Cass, Rob & Kira - 20 Hours at Aulani and other Oahu Adventures July 2024

[Timon]

E Komo Mai, peeps!


We just got back last week from a trip to Oahu. It was a high school graduation gift for Kira and quite possibly our last family vacation for awhile. She is headed off to Nova Scotia for University in just a little over 3 weeks! How did that happen so fast???

Rob and I first went to Hawaii (Oahu & the Big Island) way back in 2000. We were supposed to go back in March 2020, for an incentive trip that Rob had earned but, well, you can probably guess what happened to that trip. We then decided to return to the islands last October on a 15-day Hawaii cruise from Los Angeles for our 25th wedding anniversary. Kira had just started her final year of high school and could not come with us sadly. During our very long day on Oahu port day on that cruise, we visited all new-to-us places, including Aulani. More later on that.

When we got back from that trip, we told Kira about a few of our adventures and she sounded intrigued (and a little envious) so when we started talking about going away somewhere to celebrate her graduation, Hawaii definitely came up. To be honest, I didn't think it was in our budget, most hotels are $500-$1000 USD per night with all of the taxes and fees and I knew that food was ridiculously expensive, never mind getting to and from Hawaii and then the car rental and attractions!

I knew Aulani was out of the question. I had checked prices and they were about $900 USD per night for the cheapest room. We knew we wanted around to go for about 7 nights and 7 nights at Aulani alone was around our total budget for everything!

Once I did some research, I came across RedWeek and since I knew there was a Marriott Vacations timeshare resort just two lagoons down from Aulani, I started digging some more. Long story short, I ended up renting a studio from an owner, for our dates (mid-July) for about $350 USD per night. I knew I had wanted to stay in Ko Olina if I could so this was the perfect choice for us! We booked Rob's flight with the rest of our Avion points and my oldest brother was very generous to us and gave us enough Aeroplan points to cover the other two flights.

Our flights got us there later in the evening of the 12th and we would have to take a red-eye back on the 20th. The studio was booked for the 13th-20th as most bookings are from Saturday to Saturday so that left us with one night, our first night, to book a hotel somewhere. My first thought was to just book a cheap but clean and decent hotel for that first night, probably Waikiki as that is where most hotels are. I spent the next two months looking and except for the more run-down places, I couldn't find a place under $300, plus resort taxes and fees, which added up to about $450 a night. And then there was parking, which is $50/night for most places. So for the cheap(er) hotels, we were still looking at $500 USD or more for the one night and most of those had two double beds, which was not ideal.

Just before we left, I ended up finding a decent rate at Aulani for our first night. It wasn't $900 but it also wasn't much more than the Waikiki hotel so I really debated about it and then ended up booking it!

We were due to land at about 8:30pm, so I figured we could get to Aulani for about 10pm, and while we couldn't really enjoy all that Aulani has to offer that night, I knew we could stay there for the entire day the following day.

So, there you have it, folks. The story of how this trip came to be and the very basics.

Stay tuned for our Hawaii adventures and see how this trip played out.

Aloha!



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Here's my previous trip reports, in case you haven't read those ones yet. I think most of them are still intact.


2005 Live WDW & DCL
2009 WDW & DCL
2011 DCL Second sailing of the Dream
2013 October WDW & DCL Fantasy
2015 Disneyland

2016 Christmas on the Wonder
2017 Universal & DCL 10-Night Southern Caribbean Fantasy

2017 Christmas on the Wonder
2018 Summer WDW & Universal

2018 Christmas on the Wonder
2019 Disneyland
2019 Universal Orlando
2019 Christmas on the Wonder
2020 Galaxy's Edge

2021 Christmas on the Wonder
2022 UO & DCL Fantasy
2022 Alaska Wonder July Cruise
2022 Alaska Wonder September Cruise
2023 WDW Spring Break
2023 Disneyland

2023 Christmas on the Magic

 

[Timon]

Chapter Links

July 12th, 2024
Part 1 - Ah-lah-mo!
Part 2 - A nice 7.5 hours

July 13th, 2024
Part 1 - Breakfast was off the hook
Part 2 - Water lot of fun!
Part 3 - A brief photo tour
Part 4 - Aulani, in a (kukui) nutshell
Part 5 - Marriott Ko Olina Beach Club Studio Room

