Trip Report - 16 Days in Hawaii - Maui, Oahu, and Aulani!

Great trip report. I love seeing all your pix of Maui as well. We will be making our third trip to Aulani this April and your report is getting me excited. As west coasters - Hawaii is as easy to get to as WDW so we usually get to Hawaii a little more frequently.

I agree with you about the coast/mountains over by Kualoa ranch - absolutely gorgeous. Oahu sometimes gets overlooked because people think it is just Waikiki, but after visiting Oahu in 2011 for the first time, I have to say it is one of my favorites of the islands. There is a ton of natural beauty on Oahu.

We love to tour Kualoa Ranch. We have twice done a private tour that includes the ranch and focuses on movie locations (primarily LOST). We took the tour in November 2015 and they were actively filming the new King Kong movie that is coming out next month. I am sure what you saw were the left over sets.

Can't wait to read the rest of your report.
 
Hi Matt
Followed over from your Disney institute report.The photos are amazing.The Hawain islands look out of this world for a holiday destination.Car hire looks a bit bothersome though.Your group photos that were taken by the professional photographers are well cool something for you to look at well into the years after the holiday.It is amazing how Spam is still around to eat a lot of the younger generation won't even try it never mind eat it.You know that's the problem that we British have when coming to America on holiday there is only just so much that you can do in the time that you have we would love to fit Hawaii in some time.

Stuart.
 
Hi everyone. Sorry for the absence... I've been sick most of this week and just not feeling up to working on the computer in the evenings. I'm starting to feel better now, so I'll probably get posting again in another day or two..


The Road to Hana is something we want to do as well. Your trip report for that day gave me lots of tips, so thank you for that!
In fact, you're entire trip report so far has been so informative with great tips!!!
Thanks to your info and pics, I have a much better visual of what I'm going to see, do, and experience!
We were going to go in Jan, but decided on Nov/Dec. We also want to get away from the cold here in Canada. So sick of it! I'm sure you are too!!!
Looking forward to the rest!! :)

I'm so glad that your finding the trip helpful. You're going to love the Road to Hanna!

So glad you made it back here to post your TR. Can't wait to read all about Aulani.

Cool. Thanks!

Still LOVING this amazing TR.
Wow those garlic knots are no joke!! And lets just say that's a pepperoni pizza for sure:-)

Now I am rethinking......we were mostly going to stay at Aulani for our 5 nights. After Aulani we are going on the POA cruise around islands. We were going to Pearl Harbor on shore excursion from ship on way to Airport.
We were only going to leave Aulani for the North shore excursion. Now I'm thinking about Kaulua? Ranch. Looks so beautiful, including drive there.
Choices:-)
Kerri

Yeah, those garlic knots were super tasty! I would strongly consider Kualoa ranch. It's pretty awesome!

Loving your trip report! Keep it coming!

Thanks! I'll have another update this weekend, I hope!

I know......we are only leaving for PH and north shore but I keep looking at Kualoa!!! Too many choices!! heehee

Yeah, decisions... decisions!!!! :cool1:

Loving this trip report! My in-laws went to Hawaii probably 20 years ago and still talk about the road to Hana.

Looking forward to seeing Aulani!

Thanks! Yeah, I could see us talking about this trip for 20 years too. It was that good!

Such a fabulous report! I am learning so much and loving all your great photos. I am contemplating getting a Go Pro Hero Session after seeing some of your photos. I normally shoot with my Nikon DSLR but have found it staying in the hotel room more and more recently due to the size and weight - I actually ended up getting a Sony RX100 so that I could travel lighter, but I love the idea of being able to carry the session onto the beach and even into the water without a housing. Do you think it's worth the ~$200 investment?

I love the photos from Kualoa ranch! Not sure we'd want to take the tour, I tend to get motion sickness and yours is not the first review I've read of a rocky experience. Do you think it'd be worth visiting the beach park without doing the ranch tour? I love the photos you got of the China Man's Hat (or whatever it's called) and the cliffs/beach/coast.

