Our Coast-to-Coast-to-Coast Honeymoon: December 2016 Aulani Pre-Trip Report

[Lauren1027]

Hello everyone and welcome to our Aulani PTR! Before we get into the details of our upcoming trip, lets start with some introductions

Who We Are:

I’m Lauren, a 30-year old *almost* newlywed. I live in Orlando, Florida and work at our local university as an academic coordinator for our School of Performing Arts. I’m a total Disney nut and most of my free weekends are spent at WDW. My favorite park is the Magic Kingdom (though Disneyland totally stole my heart last fall) and my favorite attraction is the Haunted Mansion. My all-time favorite Disney character is Minnie, but my recent favorite has been Baymax. When I’m not being completely Disney-obsessed, I also love going to punk shows, binge-watching tv shows, and spending time with our two dogs, Jozee and Doobie.

This is my DF, George. He’s 32 and a screenprinter/graphic artist for a local screenprinting shop here in Orlando. DF was born and raised in Orlando so Disney has always been a big part of his life, from going to the parks as a child to joining me on all the crazy Disney adventures I drag him on now. DF is also a HUGE Star Wars fan and is a TK Stormtrooper in the 501st Legion. In his free time, he spends lots of time trooping at local children’s hospitals, as well as Give Kids the World Village.

DF and I met and started dating in 2009 and Disney has been a huge part of our relationship since the very beginning. Our first date was at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and we’ve been passholders together since 2010. In January of 2015, we went on our first Disney Cruise together to celebrate our 5-year dating anniversary and its also where we got engaged (in front of Captain Mickey)! In October 2015, we made our first trip to the place where it all began—Disneyland! We had an amazing time there and really fell in love with Disneyland (we also got our engagement pictures done there). For the past year now, we’ve been very busy planning our Disney Fairy Tale Wedding, which will be at Walt Disney World on December 1, 2016 (my wedding planning journal is in my signature below for anyone interested in following along with those details)!


The Details

As you can tell from our PTR title, we will be all over the place for our honeymoon, but the bulk of it will be spent at Aulani. To be more specific, we will be starting off our honeymoon with a 2-night stay at Disney’s Boardwalk Villas, which will be the night before and the night of our wedding. We will then leave for our honeymoon a few days later, on December 4th. We are flying into Anaheim and staying at Disneyland for 2 nights, where we will then fly to Honolulu for 5 nights at Aulani.

December 1st: Wedding Day at WDW! Staying at the Boardwalk in a 1-bedroom villa for 2 nights

December 4th-6th: Disneyland and DCA! Staying in a Deluxe Studio at Disney’s Grand Californian

December 6th-11th: Hawaii! Staying at Disney’s Aulani Resort and Spa in an Deluxe Studio with Ocean View

With nearly every minute of free time that we do have, I have been planning and preparing for the wedding, so trip-planning for our honeymoon has been sparse. However, since we’re getting so close to the wedding date now, most of the big plans have already been taken care of so I’ve been scouring through the Aulani boards to finally start getting some more detailed plans in for our honeymoon! Right now, our plan is to split our time 50/50 between exploring Oahu and enjoying/relaxing at the resort. We pretty much plan to alternate between resort days/island days for the 4 full days of our trip.

I’ll go into our day-by-day details a little more in my next post, but the things we would like to accomplish outside of the resort are: Pearl Harbor, North Shore, Dole Plantation, Matsumotos Italian Ice and Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck, Diamondhead, and a few others. I know being here for only 5 days is a really short amount of time, so our non-resort days will sure to be packed from morning to night.

As far as Aulani goes, we plan to take full advantage of their dining there. We definitely plan to do a nice dinner at AMA AMA and the character breakfast. We weren’t planning on doing a luau during our trip, but now that Aulani has announced that they will be offering one, I think we’re going to plan on doing that for our last night there. I’m sure many tropical drinks will be had and I will also be stalking all of the characters for pictures! Other than that, the plan is to just relax and have lots of pool/beach time on our resort days.

