Leshaface
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2008
Hi everyone! Got back from a 6 night/7 day stay at Aulani and it was absolutely amazing! The only thing I would change about this trip was we really should have added an extra night or two. Really wasn’t enough time, but it was still so relaxing and so different from the ‘run all over’ WDW.
The Aulani boards were truly invaluable to me, including reading some TR’s, so I wanted to pass along some tips and info in return.
First off, if you need some reading material, I highly recommend my friends @Dugette @Captain_Oblivious and @eandesmom TR’s. Great, detailed reviews. Also, a special shoutout to @buffettgirl who lives on the island and is very hands on here, so thank you!
I’ll be doing a more detailed Trip Report soon and I’ll post the link here whenever I get it up and running, but really wanted to get this out there for those leaving soon!
Car Rental – We ended up going through Costco Travel for our car rental (Alamo). I HIGHLY recommend a Mini Van. We are not mini van people, but man, having all that room was great. It was also about 20 bucks cheaper than the Full Size SUV’s. You do have to take a shuttle from Honolulu Airport since it’s off-site. It is NOT on HNL property. And not going to lie, it took a while for us to get a shuttle. About 20 minutes. It wasn’t lack of shuttles, they kept on passing us since we were the last stop and they were always full. If you’re able to, try to get the first stop. I know that will be difficult to think about as soon as you land, but when you’re at baggage claim, try to get out those very first doors if possible. In hindsight, we should have just walked down to the first stop and hopped on there. I’ll put this in bold: USE THE KIOSKS!!! As soon as I got off the shuttle, more than half of the shuttle folks went to the line and everyone else to the shuttle. Very, very easy (even for the technology challenged!) and there’s someone there to help you if necessary. With Costco you’re able to add an extra person for free!)
Waze App – This app was the bomb! It gave detailed information about any accidents, traffic and police checkpoints. I highly recommend using this if you’re going to venture out from Aulani. This next tip is kind of tied in to the car rental. I did not purchase the gas option through the car rental and opted to fill up before returning it. When searching for nearby gas stations on Waze, it showed a gas station directly across the way from the return, off Nimtiz Rd (in red) When we showed up, it was a Military gas station and you must show your military ID to get gas. Luckily, there was a Chevron (in blue) not too far away, go there.
Target and Costco – This is Exit 1 on your way into Aulani. This is NOT a SuperTarget so some things we did have to go to Costco for. But one thing I don’t think I even read about (or maybe I forgot!) was they don’t give plastic bags. You need to either bring your own bags or buy their reusable bags. Just keep that in mind when going. I’ll be posting the receipt of our purchases on the TR since I don’t have that on me now, to show prices. If you are a Sushi/Poke fan, PLEASE grab some while at Costco! Oh my, so delicious and fresh! It is located directly across from the premade fresh items in what they call a ‘coffin freezer’ (had to ask where the Poke was and they used this term!) and they had lots of different types available.
Aunty’s Beach House - I signed my 4 year old up ahead of time (90 days before) and was able to sign him up for 2 complimentary activities – Stitch’s Space Goo and Aunty’s Aloha Party. I also signed him up for Surf’s Up with Chip and Dale for $79 and it’s a 3 hour experience with dinner included. HE LOVED THIS PLACE! Every day he’d ask to go Aunty’s! Like I said, he just turned 4 on October 2 and this place was right up his alley. I kept reading that it was probably for older kids (7-10) and it got me a bit nervous hearing that but always threw a fit when we picked him up. I’d say that’s a good sign
So if you have a younger child, please don’t look too much into those reviews about it being for older kids. There were SO many CM’s inside Aunty’s, I felt completely at ease when being shown around. Which I should note, open house is everyday from 8-9:30am when parents and kids (younger too!) can go and check out the place, but you cannot leave your child at that time, you must stay with them. Drop offs – had only seen once during our trip when they had the big red signs hanging at doors, meaning full capacity. Otherwise, we had no issues dropping him off for free play anyday.
Pool – This one is a bit of a downer. We arrived on a Saturday (10/8) and decided to check out the place and the lazy river. We didn’t need chairs but walked around to check out the situation. LOTS of people, every chair in the place taken. And this was later in the day, around 4pm. It wasn’t any better on Sunday or Monday. We did find a little relief Tuesday through Thursday, but you really had to keep an eye out for people gathering their stuff to leave. DH was pretty annoyed by Wednesday and spoke to someone where we picked up our towels and wristbands. The CM said he goes around a few times an hour (even showed us a diagram of the pool area!) and marks chairs that have not been used. If items have not been moved after an hour, they will pick up hose items and free that chair up. I will say, after that, I did notice CM’s walking around looking at chairs on days we were laying out.