July 14th, 2024
Part 1 - Laughter is the best medicine
Part 2 - A little tour
Part 3 - Paradise on Earth

July 15th, 2024
Part 1 - Eleventy billion trees
Part 2 - Waterfall Heaven
Part 3 - Honu & Hale'iwa
Part 4 - Shrimp, stuffies and sunsets, oh my!
Part 5 - Crashing waves

July 16th, 2024
Part 1 - Our Pearl Harbor visit begins!
Part 2 - The Squeezy Bowfin
Part 3 - Arizona Memorial
Part 4 - Mighty Mo
Part 5 - Ship and Planes
Part 6 - Planes and Tower
Part 7 - Tower and Sim
Part 8 - Dinner and Bliss

July 17th, 2024
Part 1 - Eggs and other things
Part 2 - ABC -DEFGHIJKLMNOP
Part 3 - Liliha Heaven
Part 4 - Fave sunset

July 18th, 2024
Part 1 - Best Little Ranch in Hawaii
Part 2 - You bet Jurassic!
Part 3 - They're uhhhh flocking this way
Part 4 - Uh, now eventually you might have DINOSAURS on your, on your dinosaur tour, right?
Part 5 - Peace and prosperity
Part 6 - Donuts and chill time

July 19th, 2024
Part 1 - Diamond Head, bring it on!
Part 2 - Crater conquered!
Part 3 - That's the way we roll
Part 4 - That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it

July 20th, 2024
Part 1 - Up, up and away!
Part 2 - Hot and Sweaty
Part 3 - Adios, Amoebas!


VACATION VIDEOS

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

 

[NAB]

Oh can’t wait to hear more we were just there on the Disney Wonder from Vancouver to Hawaii and stayed in Hawaii after in October. We only could afford one night at Aulani too.

How fast kids grow , Good luck Kira in Nova Scotia. I know it well since my dad is from there.

 

[alohamom]

Following!
We have also done a few nights at the Marriott Ko Olina followed by a few nights at Aulani.
It is so interesting to compare and contrast the two places.
Marriott felt to me more like the resorts on Maui, spread out with lots of space and they had so many more (mostly free) activities than Aulani.
Whereas the pools at Aulani beat the Marriott pools hands down.
To us, each had its own good and bad so I am really interested to hear about your experience!

 

[4 mickey]

Yes a Timon TR
Thanks will read it since I loved hawaii so much and would love to return

Omg yes where did time go following you since even before you had Kira
Can’t believe she’s so grown up !

 

[Timon]

Part 1

Since Rob's parents were staying at our house and watching the doggos and our flight wasn't until 2:35pm, we had gotten up, gotten ready, packed up the last of our stuff and well, we were just twiddling our thumbs until we left for the airport at 11:30am.

It was so weird not to be waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning. We all had some breakfast and just passed the time until it was time to leave. Rob's dad would be driving us (and our tremendous amount of luggage) to the airport as we no longer have a vehicle that can fit us and all of our travel crap.

Here we all are in our messy garage just before we left.

I should mention that just before we left, our flight had been delayed. Nothing major, I think it was just 15 minutes, so we ended up leaving at 11:45am.

About 35 minutes later, we were at the Calgary airport. We had had a heat wave in Calgary for a few weeks before we left and it is still going! It's been SO hot! Hawaii would actually be cooler than Calgary, believe it or not!

With our layover in Vancouver being a little short, I knew we weren't going to have time to grab food before heading onto our second flight so we opted to get some subs from Subway to eat as our dinner from Vancouver to Honolulu. The security lines were quite long but we all have Nexus cards so we skipped that very people-y line and went straight through with no wait or issues.

We found some seats at our gate and then Rob went to get some Timmy's while I got us some drinks for the 75 minute flight to Vancouver. Kira ended up eating half of her sub already. She also ate some goldfish and two bags of chips that were also meant for the flight to Honolulu. Sweet cheezits, she had just eaten breakfast at home!