That’s all I’ve got for now! I hope you enjoy and follow along

 

[alohamom]

Awesome! I actually read your wedding planning journal last week, I just love your engagement photos. You guys will love Hawaii and congrats on your upcoming wedding!

 

[DisneyWorldbuff]

Yay! Congratulations!!! Looking forward to you report!

 

[pepperandchips]

Following! Congratulations on your engagement and upcoming nuptials!

 

[APears]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! This is really funny to me because we're doing the same thing in reverse order next month! We're starting at Aulani, going to CA to get married and go to Disneyland the following day, then off to Florida for Disney cruise and then Boardwalk Villas at the end!

I can't wait to read all about your honeymoon!

 

[heaven2dc]

What an exciting honeymoon you have planned! Congratulations to both of you! I'm going to head over to read your wedding planning journal now.

 

[CateinPhoenix]

How exciting! And I love your wedding planning journal!

 

[Lauren1027]

Awesome! I actually read your wedding planning journal last week, I just love your engagement photos. You guys will love Hawaii and congrats on your upcoming wedding!

Yay! Thank you for following along on my wedding planning! I've been pouring all my heart and soul into the wedding!

Yay! Congratulations!!! Looking forward to you report!

Thank you! I'm looking forward to finally being on vacation!

Following! Congratulations on your engagement and upcoming nuptials!

Thank you! Glad you're along for the journey!

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! This is really funny to me because we're doing the same thing in reverse order next month! We're starting at Aulani, going to CA to get married and go to Disneyland the following day, then off to Florida for Disney cruise and then Boardwalk Villas at the end!

I can't wait to read all about your honeymoon!

Thank you! That is TOO funny! Your whole wedding trip sounds AMAZING too! You're going to have so much fun on your Disney Cruise! I'm hooked now and hope I can take another one soon. And nothing beats staying at the Boardwalk. Its my favorite resort on property <3

What an exciting honeymoon you have planned! Congratulations to both of you! I'm going to head over to read your wedding planning journal now.

Thanks for following along!

How exciting! And I love your wedding planning journal!

Aww thank you! I've been dreaming on starting a Planning Journal forever and I'm so glad that I finally got the chance to!

THANK YOU EVERYONE for the super sweet comments and congratulations! We've pretty much finalized our day-to-day plans for our honeymoon and made all our ADRs so I'll update this in the next few days once things have calmed down here a bit.

 

[OKW Lover]

but the things we would like to accomplish outside of the resort are: Pearl Harbor, North Shore, Dole Plantation, Matsumotos Italian Ice and Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck, Diamondhead, and a few others.

Good list! I'd add a stop at Leonards for malasadas.

 

[Lauren1027]

Good list! I'd add a stop at Leonards for malasadas.

Yes! Definitely need to do that!

 

[Lauren1027]

Honeymoon Itinerary

Hey everyone, I'm back! As of today, we are exactly 30 days away from our wedding, so I thought now would be the perfect time to post a little bit more of a detailed itinerary of our honeymoon plans. As I mentioned in my previous post, we are getting married at WDW on December 1st and staying in a 1-bedroom villa at the Boardwalk; we will then go home for a couple days after the wedding to pack and get our house in order, then fly to California for 2 nights at Disneyland, then off to Hawaii for 5 nights at Aulani.

Day 1- Travel/DCA Day
Our first day of the honeymoon will be a long one. Our flight leaves Orlando at 6:10AM and arrives in Anaheim at 11:10AM (we have an hour layover in Houston at some point). Since we're flying into SNA, which is very close to Disneyland, we should get there by lunch time, will drop off our luggage at the front desk of the Grand Californian (or our room, if its ready) and then head into DCA for the rest of the day. We have dinner reservations at Carthay Circle that evening and got the World of Color dinner package, as the fastpasses you get for that section are amazing. I'm sure we'll be completely exhausted and will head to the hotel to pass out shortly after that.

