A few Aulani questions

[happymamma]

Hi! We are planning a trip to Aulani and I've been reading as many trip reports and other threads as I can find, but I do have some questions for you all. We aren't DVC members and would be booking a standard hotel room probably. Hope this is the right place to post.

-If you could choose early-to-mid October or sometime in spring (April/May), which would you choose in terms of lower crowds?

-We can't go this spring but I saw the current special (4th night free) and I'm wondering if this type of offer is common? Any thoughts on the chances of a special offer for the fall? Do they ever do a percent-off discount like WDW resorts?

-I was reading that some have a hard time getting into programs at Aunty's Beach House unless you get up early and wait in line. Is this true just for special added-cost programs, or for just having your kids spend time there that day at all? Does it get full early in the day?

-Are there any first-floor rooms you can request that would allow you to access the rest of the resort by just walking out your patio door?

Thanks for any info!

 

[Cinderpamela]

These are some good questions and I can only respond to a few.... my answers are below in Green:

Hi! We are planning a trip to Aulani and I've been reading as many trip reports and other threads as I can find, but I do have some questions for you all. We aren't DVC members and would be booking a standard hotel room probably. Hope this is the right place to post.

-If you could choose early-to-mid October or sometime in spring (April/May), which would you choose in terms of lower crowds?I think either of those would be good for lower crowds but October maybe even more so since you would not have the April Spring break-ers.

-We can't go this spring but I saw the current special (4th night free) and I'm wondering if this type of offer is common? Any thoughts on the chances of a special offer for the fall? Do they ever do a percent-off discount like WDW resorts?For the regular hotel rooms I have seen this night free offer every so often.... seems to be during lower crowd times when they are trying to fill rooms. I haven't seen a percentage off offer, mostly just the get one night free offers, but honestly I really dont pay too much attention to those because I am DVC so I may have missed something. But really, isn't a night free deal basically a percentage off?

-I was reading that some have a hard time getting into programs at Aunty's Beach House unless you get up early and wait in line. Is this true just for special added-cost programs, or for just having your kids spend time there that day at all? Does it get full early in the day?Cant help you here as my kids are too old for Auntie's. I have read that you need to get there early to get your child in.

-Are there any first-floor rooms you can request that would allow you to access the rest of the resort by just walking out your patio door?The poolview rooms that are DVC have this ability. As non DVC you can still pay cash and get a DVC room, I often see this as an option on the regular website. But instead of 2 queens you get one queen and a pull out sleeper sofa. To my recollection on the hotel room wings it seemed to me like they mostly had fenced off patio areas when on the ground floor. Or they were on second floor and above.
I bet "wrld" would have a better idea. He is the one who created the Aulani Villas views thread. Hopefully he sees your questions and can lend his expertise. If not you may want to post this question over on his thread.

Thanks for any info!

That's what I know. Hopefully others will chime in on the Aunties questions and more.

 

[Coastie]

We were advised not to travel during the Japanese Golden Week which is typically the latter part of April, early May to Aulani. Many Japanese travel to Hawaii during this timeframe and gets very crowded.

 

[twinsdad2007]

How does the price of a typical vacation at Aulani compare to one at WDW?

At WDW, we usually spend $4,500 on tickets, dining and spending money for 7 nights. I know the airfare will be more, but am curious if we can have a nice vacation on about the same budget.

I haven't started planning anything and have no idea what their is to do there. We are a family of 4(me, DM, twin DDs (7)).

We have been to WDW every year for the past 4 years and will be back in June but would like to plan an Aulani visit in the next two or three years.

Thanks for your feedback.

 

[Cinderpamela]

I did a spread sheet to try to help us make the decision between WDW and Aulani for our December 2013 trip. I was fully expecting WDW to be less, but for us they were surprisingly pretty similar.

It's really going to depend on where you are traveling from and what activities you want to do. For example we were coming from the west coast.... but even then airfare to WDW was less expensive than Hawaii. But not having to buy 10 day park tickets helped balance things out for us. We wound up going with Aulani and loved it.

I would recommend starting to research activities on Oahu and then start a spreadsheet to do the "Disney Math"!

If you do a board search here and then check out DVC Aulani trip reports you will get a really good primer on what there is to do on the island.