She normally doesn't eat much, she was told on her school trip to Africa, in March, by a local that she "eats like a bebeh" (full on Swahili accent there) so that is now a running joke between us but this trip, she definitely did not "eat like a bebeh"!

While we waited, the guy sitting next to Rob was asked THREE times by total strangers for a selfie so while we definitely did not recognize him, some people obviously did!

For the very first time, I decided to give out little gifties to our flight attendants this trip. We only had the room for 6 gifts so we decided to give them out on our 6-hour flight instead of our 75-minute flight but because I edited the photos like this, they popped up here.

I just wanted to do something nice for the crew. It seems, especially these days, that they have been dealing with a lot of crappy passengers and I know it just has to be such a tough job so I wanted to do something to put a smile on their faces. I put together some stuff that I thought would be useful in their jobs, maybe something they forgot or would just be handy to slip in their bag to use in the future. This is what I ended up with...

Fast forward to the next flight....the flight attendant that I handed it to seemed genuinely surprised and thankful and we had a few others come over to say thank you as well. So, it seemed to do the job, put a smile on their faces, which made us happy. A few more good vibes in the world is a good thing!

We ended up being delayed one more time and then finally we boarded and settled into our seats at the back of the plane.

We ended up sitting behind the guy who everyone seemed to know and I found out that a) he's a tiktok'er and b) he's a total douchebag. Still don't know who he is though but he really seems to like himself and also seems to be conflicted about the videos he makes.

Anyway! Since Kira had never watched us fly over the Rocky Mountains before, I thought I would be a nice mum and give her my window seat. If you know me and know how much I enjoy that window seat, you would be completely shocked that I did that. I don't even give my window seat to Rob.

Seeing as she barely looked out the window (pretty much only when I was pointing at the window saying "LOOK at that!!" with my eyes rolling and my hand over my heart ) and I spent more time leaning over looking out the dang window than she did, I have decided henceforth that she is no longer allowed the pleasure and/or the privilege of having the window seat.

We did make up some time in the air but not much and once we were about to land and I checked the departure time of our second flight, I knew it would be a VERY tight squeeze to get through security again (which I loathe and still don't understand why we have to do it again!) and US Customs and get to our second plane before it left! Thankfully, as soon as we landed and turned off airplane mode, we received a notification that our second flight was also delayed. I don't think I have ever been so happy that my flight was delayed!

It was still going to be tight but not running-through-the-airport-screaming "Move-it, people, we-have-a-flight-to-catch!-tight.

While I went to got more waters for us, Kira thankfully stopped Rob from buying these very cool but very expensive shirts. Thanks, Doll!

We made it to our gate just in time to hear that they were pre-boarding our flight! Whew!

Our family selfie from our second flight taken by Kira, who is back to where she belongs, in the aisle, away from my precious window.

And off we goooooo!

I enjoyed every second of my view until we hit all ocean and then clouded-over ocean.

The flight was long but I read a lot of my book so the time passed pretty quickly actually.

We ended up flying over the island and way out over the ocean again and then came back almost right over Aulani. Hard to see but that's Aulani down there!

It had been over 24 years since we had flown to Honolulu but I still remember it being out in the open, except for the gate areas.

This was very cool but it was also very hot!

Although it had been a very long day and a long journey, we had gotten our second wind! We were in Hawaii! And Kira was finally in Hawaii for the first time!

First we needed a pit stop. I made it the entire flight without going to the washroom! Holy cow! This is a modern day miracle for this chick who usually pees every hour at home.

So cute!

We waited a long time for our bags. They finally announced that they were having issues and that our luggage would be delayed, maybe even 30 or more minutes. About two minutes later, the carousel started up and our bags were all out in less than 10 minutes.

We grabbed our bags and headed all the way down to where to crosswalk is for the car rentals (it's a loooong way as Air Canada is at the very far end and the rental car place is at the opposite end) and as we arrived, Kira said "Did we rent from Alamo?" but she didn't pronounce it "Alamo", instead she pronounced it Ah-LAH-mo.

