New Dining (Meal) Plan at Aulani

[MouseOfCards]

Just saw this information on Aulani's site. I know that occasionally Aulani has offered free meal promos with reservation packages, but this is the first I have heard of a prepaid dining plan for all hotel guests. Has anyone tried this?

ULU CAFE DINING PLAN
The Ulu Cafe Dining Plan lets you prepay for meals, so you can drop in any time to enjoy your favorite entrée and drink, then quickly get back to the fun.

With this special offer, you can purchase one meal per Guest per night of your stay ahead of time.

Redeem your meals at breakfast, lunch or dinner—once per day or combine the total and use them whenever you'd like. Your credits will be loaded on to your Guest room key card. To redeem your meals just swipe your card and go!

Pricing Per Guest Per Night

• Ages 10 and up – $15.00 plus tax
• Ages 3 through 9 – $8.00 plus tax

Plan Includes

• One meal (breakfast, lunch of dinner) at Ulu Cafe per Guest per night of your stay
• Each meal includes one entrée plus one of the following non-specialty beverages: coffee, tea, fruit juice, fountain beverage, hot cocoa or milk

Important Details

• The Ulu Cafe Dining Plan must be purchased before your arrival at Aulani Resort
• The Ulu Cafe Dining Plan must be purchased for all Guests in your party ages 3 and over
• Ulu Cafe Dining Plan is only available for use at Ulu Cafe, a quick-service dining location. The plan may not be used at any other quick-service or table-service dining location throughout the Resort
• Meal entitlements for Guests ages 3 through 9 cannot be used by Guests 10 and up
• Guests ages 3 through 9 must order from the children's menu where available
• Your meal plan duration must coincide with the number of nights of your room reservation
• The duration of the Aulani Resort Ulu Meal Plan Add-On must coincide with the number of nights of the room reservation
• Meal entitlements may be combined and redeemed however you wish until the total number for your party is used up

To reserve your Ulu Cafe Dining Plan call (866) 443-4763 between 7:00 AM and 8:00 PM Pacific Time.

 

[oktracy]

Interesting news. Thanks for reporting back about the new dining plan option. We are Aulani DVC owners and a dining plan option would not interest us given our access to a kitchen. Perhaps Aulani is marketing to the summer traveler who books hotel accommodations. In my opinion, Ulu cafe does not offer enough variety for a dining plan.

 

[cmph]

We really liked Ulu, and it had more nutritious lunch/dinner options for DH (who has celiac) than anything else quick. But even I can't see buying these in advance... seems really limiting. We typically had a couple of us do Ulu and the others do something else at lunch, and all converge together to eat. I'm betting they won't let you buy the package for one person in the family though, and I can't see my kids wanting Ulu every day, or getting value out of breakfast.

 

[JCornell]

Yeah, I don't understand a dining plan that is limited to one restaurant and one meal per day. I don't really see any advantage of this over out of pocket.

 

[alohamom]

Hmmmm might be the first step in offering "free dining" during certain times. Put in place a meal plan and then offer it for free. I know the have done the $50 food credit as a promo but I have also read how so many people have complained about it as well. A simple meal plan might bring some clarity to that promo. Just a thought...

 

[OKW Lover]

Interesting option. Might make the most sense for non-DVC guests.

 

[MeeskaMooska13]

We will be there in June and have purchased this - we are non-DVC and won't have a car most days so thought we'd try it.

 

[pangyal]

FWIW, they've had this option for at least six months. I'm not sure how much money anyone would save with it, if any. Most of the meals at Ulu are under $15 by a fair amount, and I'm guessing many will have the refillable mug for the length of stay anyway.

 

[poohj80]

The only advantage I can think of is if you have older kids who want to spend some time away from mom and dad but don't have charging privileges on their room keys. The dining plan ensures they eat at least once per day.

 

[MouseOfCards]

We will be there in June and have purchased this - we are non-DVC and won't have a car most days so thought we'd try it.

Hope you can report back on what you thought of the plan. Hope you have a great trip!

 

[cgattis]

The only advantage I can think of is if you have older kids who want to spend some time away from mom and dad but don't have charging privileges on their room keys. The dining plan ensures they eat at least once per day.

Can you put charging privilege limits on a key for the kids, just like on the MagicBands? That worked well for my kids to get things from the food courts without me. They also liked using them at Food and Wine

 

[Elima2015]

I hope they increase the variety and quality of food offered at Ulu if that is the only dining plan place available. We had vouchers included with our stay that were that exact description. If they hadn't been included with the reservation we needed to make anyway, I would have felt like I wasn't getting my money's worth. The food was ok, nothing exceptional. We also enjoyed touring around Oahu so were gone for a few meals. To be fair, one night I had a delicious salmon and my in-laws had pork ribs a different night that they really liked. The breakfasts were pretty reliable. Also, we were in a 2 bedroom, so we had a kitchen which made it almost an obligation to make sure we used our Ulu vouchers. I would see this plan being most useful to those in hotel rooms or studios and who plan to be at the resort most of the stay.

 

[cmph]

The only advantage I can think of is if you have older kids who want to spend some time away from mom and dad but don't have charging privileges on their room keys. The dining plan ensures they eat at least once per day.

Can you put charging privilege limits on a key for the kids, just like on the MagicBands? That worked well for my kids to get things from the food courts without me. They also liked using them at Food and Wine

Actually, the older kids should have charging privileges, now that I think about it. My 11yo automatically had that on her room key. Whereas I did not... haha. You can tell, b/c it says it on the card. It took the front desk like 3 tries to fix it b/c for some reason, the system didn't want me to be able to charge! My son (7 at the time) did not, and iirc could not have charging privileges even if we wanted him to. But the default for the 11yo was to have them, unless you requested they be removed. I didn't inquire about imposing a limit. I'm not sure what the cut-off is for automatically granting vs not. Maybe 10, aka "Disney adult"? so yeah, the older kids can definitely buy food/drinks whether they have the meal plan or not.

 

[oakleycat]

I think you might be able to save a couple dollars (ie kids meals are $8-9 so if you get the most expensive ones you save $1) but it doesn't seem like much given the loss of flexibility. It is so easy to just use the cards (which I would assume you would have to have anyway for the prepaid meals) and half the time we went there we were just ordering one item, like a kids meal or a breakfast pizza, so we would have lost money if we prepaid for meals.

 

[Angelaann]

FWIW, they've had this option for at least six months. I'm not sure how much money anyone would save with it, if any. Most of the meals at Ulu are under $15 by a fair amount, and I'm guessing many will have the refillable mug for the length of stay anyway.

This plan was available last August. I agree, it doesn't seem to be much of a deal.

 

[HawaiiBound]

Ulu cafe was very crowded when we went last February. So much so that we left and went elsewhere, so I would have been bummed if we had prepaid and had to stay in line!