10 Days in Paradise - Our Oahu (Aulani) and Maui Big Summer Blowout (Finally updated! 06/30/2020)

[Amw1064]

Your trip report is making me excited for our trip back. Love Aulani, Oahu, and anything Hawaii. Lanikai is our favorite beach as well.

 

[BigTex71]

Wow! I read through my trip report today and realized I never finished it. So I'll cap off the report as well as I can.

 

[BigTex71]

Day 9 : Best Breakfast and South Maui Chill

This was our last full day of vacation and the kids decided they would rather sleep in than go on am hour drive up to Napili Shores with us for breakfast. It was their loss. Another place I had heard rave reviews of - the Gazebo Restaurant - was our destination. My wife remembers this place from her visit to Maui with her parents 30 years ago and wanted to be sure to eat there while we were on Maui. This was our best day for it and we braved the long drive and long line to eat in this tiny gazebo. And it was totally worth it! Here is a pic of the small restaurant:



IIRC, we waited in the line outside about 45 minutes to get seated. DW and I wanted the Macadamia, Pineapple, and Banana Pancakes, but also wanted something savory. We decided to split the pancakes and an order of Eggs Benedict with Hash Browns. Looking back, we will both order the pancakes next time. Don't get the wrong impression - the Benedict was really good. But those pancakes were life-changing! They were easily the best pancakes I have ever eaten. They may be the best pancakes in the world. I would fly to Maui overnight just to have those pancakes and then fly back afterwards. They were that good!



After we finished we called to check on the kids to see if they wanted to go look for sea turtles at Honolua Bay with us. They 'were good' and wanted to chill. We told them they missed out on the best breakfast ever. They 'were good'. They were pretty much ready to get back home to their friends. Well, they missed out.









We saw plenty of Green Sea Turtles there. Some volunteers rope off the area near the turtles so you can't touch them, but they are a great resource if you have any questions about the turtles. So, yes, we did get to see turtles during our trip.



The small beach there was nice, clean, and peaceful. We then started out road trip back to the resort to hang out with the kids at the resort pools. Later we stopped for some Shave Ice at Ululani's in Kihei.





This was really great and was a very close second to Waiola on Oahu. I don't recall what we did for lunch or dinner - but it was good (it's been a year, and my memory is not all that any longer.) I can't find the pictures, but I'm sure I have them somewhere. But I do have some photos of the sunset at the beach next to the resort. It was so beautiful and it made us sad knowing it would be the last sunset we would see in Hawaii during this vacation.





Up Next: Day 10 : Makena Beach, Volcanic Rock, and Flyaway

 

[braysmommy]

Following along and thanks for the update! Our first visit to Hawaii was planned for this past May. 6 nights on Maui, 3 at Aulani before DCL cruise. Hoping we might be able to go this coming December or next May.

 

[Noah_t]

Aloha!
As some of you may have read in my itinerary planing thread - we had big plans for our 10 day vacation between Oahu and Maui. How much of the itinerary did we follow? What would we do differently? How do you treat a jellyfish sting? Why would you vacation anywhere else? Where are the best shave ice, fish tacos, and garlic shrimp? Who cares what some egotistical old guy did on his vacation? These questions and more may be answered in this trip report - or not. I hope this report can help others with their plans or provide a way to live vicariously through our trip. I am all about making people smile (or roll their eyes at bad puns and dad jokes.)

A little background about my family - because the last big trip report I did (in my signature) was over 8 years ago. We are a close, loving, happy, Disney-fied family from the DFW area in Texas. We have been visiting Disney destinations (mostly Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort) since 2004. We finally joined DVC last summer and bought points at Copper Creek. My wife and I are 40-somethings who are soulmates and have been married for 20 years (well, when December comes around.) My daughter is 12 and is a hormone-filled diva, yet she remains sweet most of the time. [I think those of you with 11-13 year old girls know what I mean.] My son is 18 and just graduated from high school a few days prior to this vacation and he will be leaving the nest to study Bio-medical Engineering at the University of Houston in the fall. We have been promising to take the kids on a Hawaiian vacation for years, but usually ended up going to Walt Disney World, Disneyland, or Southern California for our summer family vacations. Well, this was our last chance to go before our son goes off to college - so this was the year. We had banked last years' DVC points (since we bought-in while already in WDW on vacation last year.) So for our 5-night stay at a 1-bedroom garden view villa at Aulani, we used the banked points, our current (2019) points, and borrowed some from next use year (2020).