Now, if you have been reading my trippies for awhile now, you may already know that I am a little....sassy. And a whole lot....sarcastic. And guess what? My little baby girl is also...sassy...and... sarcastic and we like to tease each other so when I heard this little gem, I was not about to let it go. Nooooo no no no no. You see, gentle reader, due to menopause and other things beyond my control, I say funny things ALL THE TIME. I say things backwards, or use the wrong word because my brain cannot find the necessary word when I need it and believe me when I tell you, my baby girl does not let any of it slide. She laughs, I laugh and then we laugh together. The good thing is that she has a bad memory and she doesn't ever remember all of the stupid and silly things I say. Well, guess what? This momma bear doesn't forget and as I told her that night in front of " Ah-lah-mo", it will now, forever and ever, be Ah-lah-mo and shall never again be Alamo.

I was laughing so hard, I could barely breathe. By the time we actually got to the garage, she seemed a wee bit...peeved.

Kira was super excited in Galveston last year when we were thisclose to getting a Red Jeep so, as a secondary gift, I secretly rented a Jeep for the week.

Just as we were approaching the garage and the guy was coming to help us, I stopped, grabbed our Skip The Counter ticket and told her "I'm sorry!!! But I'm about to make it up to you though!" she just looked at me with this face: and as if on cue, the guy asked what kind of vehicle we rented and I showed her the print out and she screamed "YOU RENTED A JEEP??!!!"

And in that moment right there, all was forgiven. (at least until I used it again, later in the trip ) Bahahahaha!

Here she is, choosing her Jeep. We told her that she gets to choose which one we get. I totally thought she would choose the red one and she nearly did until she saw the license plate of the Rubicon on the very end.

As soon as she saw it, she yelled "This one! This is it! Mike Wazowski!"

So, we climbed into Mike Wazowski, literally climbed, as he was very tall, and we loaded our luggage and off we went.

Turns out Mike was a brand new 2024 Jeep! He was also a hybrid, which we didn't notice until much later. More on that later, too.

Oh and that clock was wrong! It was not 8:20pm! I wish it was only 8:20! That photo was taken at 10:21pm, local time, which was 2:21am our time.

Off we went on what should have been a 30-minute drive to Aulani, that actually took us 80 minutes due to construction. Apparently they have construction most nights from 7pm-6am on the H1 and the traffic is horrendous! We were tired but we opened the windows, enjoyed the rain that would sprinkle on and off and listened to some good music on the radio.

We finally pulled up to Aulani at 11:40pm and Rob was told that valet parking was the same price as parking it ourselves, $40/night, so we opted to let them park it.

By the way, Aulani was a surprise for Kira. We made sure to tell her before we went through customs because last year when we went to Disneyland and tried to surprise her with a stay at the Grand Californian, the US Customs dude totally blew the surprise by asking us what hotel we were staying at. So, this time we wanted to enjoy the surprise rather than do it in front of a customs agent.

I cannot even begin to tell you how thoroughly exhausted we all were at this point.

It was eerily quiet when we got there. If you have ever been there before, you will know just how busy this area can get and that it's usually so packed with people and sounds. When we walked through, there wasn't a single person around. Not a single person could be heard talking or moving. There was one valet guy outside and then two people at the check-in desk. That's it!

Kira was wearing her Mickey grad ears that I had bought her for graduation last month. She hadn't worn them yet, other than at our house, so we both thought this would be a great time to wear them.

I can't even remember what the guy told us at this point. I remember being shocked that we were on the 12th floor. I remember him giving us buttons, one special one for Kira that said "I am celebrating" and two orange ones for Rob and I. I remember our room number because it was "Christmas", room 1225, super easy to remember thankfully. I had done online check-in so it was very quick.

I do remember being thankful that Rob and I had visited Aulani last year and that we already knew the lay of the lands.

We went over to the Wai'anae Tower, which I laughed at when I told Kira how to pronounce it, WHY AN EYE, thinking of Mike Wazowski.

We were so tired. Kira didn't even laugh and she normally would have laughed at that.

I am going to end this chapter here as I am close to my image limit and it's a good place to end it anyway.

Stay tuned for a very quick room photo tour from an obviously very tired photographer.