Too funny about McDonalds, KFC, Panda Express, and Outback featuring into the story... it's easy to forget that fast food and chain restaurants were made for crunch times when the family is stressed and tired - so they really fit the bill after traveling!

Thanks so much for all the work that went into the report. SO helpful! Can't wait to read more and for when you get to Aulani!!!

With respect to the GoPro, I got mine on sale for about $160, but that was over a year ago. We use it quite a bit for skateboarding, putting on our model/train/monorail, taking to Disney, and stuff. So I think it was worth it for us. But if I was going to use it just for one vacation, maybe not. Oh, and the other thing, is that it's super convenient. So small that you can add it to your bag or stuff it in a pocket without it adding much weight/bulk. Also, you can connect it wirelessly to your phone and share any of the photos/videos on social media while you are on vacation (without brining a laptop or whatever.)

For example, here's a video of the GoPro riding on the monorail layout
that we made...

Yes, I think it would totally be worth visiting the eastern shore without taking one of those tours. The beaches are awesome over there. You still can visit the ranch and walk around a bit too. We only scratched the surface of the eastern side, and I'm sure there's lots of other cool stuff to see :-)

Yum, the pizza looks good! I am sad to hear you didn't love Giovanni's truck...everyone raves about that place! Beautiful pics of the Aulani in the distance!

Yeah, I was expecting to love it too. Maybe we just visited when they were having an off day or something.

Great trip report. I love seeing all your pix of Maui as well. We will be making our third trip to Aulani this April and your report is getting me excited. As west coasters - Hawaii is as easy to get to as WDW so we usually get to Hawaii a little more frequently.

I agree with you about the coast/mountains over by Kualoa ranch - absolutely gorgeous. Oahu sometimes gets overlooked because people think it is just Waikiki, but after visiting Oahu in 2011 for the first time, I have to say it is one of my favorites of the islands. There is a ton of natural beauty on Oahu.

We love to tour Kualoa Ranch. We have twice done a private tour that includes the ranch and focuses on movie locations (primarily LOST). We took the tour in November 2015 and they were actively filming the new King Kong movie that is coming out next month. I am sure what you saw were the left over sets.

Can't wait to read the rest of your report.

Thanks! Wow, that's interesting about how Hawaii is easier to reach than WDW for you. For us, WDW is about 1.5 day drive. Not too bad. Disneyland is pretty hard for us to get to (pricey for five airline tickets, or a 3 day drive.) And of course Hawaii is pretty darn expensive for us to fly from Missouri...

How cool that you got too ee them actively filming the King Kong movie!!!!

Hi Matt
Followed over from your Disney institute report.The photos are amazing.The Hawain islands look out of this world for a holiday destination.Car hire looks a bit bothersome though.Your group photos that were taken by the professional photographers are well cool something for you to look at well into the years after the holiday.It is amazing how Spam is still around to eat a lot of the younger generation won't even try it never mind eat it.You know that's the problem that we British have when coming to America on holiday there is only just so much that you can do in the time that you have we would love to fit Hawaii in some time.

Stuart.

Hi Stuart! Glad you made it over from that last TR. I hope you're able to fit Hawaii in on one of your future trips. You'd love it!!! :hippie:
 
Thank you so much for sharing this report! We are traveling to Maui in March and very much appreciate you sharing the Maui info as well. You have a beautiful family and it looks like a wonderful trip!
 


Thank you so much for sharing this report! We are traveling to Maui in March and very much appreciate you sharing the Maui info as well. You have a beautiful family and it looks like a wonderful trip!

Thanks so much! I hope you enjoy Maui!

Really enjoying your report! Can't wait to read about the Aulani days. And the group family photos - amazing.

Thank you!!! Stay tuned because the Aulani stuff is coming :hippie:
 
Day 13 - Thursday, June 30: Arrival at Aulani!

OK! We finally made it to the Aulani section of the trip report. Yahoo!!! The general plan for the day… was to wish the rest of the family well on their trip back home, and then head over to Aulani around 9:30 AM.

