. The first flight was about 3.5 hours, then the second was 8.5, so it was a lot of travel time the first day.

The kids did great though. We planned the early activities I wanted to do for our first day there, since I knew we 'd be up early anyway, but by the second day the kids were back to waking at their usual early hour.

We hiked Diamond head day 1 early morning, and it was great. I have lots of pictures that we're downloading, I'll share some tomorrow once they're organized. we took a ton.

No meal plan. We had a 1 bedroom condo, and with all the sand from the beach, the in room laundry was wonderful! I got some easy food from Costco to cook a few days, we ate out at some local places around the resort and hit some other places while sight seeing.

The pool and lazy river at the resort were really nice. The beach they have is in a lagoon, so it's nice and calm, but there's a great public beach about 10 minutes away that has surf and a jumping cliff if you want something more adventurous.

Absolutely loved Paint the Night at Disneyland. We thought it put the MSEP to shame, it was so great. We did the quick serve dining package and it was worth it to have an unblocked place to view without staking out a spot two hours early.

Loved World of Color as well.

[lishie]

Jun 27, 2016 11:58:35 GMT -5 ilikedonuts said:

Have you been to Hawaii before? We are planning aulani and DL for 2019 for our 10 year anniversary and are bringing the kids as well. Everyone keeps telling me we shouldn't stay at aulani the entire time and to stay on another island as well, but I'm lazy and want to just stay put (and don't care if we really miss other stuff).

Glad you guys had a blast!

We hadn't been to Hawaii before. We always did the Caribbean because the travel was so much easier, but now that I've been, I think the travel was worth it.

I liked that Aulani was away from the craziness of Waikiki. We didn't have a great desire to spend a lot of time in the city/resort area, so Aulani was perfect for us. We did day trips. One to North Shore, one to Kailua, one to Waikiki, and one to the little town near the resort.

DH did a scuba dive. He found someone to take him on a 1:1 dive, and got to swim with sea turtles and see an octopus up close. His photos are amazing.






We debated doing Big Island as well, but for our first trip, and with the kids being little, decided one island was enough. If we go back, we want to do a split stay, but I found enough to do on Oahu this time with no problem. There's still tons of stuff we didn't do on this trip that I was interested in.

[ilikedonuts]

Awesome pictures! Your trip sounds like exactly what we want to do (length of time as well too!). My girls will be 5 and 7 too when we go in 2019.

[lishie]

Jun 27, 2016 11:46:52 GMT -5 mmmomof2 said:

I didn't realize childcare was included at Aulani! That makes the price much more reasonable. I found a deal at the Hyatt on Maui and I was curious how much it would be to send the girls to the kids club for a date night - it was like $150 for 2 hours! Did you rent a car at Aulani?

We rented a car for our entire trip, and loved having it. The rental for 10 days was $300.We used it a lot, as we went somewhere almost every day. I was happy to have the freedom, as we enjoyed just driving along the coast and through the mountains enjoying the scenery.

[ribollita]

What's an avg cost roughly per night for someone renting points?

[lishie]

Jun 27, 2016 14:28:23 GMT -5 ribollita said:

What's an avg cost roughly per night for someone renting points?

For 10 days in our 1 bedroom garden view room we used 396 points. If you're paying the David's rate of $12 per point it would have been be $4752. Even with the 30% discount, the cash rate for the room we had was about $7,000.

A studio would have been about $2400 in a points rental.

[abs]

Bumping, lishie, but we are considering a trip to Aulani next summer. Prices are really quite reasonable! I do have a few questions: Can you tell me more about the kids club? What do the kids do there? Did the resort feel crowded?

Thanks!!

[lala]

Is the childcare included even if you rent DVC points? I don't think we'd do it for a few more years, but I've been poking around researching.

[lishie]

Aunty's is included for anyone staying at Aulani. We were able to go across the street to the shopping center/restaurants and we also did a walk down to the other resorts to check out their bars/restaurants while the kids were at Aunty's. You can't really go further than that though, because they want you to be able to come back to get the kids if needed.

There are a few scheduled activities you can sign the kids up for--my kids loved the Hula party and making space goo. They also offered a kids comedy show and another activity that I can't remember right now.

The one day they were outside playing when we arrived to pick them up, another day they were doing Disney charades.