Day 2- Disneyland!
We are so excited for this day as we really fell in love with Disneyland when we visited last fall! Its going to be torture not going into the park at all the first day, but we will have a fantastic time here on Day 2. It will most-likely be a rope-drop to close kinda day (if we make it that long) as we have a lot of our list we want to do. We have dinner reservations at Blue Bayou that evening, which was our favorite meal of the last trip. I also plan to snack my way around the park the rest of the day. I NEED more Mickey beignets and all the mint juleps, plus I still need to try a Tigger tail, Matterhorn macaron, and the famous corn dog.

Day 3- Travel to Hawaii
Today we'll wake up early and head to LAX for our 10AM flight to Honolulu. We should arrive in Hawaii at around 2PM and will grab our rental car and either head straight to Aulani or stop by Target for some groceries first. Once we check-in and get our room, we just plan to take it easy for the rest of the afternoon/evening...explore the hotel, maybe grab a drink or go swimming. I've hinted that we should probably just go to Monkeypod for dinner this evening since its close and has good reviews.

Day 4- Explore Hawaii/Aulani Afternoon
For our first full-day at Aulani, we plan to spend the majority of the day at the resort by the pools/beach, but since I'm sure we'll be up super early and we want to get a feel for the island a little as well, we plan to do a little bit of exploring. We had originally planned to do Pearl Harbor on this day since we knew we would be up early, but when I went to book it (for December 7th) and didn't even think that this was the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombings and that they would be closed that day. So instead, we're swapping it for a resort day. We still plan to go to the swap meet this day for some cheap souvenirs, and then just drive around to get a feel for the island. We also want to possibly have an early lunch at the Kona Brewing Company and check out the Halona Blow Hole on the way (its very close to the restaurant). We'll then head back to Aulani for the rest of the afternoon and we have reservations for the KA WA'A Luau that evening...the perfect way to end our first full day in Hawaii!

Day 5- Diamondhead and Pearl Harbor
Our second full day in Hawaii will consist of waking up early to hike Diamondhead at sunrise (or shortly after). I know from so many other trip reports that it gets really hot really fast, so this is the first thing we'll do in the morning. We'll then plan to spend some time exploring Waikiki afterwards, have some lunch, and then we are signed up for the free Pearl Harbor tour at 1PM. Not sure what the plans are for the rest of the afternoon/evening, but it will most-likely be hanging around Aulani. Maybe I'll try and convince DF for us to try dinner at Roy's this evening.

Day 6- North Shore Day
This is the day I'm looking forward to the most! I've heard so many great things about the North Shore and we are both excited to spend the day there. We will definitely be checking out one of the beaches (not sure which one yet), having lunch at Giovanni's Shrimp Truck and dessert at Matsumotos, then will check out the Dole Plantation and if time permits, Waimea Falls. I've heard there are better waterfalls to see in Oahu, but I'm not familiar as to where they are so I need to try and research this a little more. This is another day where our evening is free so whatever we feel like doing!

Day 7- Resort Day
Seeing as this is our last full day in Hawaii, and also a Saturday, we've decided to make this a resort day. We'll spend the day at the pool and beach and anything else that we feel like doing at Aulani. We have TWO dining reservations for this day--the Makahiki character breakfast at 9:45 (so we can skip out on lunch) and a 5:30 dinner reservation for AMA AMA, which should be right at sunset.

Day 8- Departure Day
Our flight back to Orlando isn't until 4:30PM, so we can sleep in a little bit, pack, check out of our room, and then probably have lunch at the resort before driving to the airport and going home Our flight will be an overnight one and we won't get home until noon the next day. I'm taking one more day off of work after that in hopes that I can recover from the messed up travel day/night and get some errands done around the house.

So those are the big plans for now! I know I've got to get some Leonard's malasadas in at some point as well...which day do you think this would go best into? And if anyone knows of a great waterfall to hike that's not the Waimea Falls, please let me know! I've only heard kind of disappointing reviews of Waimea and I can't come all the way to Hawaii and not go see some waterfalls. Thanks to everyone who has joined along in this trip report! I'll try and update this one more time before the wedding/honeymoon!