Before we move on to the actual Aulani arrival... a little background on our plans for this part of the trip:

When we first explored the idea of staying at Aulani, we looked at the general hotel room options. Being a family of five, we were going to need two rooms since their standard rooms only accommodate four people. And there didn't seem to be a guarantee that we'd have them adjacent to each other. Well, that would stink if we had to split up. And even worse, getting two rooms was going to be super expensive. :scared:

We decided to explore the idea of renting DVC points as an alternative. It turns out that you could rent a Standard View One Bedroom Villa (that sleeps 5) for significantly less than two regular hotel rooms directly through Disney. For three nights, this came out to be 138 points… or about $2,000. So yeah, that's about $666 per night. We felt like this was a bit crazy for our normal budget, but we also figured that we'd probably never have the chance to stay at Aulani again as a family, so we threw caution to the wind and went for it! (This also meant that we had to be somewhat frugal throughout the rest of the trip, which played a role in a lot of our meal choices. The trade off was totally worth it!)

Additionally, we would still have our rental car. Parking was going to cost between $30 and $40 per day as a regular hotel guest. But DVC members get free parking, and this benefit is passed on to whoever is using the points. So that was another plus for renting points!

In some ways, I'd prefer not to share what it cost us to stay here, but I think it's relevant because this is significantly more expensive than the Ko Olina Villas next door. And for our family of five, it was probably about 50% more than it would cost us to stay at the Disneyland Hotel or the WDW Grand Floridian (which can sleep five in a regular room.) And to be honest, relative to our previous experiences at the Disneyland Hotel, Grand Floridian, Polynesian Resort, etc., the service and value just wasn't quite up to those standards.

When the time comes, I'll share some examples where we felt like Aulani fell short of our expectations. And this is coming from the perspective of a family of five… If we had only required a single hotel room, we could have saved a huge chunk of change, and then the value may have been better for the money. (In other words… a family of four staying in a regular room would probably have a different perspective on the perceived value.) All that being said, we LOVED Aulani and don’t regret the investment one bit. It was still awesome! (It just could have been, well, "awesomer".)

So decision #1 was to rent a DVC points and get a one bedroom villa. Next decision was… who should we rent from? (We had never rented points before.) We looked closely at David's DVC and the DVC Rental Store. They both had good reputations and offered a point protection/insurance plan (in case you need to cancel.) The prices were similar, but the DVC Rental Store's point protection option was a little cheaper, so we decided to go through them. And it turned out to be super easy to rent from them. (I'm sure David's would have been equally as easy.) I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the DVC Rental Store, and I’m pretty sure we'll use them on our next big trip to WDW.

Next question… Do we get a standard view room, or a cool view that looks out into the ocean and/or swimming pools? We knew that we'd have great ocean views at our first two condos on Maui and Oahu, so a view at Aulani wasn't as important to us. Also, we figured that we wouldn't be spending too much time in the room over our three nights, so we figured that having an amazing view wasn't as important here. So yeah, decision #3 was to get a standard view.

Other considerations…. We knew that we'd be there over 4th of July weekend and that it would be super busy. And we had read the horror stories of finding pool chairs during busy times. (Potentially needing to get up at the break of dawn and camp out for hours before the pool opened, loosing your "claim" if you stay away too long, and stuff like that.) We decided that it might be a good idea to rent a cabana for Saturday, ensuring that we'd have at least one day to enjoy the pools without any hassles. Hmm… pay extra for a better view for our room, or get a cabana for at least one of the days? That sealed the deal to go with a standard view room and to rent a cabana instead. Stephanie did the research on which one to pick, and we put in a reservation on the first day that we were able to. (Something like nine months out.) Oh, and since we were staying with DVC points, they gave us the member discount for renting the cabana too! Also, this turned out to be a good decision to reserve early, because not too long after, the price went up by at least $100… and since we reserved before the rate hike, we were locked with the old price.

