Aulani: What's the One Thing You Wish You Knew?

[MichelleB]

Can someone tell me what the wristbands are for? I'm getting that they're needed for towels???

 

[crystal1313]

I believe every day you need a new wristband to use the pool. They change colors daily.

 

[MichelleB]

I believe every day you need a new wristband to use the pool. They change colors daily.

Isn't that kind of a pain? You'd think they could use a room key to scan you into the pool area instead of having to go every day & get a new band. We are going to be there for 14 days in June. Can 1 person get them for the whole room or does each person have to go each day?

 

[crystal1313]

I haven't' been yet, we are going in July, so I am not sure if one person can get them for the whole room. I think they do check your room key to give you the wrist band. It's to keep people out of the pools who are not staying at the resort. It kinda sounds like a pain to me too, but I figure we will need to get towels anyway, and from what I have gathered you get the wristbands at the towel stations.

 

[wanderlust7]

Isn't that kind of a pain? You'd think they could use a room key to scan you into the pool area instead of having to go every day & get a new band. We are going to be there for 14 days in June. Can 1 person get them for the whole room or does each person have to go each day?

The pool area is not fenced. It is just all open and anybody can walk around, go to the restaurants, go to the beach, etc. Only guests can use the pool and the chairs, so the wrist bands are the only way they can differentiate. I don't think one person can get them for everyone else. When we went, each person had to show their room card and then the CM would attach the wrist band. I guess the concern would be that it would be given or sold to a non-guest.

We didn't find it to be a big inconvenience to get them since we were getting towels anyways or a drink of water (they have ice cold lemon water in front of each station).

 

[jodistrock]

Many people would go and get towels the night before for the next morning. Just keep your wristband on all day and get to the window before they close. This was helpful if you were an early bird or didn't want to wait in line first thing in the morning when the window opened. You would still need to get the new color wristband for the next day once the morning line disappeared.

Interesting! I never saw anyone doing that! However, that is not a bad idea!

 

[Gorechick]

Interesting! I never saw anyone doing that! However, that is not a bad idea!

I didn't figure it out for a day or two until I saw people getting stacks the night before and with towels early in the morning. Then when I wanted to sit and watch the sun come up and the cushions were cold and wet I was wishing for a towel. I got towels for the next day after that.

 

[jtba]

The pool area is not fenced. It is just all open and anybody can walk around, go to the restaurants, go to the beach, etc. Only guests can use the pool and the chairs, so the wrist bands are the only way they can differentiate. I don't think one person can get them for everyone else. When we went, each person had to show their room card and then the CM would attach the wrist band. I guess the concern would be that it would be given or sold to a non-guest.

We didn't find it to be a big inconvenience to get them since we were getting towels anyways or a drink of water (they have ice cold lemon water in front of each station).

yep, that was our experience too. every guest (including children) gets his/her own key. the ones for the kids don't have the ability for room charges (though i suppose for the older ones you can probably request for that to be added). at the towel stations, the CM would scan each key, then put the bands around your wrists and cut off the extra part. we got fresh towels every morning and the lines weren't too bad.

 

[crystal1313]

Good to know jtba! I just thought one key would work for the group of us, but now I know I will need to bring both the boys keys as well.

 

[AulaniNutz]

WOW-morning laps in the lagoon is a great idea! It is such a calm body of water, it is the perfect place. Can you imagine it at sunrise? Ohhhh...might have to do this!

Bring a mask and snorkel and just keep swimming, just keep swimming. Dory would be proud. That's how I get my laps in..

 

[heybets30]

Well, it's been almost 7 months (inconceivable!) since we've gone, and there are SO MANY things that I kind of knew about from diligently reading the boards, but didn't quite understand until I was there. Here's one BIG one that we learned as we went ...

If you do ANY Photopass events - Aunty's, get pictures from GoPro photogs in the pool, etc., keep track of when/where - and in the pools - who took your picture (i.e., was it a GoPro). There are only 2 photopass kiosks in the hotel shop (which is one of our MAJOR complaints). The line can get ridiculous while people try to find their pictures. We added ours as we went along, which saved a TON - and I mean a TON - of time on our last morning. For some reason, our GoPro pics weren't being found, the photog took over a day to turn them in (unusual), but they keep all the memory cards in a binder, and were able to pull them up physically by pulling his card because we knew the date/approximate time and WHO the photog was. So, photos not lost.

