What to do on the first day/evening of visit - coming from the east coast

[WinterSolider]

We are headed to Aulani from FL next month and I'm starting to make rez since we are in the window. I'm a little anxious about how exhausted we will be coming from the east coast (traveling with 3 kids - this will be the farthest they've ever flown). For anyone who has been in this position, how do you handle that first evening? Is it just immediate crash? Or do I try to drag us to dinner to get us on the right time zone? TIA!

Go to bed immediately.

DO NOT try to adjust to the "correct" time zone, at least not fully. It will make going home miserable.

Embrace waking up early, "rope drop" everything you do, eat dinner during happy hour specials. Stuff closes early anyways so there's no reason to stay up late.

We always fly on Saturday and do a big Costco run after church the first Sunday.

 

[mk717]

We arrived ~3pm at HNL flying from east coast. Picked up rental car and headed straight to resort for check in, dropped off bags, then a quick service poke bowl! We were tired but made our way to Kapolei to get groceries. At the very least, I would get enough food for the following morning because all 3 of my kids woke up around 2am and again at 5am feeling very hungry, and nothing is open at this time. You can go across the street to Island Market (ABC) if you don't want to drive to a grocery store.

I have 3 young kids and we didn't try too hard to adjust to the new time zone. You will naturally wake up early and tire early, which isn't the worst thing for this kind of trip. If you are interested in Diamond Head, you can use this to your advantage to book an early reservation in the beginning of your trip when you will be wide awake before 6am. This is our week back and my kids already almost missed the bus twice this week.

 

[Flip flops in winter]

We arrived ~3pm at HNL flying from east coast. Picked up rental car and headed straight to resort for check in, dropped off bags, then a quick service poke bowl! We were tired but made our way to Kapolei to get groceries. At the very least, I would get enough food for the following morning because all 3 of my kids woke up around 2am and again at 5am feeling very hungry, and nothing is open at this time. You can go across the street to Island Market (ABC) if you don't want to drive to a grocery store.

I have 3 young kids and we didn't try too hard to adjust to the new time zone. You will naturally wake up early and tire early, which isn't the worst thing for this kind of trip. If you are interested in Diamond Head, you can use this to your advantage to book an early reservation in the beginning of your trip when you will be wide awake before 6am. This is our week back and my kids already almost missed the bus twice this week.

This is good advice, especially having food available for the next day! There is no way mine will sleep in. They are normally up at 6am ET and don't even sleep in on the weekends so I predict we won't truly acclimate. Were you able to stay up late enough to do star gazing?