 

[bcwife76]

Woohoo!! You finally made it I think we need to rent a jeep the next time we are in Hawaii one year we rented a Mustang and that was pretty fun

Aulani is definitely quiet after a certain time at night (say 9:30/10pm) but hey at least you had a quick check in! Can't wait for the next installment!

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more

 

[Timon]

Part 2

This will be a short chapter, I am just going to post my room photos and then review the room part of our stay.

I had booked the cheapest room possible, which I know is usually on a low floor and overlooking the parking garage or something else not pretty so I was shocked that they put us on the 12th floor. We couldn't tell until the next morning but we also had a lovely view!

I was ridiculously spent by the time I took these so they aren't fabulous or as thorough as I usually am.

And here is our view at night, which is, in fact, the parking lot but wait until you see it the next morning.

Looking the other way.

I wish the cards still said the names and check in/out dates. I really miss having that as I keep all of our cards.

Here are the buttons that they gave Rob and I.

And here's Kira's button, which I later added the wording onto.

So, how was the room, you ask? It was lovely! I was actually quite worried about the beds as everything I read about Aulani seems to say that the beds are too firm. Now, they are definitely more firm than the beds at WDW or DL or DCL but they weren't bad at all, and I like a soft bed!

The only issue I had with the bed was that it was really high, you really have to climb up onto that sucker and I did end up smashing my shin into the wooden base of the bed. Other than that, we had a lovely, albeit, way too short, sleep.

Since I had wanted to take advantage of every second we had there, I was up by 7am, had ourselves mostly packed and ready to go down to the pools for 7:45am.

The pools were open from 8am to 8pm and I was going to enjoy every second of pool time I had.

I can't say much more about the room, I was in it for about 7.5 hours and most of that was spent sleeping.

I think it would have been a very nice place to stay if we had booked more than one night.


Stay tuned for our day at Aulani, you may be surprised by my overall thoughts.

 

[Timon]

Part 1

The first thing I did after my alarm went off was to go check out the view from our lanai and it did NOT disappoint!

The lanai itself was huge and roomy and I would have loved to spend more time here!

Leaning over a bit, looking left....

Look at that!

Just. Look. At. That.

Looking over to the right...

Everyone was slow-moving this morning after our very long travel day and only 7 hours of sleep but we had things to dooooooo!

Wake up, sleeping beauty!

I got her out of bed by telling her we had a gorgeous view and that she needed to check it out. She agreed with me about the view.

We got ready and then I got us as packed up as we could be. Kira and I would not be back to the room but Rob was wanting to take a shower once he was done with his brief experience in the water. He is not a pool/ocean/water kind of guy as he runs as cold as I do hot. He did agree to try everything once, the slides, the lazy river, the pool, the hot tub and the ocean so that was nice that he joined us for part of the day in the water.

We left everything in the room as Rob was going to need some toiletries and a change of clothes later on. We did ask for a late check-out but they said no but no worries, we had plenty of time to do everything, we just had to watch our time.

Buh-bye 1225, you were amazing for 7.5 hours.

The incredible view from the elevator lobby area.

It was about 7:45am now so we headed down to the pool area. We found one of the two towel huts to grab our towels and wrist bands. There was already a line so we joined that line and patiently waited until 8am.

While Rob and Kira waited in line, I grabbed some photos of the lovely empty pool area before the chaos begins at 8am.

The pools were open from 8am-8pm, I don't know why this says 10pm! I wish!

While I have only been to Aulani once, last October, thankfully, I am quite familiar with the layout and the different areas. For those who are new to my trippies, due to my health issues, I need to stay out of the sun as much as possible. If I overheat or am in the sun for an extended period of time, I start to feel extremely ill and once I overheat, it's very tough for me to cool down. I knew that I would need to be in the shade as much as possible and I also wanted a quiet area. Well, as quiet as you can get at Aulani.

Although sadly since 2020, the previously adult-only Wailana Pool is no longer adult-only (they recently announced it will go back to adult-only on August 5th, yay!) but it is tucked away in a more quiet area and I knew that would be our best chance at quiet as well as all-day shade.

So that is where we went! We grabbed our spots, left some of our stuff there and then headed for Off The Hook for breakfast. More on our spot for the day later.

The pools were still quiet but they would not stay that way for long.