 

[OKW Lover]

Today we'll wake up early and head to LAX for our 10AM flight to Honolulu. We should arrive in Hawaii at around 2PM and will grab our rental car and either head straight to Aulani or stop by Target for some groceries first.

I highly recommend stopping for groceries first. You're likely to find that once you get to Aulani that day you won't have the energy to go out again.

 

[APears]

And if anyone knows of a great waterfall to hike that's not the Waimea Falls, please let me know! I've only heard kind of disappointing reviews of Waimea and I can't come all the way to Hawaii and not go see some waterfalls. Thanks to everyone who has joined along in this trip report! I'll try and update this one more time before the wedding/honeymoon!

If you want a quick and easy-to-get-to waterfall that you don't plan on swimming in, Manoa Falls is an option. I've never been to Waimea Falls (since we can't bring our dog), but I've been to Manoa a few times. If you guys want to swim at the end of the waterfall, I'd suggest Maunawili Falls. That one is longer (takes us about 3 hours roundtrip not including lingering at the falls) and as with most waterfall hikes it's very muddy.

 

[NancyDVC]

It sounds wonderful. You will be at Pearl Harbor right in the middle of the 75th Anniversary Commemoration events. Get to the visitors center early! You can check out the event calendar at pearlharbor75thanniversary.com. There will be a lot going on at the visitors center as well as all over the area. Concerts, dedications, ceremonies etc.
Plan to spend time there. Get the audio tour it really enhanced our visit. You can also visit the USS Missouri, the USS Bowfin and the Pacific Avaition Museum Pearl Harbor.

 

[Lauren1027]

I highly recommend stopping for groceries first. You're likely to find that once you get to Aulani that day you won't have the energy to go out again.

Thank you for the tip! I will mention this to DF so we can plan to go before we check-in.

If you want a quick and easy-to-get-to waterfall that you don't plan on swimming in, Manoa Falls is an option. I've never been to Waimea Falls (since we can't bring our dog), but I've been to Manoa a few times. If you guys want to swim at the end of the waterfall, I'd suggest Maunawili Falls. That one is longer (takes us about 3 hours roundtrip not including lingering at the falls) and as with most waterfall hikes it's very muddy.

Thank you! No, we don't plan to swimming and a 3 hour hike is definitely too much for me, so I'll take a look at Manoa Falls!

It sounds wonderful. You will be at Pearl Harbor right in the middle of the 75th Anniversary Commemoration events. Get to the visitors center early! You can check out the event calendar at pearlharbor75thanniversary.com. There will be a lot going on at the visitors center as well as all over the area. Concerts, dedications, ceremonies etc.
Plan to spend time there. Get the audio tour it really enhanced our visit. You can also visit the USS Missouri, the USS Bowfin and the Pacific Avaition Museum Pearl Harbor.

Ohhh that's awesome! Thank you! I will definitely check out the website to see if anything cool is going on when we go.

 

[cgattis]

Leonard's is very close to Diamond Head. We plan to stop there for a post-hike snack!! Mmmm!

 

[OKW Lover]

While at Leonards, pick up a sweetbread. Its really good in the morning with a cup of coffee.

 

[Lauren1027]

Leonard's is very close to Diamond Head. We plan to stop there for a post-hike snack!! Mmmm!

I think post-hike malasadas sound AMAZING!

 

[amalone1013]

Jumping in! I can't wait to see!

I have zero Hawaii advice because my only trip there, I was 13 months old. I hope to go back someday... or I should say plan

Mmmmm... Tigger Tails... they are delicious. I hope our next Disneyland trip we can hit Carthay Circle - I'm trying to be a more adventurous eater, but I'm so picky I worry about the nice places at DLR/WDW and that I won't eat anything! I've been reading lots of WDW menus for our Disneymoon...