Marvin Weinstein

Review of Aulani, A Disney Resort and Sp...

We had a great time at Aulani overall, but will pr...

We had a great time at Aulani overall, but will probably stay elsewhere next time.

The positives:

The room was huge (suite with living room and dining room area separate from the bedroom and large bathroom). There was also a half bath near the room entrance.

The various pool areas and lazy river were really nice. The beach and protected cove/lagoon area was awesome.

Compared to the handful of other properties in the surrounding Ko Olina area, it probably has one of the better locations just because it is across the street from the Ko Olina Center (market and restaurant area). But then again, there is a free shuttle that goes around the various properties every half hour.

The negatives:

As you would expect, the resort was PACKED with families and kids on our early August stay. Bell hops were slammed when we arrived and still hadn't received our bags even after waiting over an hour after arrival. So we went down to pick them up ourselves (finding a line of people trying to do the same).

There were plenty of lounge chairs surrounding the various pool areas, but they are ALL "reserved" (mostly people staking their claim by leaving towels/belongings) early in the morning. The pools are also packed with kids/parents as you would expect, but we had no issues finding spots in the pools to swim around. I had to drop off a rental car at the Marriott a couple of blocks away and after hanging out at their nice lobby area overlooking the property and pool area, it seemed to have a WAY more chill atmosphere with much less people around (lots of available pool lounge chairs and hardly anyone at the pool!).

I also didn't find Aulani to be very Disney. Sure you have (expensive) character breakfast/dinner and see them in a half hour show at the pool in the afternoon, but that's pretty much it. I was expecting it to be like Legoland with themed rooms, daily Lego themed treasure hunts, etc. Plus, my toddler isn't really into taking pictures with the characters and would have equally enjoyed herself in any nice resort with a nice pool/beach. So the premium of staying in a "Disney" resort was definitely not worth it for us.

Lastly, Ko Olina was nice and we were expecting it to be more chill than the Waikiki area (Aulani wasn't, but I have a feeling neighboring resorts are). The food at Aulani was ok. Food at Monkeypod across the street was also just ok. There aren't as many options in this area. This is a completely different experience from the Waikiki area, where it seemed that every restaurant we stumbled upon (with some help from Google Maps and its reviews) was Amazing! But Waikiki is definitely a much busier (less chill) type of place.