And with respect to kids activities for Auntie's Beach House on this busy weekend, we knew that we'd need to reserve them early for Pickle, so we did that on the first day that we could. It was pretty easy… you went to the website and gave them your choices. Then they assign you activities based on the number of days that you are staying. So for three nights, they gave us one activity and assigned a time to us. They did give us Pickle's first choice, Coconut Kings and Queens of Comedy… but it was for Friday night at 7:30 PM. Right at the only time when the Luau was scheduled during our visit. Bummer! Nothing we could do about it at the time, so we just figured that we'd play it by ear and let Pickle decided which was more important when the time came.

I guess that's about it for planning purposes….back to the trip report! :hippie:

So yeah, at about 9:30 AM, we all headed down to the parking lot to say goodbye to the rest of the family and get our cars loaded up. And since we'd have a kitchen in our villa, we took everyone's extra groceries. (Score!!!)

And thinking about it again… What a generous blessing that Stephanie's parents gave to all of us. I mean… it's one thing to stay married for 50 years, but it's another thing to consistently demonstrate what a God-centered and a loving relationship can look like. What a great example they set for us too, and it was really cool to celebrate it with them in one of their favorite places!!! Thanks again Dennis and Shirley!

After saying goodbye, we made the five minute trip (because, well you know, stop lights) over to Aulani.

We pulled up and let the bellmen take everything except for our backpacks with the swimming gear.

(Oh, and noting that before the trip, Stephanie purchased this awesome "AO Coolers Canvas Soft Cooler". It folds pretty flat to fit inside our airplane luggage, but it expands big enough for at least a 24 pack of cans. Or a few cans/bottles and enough fruit/lunch meat for our family. We took it to the beaches a lot, on our drives, etc. And it keeps the ice preserved amazingly well. So yeah, we were able to keep a few perishables in it until our room was ready. That cooler was totally worth it for this trip alone!)

When we walked up to the lobby doors, a couple of nice ladies greeted us. They offered us some fruity water and gave us some goodies. Stephanie received a flower lei and I received a kukui nut lei. (you'll see them in some of the photos below.) The kids each received one of these cool Menehune necklaces.



Here's the back side of Buddy's… (he tore it to get the necklace off the card.)



So yeah, they walked us through the lobby and up to the front desk…



Obviously, the room wasn't ready, but the check-in process was super easy. Noting that in the photo above… all those photos on the wall were taken by local kids. Apparently, before the resort opened, they gave a bunch of school kids cameras and asked them to take photos of their surroundings. And then they built this giant collage with them. If I recall, the color changes even more to the left. Maybe some blues and other colors too…

Next, we all decided to walk back out to the car and drive it over to the self-serve area of the parking garage. And then we walked back into the lobby. This only took a couple minutes. The garage is only a short walk.

Also worth noting, that we've purchased the PhotoPass CD's a few times at WDW and DLR. We decided that it might be worth it to do the same here. (And I'm glad we did.) So while we were exploring the lobby area, we decided to get a few photopass shots!





This one is a bit cheesy, but it shows the leis pretty well…



I guess that's enough for one post. I have enough photos and interesting stuff to share, that it'll take a few posts to get through each day. So yeah, much more to come!
 
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Day 13 - Thursday, June 30 - Part 2: Daily 'Iwa

Oh... I forgot to share this. When we checked in, they gave us todays' Daily 'Iwa.



And the back side had the schedule of activities...

 
Day 13 - Thursday, June 30 - Part 3: Exploring Aulani and Lunch at Ulu Café

We ended up hanging out in the lobby area for a little while… So I took a ton of photos! Here are just a few.
(Oh, and I have wide angle fisheye lens attached to my camera for a few of these. That explains the occasional strange field of view and distortions.)

Here's the lobby when you first walk in…



And looking up…



From the center of the lobby, if you look to the left, you'll find the gift shops and way down there, some stairs to get outside.



Looking to the right, you'll find a similar view, but it has the front desk, concierge, and waiting areas instead.