This is the adult-only two-tiered spa, which was pure Heaven!

Check out this tree over at Off The Hook.

Speaking of trees, I am REALLY into them. I love all trees and my favourite tree just happens to be a monkeypod tree, which are found in abundance in Hawaii. My second fave would be the palm tree, also found everywhere on the islands. So, it's fair to say that I was in tree Heaven the entire week. The monkeypods, in particular, just take my breath away every time I see them! And every time I see them, I can't help but to exclaim how gorgeous they are! Rob and Kira can attest to this fact and laughed at me on the daily as I loudly admired my trees. Ko Olina's main road in and out is triple-lined with monkeypod trees and is just so unbelievably, breathtakingly GORGEOUS!! So you can imagine how often they had to put up with my constant vocal tree admiration.

This gorgeous little specimen is a banyan tree, I believe, quite beautiful but cannot possibly compete with my monkeypod.

Rob and I had eaten at Ulu Cafe last October and it was atrocious so other than grabbing a dole whip or two, I refused to eat there even though it was literally right next to where we set up camp for the day.

There was a bit of a line so while Rob held our spot and Kira was at a table (you can spy her if you try hard enough ) I wandered around for some photo taking opportunities.

AMA AMA is not open for breakfast anymore so I strolled through and took some photos. What a view!

I also went in search of the Coca Cola Freestyle machine. I knew it was around here somewhere but it was really buried back there!

That sign is deceiving because you could not place a mobile order for Off The Hook, at least not the day we were there. It's a small menu but good enough for us!

This was the view from our table if you looked up.

It took quite awhile before our food arrived. Here is mine...

Rob's...

And Kira's...

The three entrees came to $73 USD and I have to say it was just okay. It filled us up and gave us energy.

We headed back to our spot because it had taken an hour and we didn't want to lose our spot. They come around and mark your chair with a towel and if you aren't back in an hour to move those towels, you lose your chair and they take your stuff to the towel hut.

Here is a cute little splash pad for the kiddos.

And there were our chairs for the day. They were under a big tree so they provided shade for almost the entire day.

It was still early and while the main area was filling up, this area didn't fill up until around11am. By then, every single chair was spoken for! There is not enough chairs at Aulani, it's like Hunger Games around there sometimes.

Here's what the Wailana Pool looked like just after 9am. It would not stay this quiet for long sadly.

And here was my view from my chair before heading into the pool myself.

Stay tuned for our pool and ocean time with Rob before he gets dressed again for Fall temperatures.

 

[bcwife76]

Making me miss Aulani so much on our list trip I'd say we got chairs around the same spot you did almost every day but boy did I miss it as an adult only pool. I'm so excited it's once again going to be adult only.

 

[Jeepdisney]

I’m so excited to read about your trip! I went to Hawaii for my first time almost two years ago with my husband and I am so ready to go back! I also loved seeing all of those banyon trees!

 

[rdkeim]

Following! The pool area looks lovely. I'm sure you'll make the most of your day!

 

[Timon]

Oh can’t wait to hear more we were just there on the Disney Wonder from Vancouver to Hawaii and stayed in Hawaii after in October. We only could afford one night at Aulani too.

How fast kids grow , Good luck Kira in Nova Scotia. I know it well since my dad is from there.

Oh nice! I want to do that cruise one day!

What did you think of Aulani???

Thanks for the good wishes, we are going to need it. So far away!

Following!
We have also done a few nights at the Marriott Ko Olina followed by a few nights at Aulani.
It is so interesting to compare and contrast the two places.
Marriott felt to me more like the resorts on Maui, spread out with lots of space and they had so many more (mostly free) activities than Aulani.
Whereas the pools at Aulani beat the Marriott pools hands down.
To us, each had its own good and bad so I am really interested to hear about your experience!

Thanks for commenting, glad you're here.

I love that you stayed at both but we may have different opinions on things. I am hoping to get to the review part today.

Yes a Timon TR
Thanks will read it since I loved hawaii so much and would love to return

Omg yes where did time go following you since even before you had Kira
Can’t believe she’s so grown up !

Time flies when you have kids LOL! Hawaii is gorgeous, I just may need to win the lotto before I can get back.