Beach – Lot of chairs available here, all morning, afternoon, evening. Not sure why most people aren’t at the beach anyway since tgis is Hawaiii afterall and you can visit pools anywhere. One thing that caught me off guard was the waves. One day in particular was very strong, really pulling us back out further than where we wanted. That day, my MIL was out there standing (in a little over 3 ½ feet of water) next to a woman and her baby, looked away for a minute, went back to look towards the woman and right as she was looking at them, she had seen the mom go under with her baby (not wearing a life vest). My MIL grabbed the baby from the mom and the mom was able to pick herself up. The current had pushed her back causing her to lose her balance and go into deeper water where she couldn’t get her footing. Just be aware when out there with kids or even yourself and look around you. I felt like I was a life guard myself, checking out my ‘water neighbors’ and keeping an eye out for them too. There are no life guards out there, or at least, not while we were there.
BBQ – there are only 4 BBQ’s available and they are popular! We got there around 5pm and snagged the last BBQ. Not too much later, there was a small lined formed to use them. You can get BBQ tools (brush, tongs) at the Community Center (located on the bottom floor of the Ewa building) for free and you can return them dirty. Also, there is no rinse off sink. My mom took a water cup to the refillable mug station and filled it up with water to rinse off our utensils in between using. When she went back for a second time, she ran into a CM and asked if there were any hidden sinks anywhere and the CM had said that management was looking into putting sinks out there. So if you have a refillable mug or the water cups that they give you at any of the Counter service restaurants, just take your mug/cup over to the refillable station about 40 steps away from the BBQ station and use that to rinse off.
Tub - I think the majority of the tubs in the rooms are whirlpool tubs. A long time ago, my friend @franandaj had told me that mousekeeping doesn’t do the best job about cleaning those jets. She told me a way to clean them but I forgot how to. If she see’s this maybe she can add her cleaning tip here, but what I really should have done was run the jets BEFORE filling up with water to just clear them out. Big mistake. Right at the end of my relaxing soak, with the delicious bath bombs from Laniwai spa, I decided to run the jets
Dark leaves/seeds (maybe Lavender??) started coming out of the jets, as if someone with a bath bomb that had lavender leaves in it, was sucked up into jets and re-released into my bath. Ew! Learn from my mistake and run those jets before starting your bath!
There is sooo much stuff I could write, but wanted to get the more important things out of the way right now and will include whatever I didn’t write here, in my Trip Report. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
The Aulani boards were truly invaluable to me, including reading some TR’s, so I wanted to pass along some tips and info in return.
First off, if you need some reading material, I highly recommend my friends @Dugette @Captain_Oblivious and @eandesmom TR’s. Great, detailed reviews. Also, a special shoutout to @buffettgirl who lives on the island and is very hands on here, so thank you!
I’ll be doing a more detailed Trip Report soon and I’ll post the link here whenever I get it up and running, but really wanted to get this out there for those leaving soon!
Car Rental – We ended up going through Costco Travel for our car rental (Alamo). I HIGHLY recommend a Mini Van. We are not mini van people, but man, having all that room was great. It was also about 20 bucks cheaper than the Full Size SUV’s. You do have to take a shuttle from Honolulu Airport since it’s off-site. It is NOT on HNL property. And not going to lie, it took a while for us to get a shuttle. About 20 minutes. It wasn’t lack of shuttles, they kept on passing us since we were the last stop and they were always full. If you’re able to, try to get the first stop. I know that will be difficult to think about as soon as you land, but when you’re at baggage claim, try to get out those very first doors if possible. In hindsight, we should have just walked down to the first stop and hopped on there. I’ll put this in bold: USE THE KIOSKS!!! As soon as I got off the shuttle, more than half of the shuttle folks went to the line and everyone else to the shuttle. Very, very easy (even for the technology challenged!) and there’s someone there to help you if necessary. With Costco you’re able to add an extra person for free!)
Waze App – This app was the bomb! It gave detailed information about any accidents, traffic and police checkpoints. I highly recommend using this if you’re going to venture out from Aulani. This next tip is kind of tied in to the car rental. I did not purchase the gas option through the car rental and opted to fill up before returning it. When searching for nearby gas stations on Waze, it showed a gas station directly across the way from the return, off Nimtiz Rd (in red) When we showed up, it was a Military gas station and you must show your military ID to get gas. Luckily, there was a Chevron (in blue) not too far away, go there.
Target and Costco – This is Exit 1 on your way into Aulani. This is NOT a SuperTarget so some things we did have to go to Costco for. But one thing I don’t think I even read about (or maybe I forgot!) was they don’t give plastic bags. You need to either bring your own bags or buy their reusable bags. Just keep that in mind when going. I’ll be posting the receipt of our purchases on the TR since I don’t have that on me now, to show prices. If you are a Sushi/Poke fan, PLEASE grab some while at Costco! Oh my, so delicious and fresh! It is located directly across from the premade fresh items in what they call a ‘coffin freezer’ (had to ask where the Poke was and they used this term!) and they had lots of different types available.