Seriously, most photos were available an hour or two after being taken (Especially for Aunty's - like Surf's UP or Fish are Friends). I would go down closer to closing time each night and add that day's pics. There was ALWAYS a wait. Worst wait was 40 minutes because I was behind someone who waited until their last day to add photos.

It takes a while if you do something like Aunty's - you'll need to sort through ALL the photos taken that night for your kids, because the kids don't have photopasses to keep track of which photos they are in. Same with the GoPro photogs - you most likely will not have a photopass card in your swimsuit next to the infinity wall ;-)

And, since I love this pic so much ... our favorite GoPro photog pic that I was so anxious to get :

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

I second Heybets30's fantastic advice above about adding pictures to your PhotoPass! What I did was keep a running list on the little notepad in the room. Every afternoon I'd jot down the date and time of any pics we had taken where they couldn't scan the card. Then on our last full day I went down to the kiosk at a quiet time (mid-afternoon in our case) and handed over the list, which made it a snap for the CM to add all our photos. Also one other bit - the pictures they added manually did not show up on our in-room TV. I was concerned about this when I went down to purchase our CD on the last morning, thinking maybe the added photos weren't there, but the CM assured me that they don't always show up on the TV. They were there in the system though and made it on to the CD with no problem.

 

[heybets30]

Oh - I just thought of one. I'm not sure I've seen this one yet. Make sure you CHANGE THE DATE/TIME SETTINGS ON YOUR CAMERAS TO HAWAII STANDARDS!! The fact that I didn't do this for our 4 cameras (yes, kids each had a waterproof, hubby and I had DLSR and the GoPro), has put me behind in any organizing of photos. I'll look at something and think, wait, we didn't do that on the 8th, or wasn't that in the morning? If I had chanced the camera time/date settings to local time, the photopass/iphone pics wouldn't seem so out of place! The photopass/iphone pics are perfectly timed for local Hawaii; but if I join all our pictures by time/date, they do not mesh with the photopass/iphone pics.

I keep thinking I'll remember to do this with any trip; however, I do not. So, each photo is date/time-stamped for Chicago rather than Hawaii. 5-hour time difference is a pain in the you-know-what! It may not sound like a big deal, but seriously 1,000+ photos later, it is.

 

[DizDragonfly]

5-hour time difference is a pain in the you-know-what! It may not sound like a big deal, but seriously 1,000+ photos later, it is.

There are some programs out there that will batch edit your photos and change the time stamp on them. You just tell it to adjust the time by the number of hours you want and what photos to adjust and POOF it's all fixed.

 

[brimorga]

Good to know jtba! I just thought one key would work for the group of us, but now I know I will need to bring both the boys keys as well.

One key will work for everyone. My kids keys never left the room.

 

[crystal1313]

One key will work for everyone. My kids keys never left the room.

Oh yay! Thank you!!

 

[DisneyCruisin]

Does anyone have car rental discount codes to share, or point me in the right direction to? Found codes here for our trip to Aulani two years ago, and saved a nice amount. Can't seem to find anything now. Heading back 6/12!

 

[MichelleB]

Does anyone have car rental discount codes to share, or point me in the right direction to? Found codes here for our trip to Aulani two years ago, and saved a nice amount. Can't seem to find anything now. Heading back 6/12!

SAMs & Costco give discounts. Retailmenot.com also has coupon codes. You can google for discount codes.

 

[MichelleB]

Am I correct in that we'll get a lei when we check in? I was going to pay to have it done at the airport but hate to do that if the resort does it too.

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

Am I correct in that we'll get a lei when we check in? I was going to pay to have it done at the airport but hate to do that if the resort does it too.

Yes, when we pulled up to Aulani we were greeted by a cast member who gave me a flower lei, a kukui nut lei for DH and a necklace for DD.