Woohoo!! You finally made it I think we need to rent a jeep the next time we are in Hawaii one year we rented a Mustang and that was pretty fun

Aulani is definitely quiet after a certain time at night (say 9:30/10pm) but hey at least you had a quick check in! Can't wait for the next installment!

We had a mustang on the Big Island in 2000, we drove with the top down once it cooled off a bit, it was AMAZING! I still remember everything about the drive from Hapuna Beach after watching the sunset and having the top down, driving back to our condo, it's a moment that has really stuck with me forever.

I'm sure if we used it more for what it was made for, it would have been awesome but I don't think we would rent another Jeep. Well, maybe on the Big Island if we ever go back so we can drive to the summit of Mauna Kea.

I wish the pools would stay open later.

Following along. Looking forward to reading more

Awesome! Thanks for being here!

Making me miss Aulani so much on our list trip I'd say we got chairs around the same spot you did almost every day but boy did I miss it as an adult only pool. I'm so excited it's once again going to be adult only.

I might actually go back if that pool is an adult pool.

I’m so excited to read about your trip! I went to Hawaii for my first time almost two years ago with my husband and I am so ready to go back! I also loved seeing all of those banyon trees!

LOL, Jeep and a Disney lover! Thanks for being here!

Following! The pool area looks lovely. I'm sure you'll make the most of your day!

More on the pools today! Thanks for being here.

 

[erinch]

Loving this!

 

[alohamom]

I love that you stayed at both but we may have different opinions on things.

LOL of course! It's been a few years since we have been to either and I am sure things have changed since Covid.

 

[Timon]

Part 2

It was time now finally to enjoy some pool time!
We started with the slides before they got too busy. There weren't tons of people in line for the tube slide, Volcanic Vertical so we started with that one.

Once we got back up there, there were only about a dozen or so people in line for the tube slide, Tubestone Curl, so we grabbed two tubes and got in line. I was using the tube to take shelter from the blazing hot sun.

It's weird but even though she is practically an adult, we still make sure one of us goes before her as a built-in parental caution. We did the same thing for the body slide, I went first, Kira went second and Rob went last. And not just slides, we tend to do this everywhere, even security when getting on a flight. She could be 30 and I would still make her go in between us.

The tube one was hands-down the winner! It was short but a great slide! I am sure younger kids think it's super awesome, a bit of a thrill but not overwhelming.

Now it's time for a spin on the lazy river.

Rob and her were racing, we had a blast!

She then found a flower in the water and put it behind her ear. This would be her thing for the rest of the trip, always looking for flowers to wear in her hair. We would never pick them, there were PLENTY of flowers falling from the trees everywhere!

She just automagically put it behind her right ear, which I told her later was actually the correct way to wear it according to Hawaiian culture as it signifies that she is single/available. If you wear it over your left ear, it signifies that you are married or taken.

Since I wanted Rob to experience everything water-related here, we only did one round on the lazy river so we could then head over to the Ka Maka Grotto pool, the one with the infinity edge and the only family hot tub on the whole property. There were about 20 kids in that hot tub so we were definitely not going there.

This pool had an AMAZING view from that infinity edge but it was rather uncomfortable. You couldn't really lean on or over it, which maybe was even by design?

This pool was much busier than it looks in this photo. I edited it perfectly to capture the least amount of people. This is a POPULAR pool and was very busy all day long.

We didn't linger long because Rob was running out of time so we headed down to the ocean.

It was too cold for him and this is as far as he made it.

He had to warm up so we went to the adult hot tub. Kira is just shy of 18 and doesn't do canon balls into the hot tub, so we figured it would be okay if she joined us. We weren't in there long, just enough for Rob to warm up before he left.

Sweet views and no little kids.

We headed back to our spots and then Rob headed back to the room to shower and call Bell Services to stow our luggage for the rest of the day.

Kira lounged while I headed to Ulu Cafe to grab a new mug. The regular ones were $22 plus tax and we had gotten one of these during our 4-hour stay last October and we made really good use out of it! Plus Rob uses our Disney mugs at home for his coffee, so it was a nice addition. They had some new steel ones that were $36.59 with tax and while I didn't love that it didn't have a handle, I sprung for it anyway. After reading a new study about microplastics in January, I am really trying my best to stay away from plastics, in general when I can.