If you keep walking straight through the lobby, you'll step out on to a verandah overlooking the pool area. That's where those first PhotoPass photos were taken.



Hmmm…. What's pickle looking at?



Hey look, Mickey is down there!



Looking back toward the lobby…



And back in the lobby, looking toward the front entrance…



And a couple other random photos…









Next up, we decided to take Pickle down to get registered and ready for Aunty's Beach house…





It took a few minutes to get her set up in the system...



And then we walked inside for a couple minutes….



And then, they were still having open play, so she decided that she wanted to stay. We were thinking about having lunch next and that concerned us to leave Pickle behind, because it was too late to sign her up for the Aunty's lunch. But they assured us that they had enough snacks to keep her happy for a couple hours, so off we went…

We decided to try Ulu Café, which was pretty much on the other side of the swimming area. So we took the scenic route and walked over. (Looks like I didn't upload any photos from the walk over, but I have hundreds of photos of the pool areas, so stay tuned for some of those.)



So yeah… Ulu Café… this is the main counter/quick service restaurant at the resort. They have a daily menu, grab and go sandwiches/salads/wraps, pizza, etc.

I guess this was literally our first taste of one of the mediocre aspects of Aulani… The food here was just OK at best.

However, Princess and Buddy were stoked on their chicken fingers. LOL.





Stephanie had a Kālua Pork Flatbread… I think she liked it well enough… but not anything to brag about on social media. LOL.



(I guess, if you've had one of these flatbreads at the various places at WDW and DLR, this was on par with those.)

I went with the special of the day, the Chicken Katsu sandwich. It was incredibly bland and dry. Very disappointing.



We ate here a couple times on the trip, which added to the overall impression of mediocracy. This is compared to the excellent quick service options we've at other deluxe resorts. (For example, Gasparilla Island Grill at the Grand Floridian, Contempo Café at the Contemporary Resort, Captain Cook's at the Poly, Tangaroa Terrace at Disneyland Hotel, etc. Those all have some really excellent and varied dining options. We didn't feel like Ulu Café was in the same league. Maybe we hit it on an off week, I don't know. But it was a bit disappointing in general.)

At the time though, who cares… we're at Aulani!!! This place is so amazingly beautiful!

Next up, we snaked our way through that northern corridor to check out the teen spa. Some of the teen activities were scheduled here, so we wanted to check it out. I guess we should have done our homework more thouroughly… Because for some reason, we thought it was going to be a teen hang out area like those on the Disney Cruise Line. But… it was mostly just a spa. You know, for facial treatments and stuff. And it was quite expensive to boot. Oh well, whatever. Let's keep exploring!

We eventually snaked our way through the hallways of the northern tower and found ourselves in the courtyard below the main verandah…



It was now about 12:30 and Buddy wanted to try the Menehune Adventure Trail. Which is like a high tech scavenger hunt. If you'd ever done the Kim Possible or Agent P's World Showcase Adventure at Epcot, it reminded me of that… but on steroids because they give you a tablet computer instead of an old fashioned cell phone thingy. You check out the tablet at the Pau Hana community center, and then depending on which adventure you choose (there are a couple of them) you explore different parts of the resort going through the exercise. For some reason, I didn't get any photos of Buddy doing this. I think I ended up just hanging out in the main lobby with Princess while Stephanie and Buddy did the adventure. (We did it again with Pickle the next day, and I have better pictures of that experience.)

Anyway, when we arrived at the community center, they were in the middle of a family animation activity. It looked like people were enjoying it well enough. Cool!





Around 1:15 PM, we were notified that our room was ready. So we decided to go fetch Pickle from Auntys, get settled in, and then go spend the afternoon swimming.
 
Day 13 - Thursday, June 30 - Part 4: Our Room

Here's a scan of the map that they gave us when we purchased our PhotoPass stuff. Noting the that they drew all those Mickey Mouse heads on there to show us where the various photographers were stationed. (And they had some sort of scavenger hunt with that too. Basically if you got photos taken at least five of them (or something like that), then they'd print off a free 5x7 photo for you.)