They also had a movie room, and art center and a computer area that the older kids seemed to enjoy.

[dcrunnergirl52]

Bumping this thread b/c we are considering Aulani in November (we're booked to go on a Disney cruise but b/c of Zika, we're likely cancelling). lishie, was driving for day trips a PITA? I've read a few reviews and people talk about it being SO FAR from Honolulu and other places, but on the map, it doesn't look that far. We're thinking of just doing one or two trips outside the resort and spend the rest of the time there.

[lishie]

Aug 18, 2016 7:02:55 GMT -5 dcrunnergirl52 said:

Bumping this thread b/c we are considering Aulani in November (we're booked to go on a Disney cruise but b/c of Zika, we're likely cancelling). lishie , was driving for day trips a PITA? I've read a few reviews and people talk about it being SO FAR from Honolulu and other places, but on the map, it doesn't look that far. We're thinking of just doing one or two trips outside the resort and spend the rest of the time there.

I didn't find to a pain, but most of what I wanted to see wasn't in Honolulu anyway. And as we drove around the island we went from Honolulu to Kailua, Kalilua to Ko Olina (where Aulani is), Ko Olina to North Shore, North shore to Dole plantation, we found that it was about the same about to drive to these places regardless of where we were coming and going from.

[dcrunnergirl52]

lishie, can I ask one more Aulani question: did you get an oceanview room? We just booked a villa, but I'm trying to decide if we should pay the extra to upgrade to ocean view.

[lishie]

Aug 20, 2016 10:19:19 GMT -5 dcrunnergirl52 said:

lishie , can I ask one more Aulani question: did you get an oceanview room? We just booked a villa, but I'm trying to decide if we should pay the extra to upgrade to ocean view.

We didn't get an oceanview. I was using my DVC points for the room, and I didn't have enough for oceanview.. With booking the 1 bedroom I was using 3 years of points, and only had enough points for the garden view.

There are only a few full oceanview rooms, but the ones they have definitely have a great view! A lot of the pool view rooms have some ocean view as well.

[Deleted]

We are planning on doing this in about 10 years LOLOLOL! But by then our kids will be 15 and 10 so I wanted to go to Hawaii when they are older. We will have to bank, use and borrow our points in order to swing it but it really will be a once in a lifetime trip.

Did you like doing it in that order Aulani first, then Disneyland? We were thinking of doing 7 days in California ( 3 at Disneyland, and the rest exploring ) and then 7 days at Aulani.

Yes I am already thinking about a trip 10 years from now.

[alleinesein]

Aug 23, 2016 9:03:38 GMT -5 lishie said:

Aug 20, 2016 10:19:19 GMT -5 dcrunnergirl52 said:

lishie , can I ask one more Aulani question: did you get an oceanview room? We just booked a villa, but I'm trying to decide if we should pay the extra to upgrade to ocean view.

We didn't get an oceanview. I was using my DVC points for the room, and I didn't have enough for oceanview.. With booking the 1 bedroom I was using 3 years of points, and only had enough points for the garden view.

There are only a few full oceanview rooms, but the ones they have definitely have a great view! A lot of the pool view rooms have some ocean view as well.

 How many points do you have?  Aulani isn't that much higher than some of the other DVC resorts.

[lishie]

alleinesein,

We own 150 at Aulani, and 170 at Boardwalk.

We did a 1 bedroom for 10 nights, during summer, which was 44 points a night on the cusp of summer, and 50 points a night the rest. That adds up quickly.

[terpsfan]

We are doing this exact trip next spring break. Total bucket list, have been saving our DVC points for it!!! Just booked DL accommodations, Aulani up next in a few days as we are 7 months out. Flights booked. So ridiculously excited

ETA- we are reversing. DL then on to Aulani

[scribellesam]

I was just popping into this board to post a thread about Aulani, so thanks for the great info! We are going for a week next May with our two boys, who will be 5yo and 2yo.

I was bummed to realize DS2 won't be quite old enough for the kids club while we're there (he'll be a few months shy of 3yo) but we're going with my parents so we will have some help. I'll probably still take the 5yo if he wants to go and will consent to leave his grandpa's side for five minutes.

I'm always very overwhelmed by all the pre-planning that goes into WDW trips. Is there any similar planning that someone can or should do for the Aulani?