I didn't realize it until later, when Rob ended up buying a mug of his own, that there are two designs. Mine had Mickey (and his side chick ) on it and the one that Rob got had Moana and Maui on it. Also, mine had a cute little Mickey on the lid, hard to see because it is black and blended in but we also found out later that not all of them had a Mickey on them! When Rob showed me that he had purchased one for himself (we couldn't share one because he wanted to use it for coffee and I detest coffee and once you use those mugs for coffee, they smell and taste like coffee forever ) I noticed that his did not have the little Mickey! He was super bummed and I just said "well, that's what you get for buying things without your wife."

He thought I would stop him from buying the mug because it's so expensive and we are only here for the day but for the amount we use them, they are actually a good deal and I wouldn't have talked him out of buying one. He didn't need to know that though.

Anyway, I probably filled mine about a dozen times and I think one single pop was like $5! Totally worth it, even just for the day.

A CM came by and gave us the menu for poolside dining but we never used it.

By then, Rob came back, all dressed for 20ºC and not 32ºC.

He said the housekeeping staff gave him these post cards and they had a cute little exchange. I can't remember what exactly, I'm old!

My daughter had gone through a few more flowers by now and she had also stolen my sarong that I actually purchased 24 years ago on the Big Island, in Kona. My intention was to buy her her own before we left.

You can see her beautiful Tanzanite necklace that she bought in Tanzania on her African school trip a few months ago. We gave her $200 USD to spend on that trip and she spent nearly all of it on her second night in Mwanza on that necklace. It actually matches beautifully with the Tanzanite ring that she bought in Progreso, Mexico on our last Christmas cruise, if you remember my last trip report. She didn't barter for this one though.

And the bathing suit she is wearing is the one we bought her on the Disney cruise where Westjet had lost our bag for 19 days.

Remember how I mentioned that they mark the chairs if they are empty? Here is a CM marking the ones in front of us.

It was so hot, even in the shade that my phone was having issues. It wouldn't charge past 80% all day long.

These were from earlier when we were in the Ka Maka Grotto pool but they were from Rob's phone and it's really tough to edit the photos sometimes so they end up in the wrong order. Oh well.

Here's Kira and I lounging in our spots when Rob came back after his shower.

Kira wanted to meet Stitch so I told her she needed to go early. Rob went with her and they were too early for Stitch but just in time for Moana!

They took a photo with the lovely CM photographer, they both loved her little Stitch. He even had a little camera on him!

They camped out and waited until Stitch got there.

We are all HUGE Stitch fans so I am glad she got to meet Aulani Stitch!

Rob and I saw Stitch last year at Aulani, where he stole my fan!

They got back and I got suited up for the sun and went exploring to take some photos.

I got this sarong in WDW in 2005 at Beach Club resort. I love it because it has Mickeys all over it but I still prefer my Hawaii one.

Stay tuned for some miscellaneous photos and the rest of our Aulani day.

 

[lilsonicfan]

So much fun so far! I really love both of the sarongs.

I have to say that food from Off the Hook looks fine but the price is downright offensive, as a fellow Canadian. I mean, I'm cheap, I wouldn't be keen on paying $72 CAD for it lol

 

[bcwife76]

We usually order off the pool menu and after a couple of Mai Tais the price just seems to .....disappear

Aulani Stitch !!

 

[Timon]

Loving this!

Glad you're enjoying it. Thanks for commenting.

LOL of course! It's been a few years since we have been to either and I am sure things have changed since Covid.

Well, I think that with my issues, things probably bothered me that don't bother most people. Obviously the general consensus about Aulani is that it is a tropical paradise, so my opinion doesn't really count anyway.

So much fun so far! I really love both of the sarongs.

I have to say that food from Off the Hook looks fine but the price is downright offensive, as a fellow Canadian. I mean, I'm cheap, I wouldn't be keen on paying $72 CAD for it lol

Everything, price-wise, about Aulani is offensive!

I'm also very thrifty and don't like to spend money on things that are not worth it.