Aunty’s Beach House - I signed my 4 year old up ahead of time (90 days before) and was able to sign him up for 2 complimentary activities – Stitch’s Space Goo and Aunty’s Aloha Party. I also signed him up for Surf’s Up with Chip and Dale for $79 and it’s a 3 hour experience with dinner included. HE LOVED THIS PLACE! Every day he’d ask to go Aunty’s! Like I said, he just turned 4 on October 2 and this place was right up his alley. I kept reading that it was probably for older kids (7-10) and it got me a bit nervous hearing that but always threw a fit when we picked him up. I’d say that’s a good sign
So if you have a younger child, please don’t look too much into those reviews about it being for older kids. There were SO many CM’s inside Aunty’s, I felt completely at ease when being shown around. Which I should note, open house is everyday from 8-9:30am when parents and kids (younger too!) can go and check out the place, but you cannot leave your child at that time, you must stay with them. Drop offs – had only seen once during our trip when they had the big red signs hanging at doors, meaning full capacity. Otherwise, we had no issues dropping him off for free play anyday.Pool – This one is a bit of a downer. We arrived on a Saturday (10/8) and decided to check out the place and the lazy river. We didn’t need chairs but walked around to check out the situation. LOTS of people, every chair in the place taken. And this was later in the day, around 4pm. It wasn’t any better on Sunday or Monday. We did find a little relief Tuesday through Thursday, but you really had to keep an eye out for people gathering their stuff to leave. DH was pretty annoyed by Wednesday and spoke to someone where we picked up our towels and wristbands. The CM said he goes around a few times an hour (even showed us a diagram of the pool area!) and marks chairs that have not been used. If items have not been moved after an hour, they will pick up hose items and free that chair up. I will say, after that, I did notice CM’s walking around looking at chairs on days we were laying out.
Beach – Lot of chairs available here, all morning, afternoon, evening. Not sure why most people aren’t at the beach anyway since tgis is Hawaiii afterall and you can visit pools anywhere. One thing that caught me off guard was the waves. One day in particular was very strong, really pulling us back out further than where we wanted. That day, my MIL was out there standing (in a little over 3 ½ feet of water) next to a woman and her baby, looked away for a minute, went back to look towards the woman and right as she was looking at them, she had seen the mom go under with her baby (not wearing a life vest). My MIL grabbed the baby from the mom and the mom was able to pick herself up. The current had pushed her back causing her to lose her balance and go into deeper water where she couldn’t get her footing. Just be aware when out there with kids or even yourself and look around you. I felt like I was a life guard myself, checking out my ‘water neighbors’ and keeping an eye out for them too. There are no life guards out there, or at least, not while we were there.
BBQ – there are only 4 BBQ’s available and they are popular! We got there around 5pm and snagged the last BBQ. Not too much later, there was a small lined formed to use them. You can get BBQ tools (brush, tongs) at the Community Center (located on the bottom floor of the Ewa building) for free and you can return them dirty. Also, there is no rinse off sink. My mom took a water cup to the refillable mug station and filled it up with water to rinse off our utensils in between using. When she went back for a second time, she ran into a CM and asked if there were any hidden sinks anywhere and the CM had said that management was looking into putting sinks out there. So if you have a refillable mug or the water cups that they give you at any of the Counter service restaurants, just take your mug/cup over to the refillable station about 40 steps away from the BBQ station and use that to rinse off.
Tub - I think the majority of the tubs in the rooms are whirlpool tubs. A long time ago, my friend @franandaj had told me that mousekeeping doesn’t do the best job about cleaning those jets. She told me a way to clean them but I forgot how to. If she see’s this maybe she can add her cleaning tip here, but what I really should have done was run the jets BEFORE filling up with water to just clear them out. Big mistake. Right at the end of my relaxing soak, with the delicious bath bombs from Laniwai spa, I decided to run the jets
Dark leaves/seeds (maybe Lavender??) started coming out of the jets, as if someone with a bath bomb that had lavender leaves in it, was sucked up into jets and re-released into my bath. Ew! Learn from my mistake and run those jets before starting your bath!There is sooo much stuff I could write, but wanted to get the more important things out of the way right now and will include whatever I didn’t write here, in my Trip Report. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
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In shopping for the potential hurricane, we went to the Hickam base exchange and commissary for water and some food. We should have made THAT little excursion earlier in the trip, as the base facilities were pretty great. How close is Costco to Ko OLina?
When Bell Services came up, my husband was talking to him about how busy the pool seemed to be and he told him that weekends were definitely busy but that even the weekdays that week and the next week may be a little busy too because some schools were out. There were days I just left our stuff right up against the wall closer to the walk-in area of the lazy river and our stuff never got moved or touched. I do wish for people that don't really want or need chairs, they offered lockers to keep bags, phones, etc. I felt like the majority of the chairs were being used for just personal items.