Anyway, the big red arrow points to where our room was. Again, this is a standard view room. The location was actually quite convenient, because we were a few doors down the hall from the elevators. And just outside the elevators on the first floor, there was a door to get outside...



Love the carpet and wallpaper in the hallways…




Check out the carving on the door!



Walking in, the kitchen is immediately to your right…



And then coming inside a bit, the eating and main living areas are just around the corner.





Across from the table, they had laundry machines. Nice!!!!




And looking into the main living area…



The sofa folds out into a queen sized bed, which is where Pickle and Princess slept. And then that large carved panel below the TV folds down to reveal something slightly smaller than a twin sized bed. That's where Buddy slept…





And then moving into the master suite…



Walking in… the bed is immediately in front of you, and then the TV and desk are just to your right.





And then this cool lamp!!!! I know right! (You could purchase a copy of the lamp in the gift shop.)



Towel "animal" and bookmark on the bed…



And then from the corner by the desk, looking into the bathroom area…





Closet inside the bath area…



So the bathtub has its own room with a sink, and then the toilet and shower are in a separate room further back. And then if you take an immediate left, you are back at the front door, making a full circle in the villa.



You may have noticed from the picture of the front door, we were on the fifth floor. I'm not sure how this worked out, because it didn't seem that high on our side. Perhaps the inside of the resort drops down lower than the the outside does. Regardless, how was the view? Actually not bad at all, considering this is a standard view room. I imagine if you were a couple floors down, it wouldn't have been as nice. So we were pretty happy with the luck of the draw here. We looked out over a courtyard instead of a rooftop!

Looking straight out…





And then off to the right, you'll see the pathway to the convention center area…



And then over to the left…



It was a nice big patio. But we really didn't spend much time out there at all… I think Princess went out every now and then to get away from the rest of us and do Snapchat/Instagram/whatever.

I'm sure that we'll be seeing more of the room in the TR, but that's the gist of it. All in all, we were stoked with the quality and layout. It was impeccably maintained. This was easily the nicest Disney room we've ever stayed at. And it sure ought to have been so for the price :rotfl2:
 
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Day 13 - Thursday, June 30 - Part 5: Swimming and Evening Activities

After we got settled in the room, it was about 2:30 pm. We decided to head down to the pool and swim for a couple hours. It was pretty crowded, but we were able to find about three or four chairs down by the largest pool without too much trouble. I guess I didn't bring a camera or my phone, because I don't have any pool photos from this afternoon. Again, no worries, we spent the better part of the next two days enjoying the pools and I have lots of photos from then.

But yeah, we grabbed our wrist bands and towels before we were able to get in the water. And then we spent a fair amount of time in the lazy river, hot tubs, and the infinity pool. It was really a fun afternoon!!!

Eventually, it was getting close to dinner time, so we headed back up to the room. We still had a fair amount of groceries from the previous week, so we planned to eat in our own unit tonight. We had a smorgasbord of hot dogs, various fruits, chips/snacks, sweets, and stuff. :cool1: (And oh and hot dogs at Aulani?!?! Not anyone's first choice, but they were hold outs from earlier in the week, and they were free. :rotfl2:)

And somewhere between all that… Princess and Buddy went down to the "Teen Island Beach Challenge" from 4:30 to 5:15 PM. Funny… Princess (16 at the time) is more social than Buddy (13 at the time), but she didn't enjoy it at all… and Buddy actually made friends and had lots of fun. They said that there were about 15 kids. Mostly on the younger end of the 13 to 17 range. They did some scavenger hunts in the sand with plastic beach toys, and some team activity games. Seeing as how the group was on the younger side, I can see why Buddy had more fun. Quoting Princess, "There wasn't really anyone my age and most of the girls looked like they were around 12 years old, but acted like they were too cool for school. It wasn't fun to be around them." So there you have it… but I bet if there were more older kids, that Princess would have related to the group better and had more fun.

After dinner, the kids were all tired and just wanted to chill in the room. And outside of those teen activities, there really wasn't much for them to do anyway. (The pool closes in the late afternoon/early evening and it got dark around 7pm.) So while they played on their devices or whatever, Stephanie and I took the opportunity to go down and throughly scope out the gift shop and explore the lobby a bit more.

Oh, and yeah… the sofa cushions had to go somewhere. So Buddy made a fort out of them…



Heading towards the lobby…



Exploring the lobby again, we found another PhotoPass photographer…





And oh yeah, every time we drove past Aulani in the evening earlier in the week, I was mesmerized by the lanterns hanging in the tree out front. I had to go out and get a photo!



And eventually, we went over to the other side and wandered around the pool area. Cool to see it at night…





And down by the Halawai Lawn, they were playing the movie, Inside Out. (Except for not too many people seemed interested in watching it.)



We had a lovely time exploring the grounds and soaking it all in… But eventually we came back to the room (probably 9pm.) Stephanie wanted to get up bright and early to try and register Pickle for some additional activities at Aunty's tomorrow. All in all, it was an enjoyable first day at Aulani. Yahoo!

:dancer:
 
So yeah… Ulu Café… this is the main counter/quick service restaurant at the resort. They have a daily menu, grab and go sandwiches/salads/wraps, pizza, etc.

I guess this was literally our first taste of one of the mediocre aspects of Aulani… The food here was just OK at best.

The first time we stayed at Aulani (2014) the Ulu Cafe food was really, really good. Like surprising good. Enough that it factored into part of my meal planning for our next trip in 2016. I was so disappointed in the change of QUALITY that happened over the two years. I dont know if is because of the new promo that offers the Ulu Cafe food credits coming into being during that time but I was so let down. I even tasted a huge difference in the cupcake. I am not a big cupcake eater but my daughter and I had shared an amazing pineapple coconut cupcake from Mamas on our first visit that was delicious. This time round it was terrible, like I am talking bland and dry. The bottom line for me is that if we go back to Aulani I just wont spend my money at Ulu but it is a shame that this has happened.
 
Thanks for sharing your trip with us - these are terrific pictures and memories. I've really enjoyed reading this so far!
 
And a few minutes later, the food was ready. And oh yeah, Stephanie and I got these garlic knots. Delicious!!!



(Just in case I didn't get enough garlic at the shrimp truck. Hahaha!)



Yum! (Except that I'm not too big on black olives.)

Thanks for sharing! Suddenly hungry.
 
Enjoying your trip report. My parents live in Kihei and one of their favorite places they have taken us to is Coconuts. :)
 
Matt, come back! Your first day at Aulani has left the masses waiting for more details about Hawaiian Disney paradise...
 
Matt, come back! Your first day at Aulani has left the masses waiting for more details about Hawaiian Disney paradise...

Sorry!!!! The whole family got sick for a while, and then things have been super crazy busy at work.... working late most days the last couple weeks. But... things are starting to settle down, and I should be able to get the TR moving again soon!

Thanks for the prod :hippie:
 
Sorry!!!! The whole family got sick for a while, and then things have been super crazy busy at work.... working late most days the last couple weeks. But... things are starting to settle down, and I should be able to get the TR moving again soon!

Thanks for the prod :hippie:

Totally feel your pain on that. Much easier to write voluminous updates when the work hours are shorter. Just wanted to let you know that your fans are still here! (And bump the thread to the front page again since it's so helpful)
 
Hello Matt. Well, it took me a little while but I finally came back and I've read your entire report over the last couple days. I enjoyed it a lot. Hawaii has always been on my bucket list, but being from northeast Canada it's quite a ways to travel (not to mention airfare!) so it has eluded me so far. Maybe one of these days. The scenery is fantastic and you've given me some great ideas if I ever make it that way. I think I would have to try including the Big Island in any plans though because I would love to see the active volcanoes.
 

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