I have a Nikon D90 DSLR camera (crop sensor), but wanted a full-frame camera for our vacation memories - so I rented a Nikon Z7 mirror-less camera and a 24-70mm f/4 Z lens (made for the Z-series Nikon cameras) from Borrow Lenses dot com. I fell in love with this camera and now I need to find a way to be able to afford one for myself. In the meantime, I plan to rent this camera again for any major life events that we want to photograph for memories. I am no professional photographer (though I would love to be some day), just a hobbyist. I usually prefer to tweak my photos in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop before sharing with others, but I want to get a trip report started and I think the photos straight out of this camera (even JPEG down-sized images) looked good enough to post. I may update the photos later after I get a chance to be creative with them in Photoshop. I plan to post a lot of photos here, so I hope they post OK on the new boards here.

And now, the moment we have all been waiting for... day 1! Coming up after these messages from our sponsors (or whoever posts before I can post Day 1.)

Oh this is what I needed!. A great trip report. Even if I have read half when you wrote it I will start over and pretend its new. I need more of these, especially in these days.

 

[cgattis]

Oh this is what I needed!. A great trip report. Even if I have read half when you wrote it I will start over and pretend its new. I need more of these, especially in these days.

Same here! I re-read the whole thing! Fun read, @BigTex71!! Can’t wait to get back!

 

[iloveeeyore]

Thank you so much for your report!! I have read through a few times and will probably read it again as I continue to search for more advice about our (hopefully) up-coming trip to Maui (3 nights in Kihei) and Oahu (2 nights north shore, 5 nights Aulani). DH and I are taking notes.

Those pancakes might have just made our must-do list!

 

[JM23457]

Day 9 : Best Breakfast and South Maui Chill

This was our last full day of vacation and the kids decided they would rather sleep in than go on am hour drive up to Napili Shores with us for breakfast. It was their loss. Another place I had heard rave reviews of - the Gazebo Restaurant - was our destination. My wife remembers this place from her visit to Maui with her parents 30 years ago and wanted to be sure to eat there while we were on Maui. This was our best day for it and we braved the long drive and long line to eat in this tiny gazebo. And it was totally worth it! Here is a pic of the small restaurant:

View attachment 505517

IIRC, we waited in the line outside about 45 minutes to get seated. DW and I wanted the Macadamia, Pineapple, and Banana Pancakes, but also wanted something savory. We decided to split the pancakes and an order of Eggs Benedict with Hash Browns. Looking back, we will both order the pancakes next time. Don't get the wrong impression - the Benedict was really good. But those pancakes were life-changing! They were easily the best pancakes I have ever eaten. They may be the best pancakes in the world. I would fly to Maui overnight just to have those pancakes and then fly back afterwards. They were that good!

View attachment 505519

After we finished we called to check on the kids to see if they wanted to go look for sea turtles at Honolua Bay with us. They 'were good' and wanted to chill. We told them they missed out on the best breakfast ever. They 'were good'. They were pretty much ready to get back home to their friends. Well, they missed out.

View attachment 505520

View attachment 505521

View attachment 505523



We saw plenty of Green Sea Turtles there. Some volunteers rope off the area near the turtles so you can't touch them, but they are a great resource if you have any questions about the turtles. So, yes, we did get to see turtles during our trip.

View attachment 505525

The small beach there was nice, clean, and peaceful. We then started out road trip back to the resort to hang out with the kids at the resort pools. Later we stopped for some Shave Ice at Ululani's in Kihei.

View attachment 505527

View attachment 505528

This was really great and was a very close second to Waiola on Oahu. I don't recall what we did for lunch or dinner - but it was good (it's been a year, and my memory is not all that any longer.) I can't find the pictures, but I'm sure I have them somewhere. But I do have some photos of the sunset at the beach next to the resort. It was so beautiful and it made us sad knowing it would be the last sunset we would see in Hawaii during this vacation.

View attachment 505531

View attachment 505532

Up Next: Day 10 : Makena Beach, Volcanic Rock, and Flyaway

I've loved reading this trip report. I hope you keep going.

 

[becauseimnew]

How did you like the Wailea Beach Resort?
I'm planning our summer 2022 trip, I have us staying 5 nights in Hyatt Regency Waikiki beach then moving over to Maui for 5 nights. I'm on the fence between the Marriott Residence in Wailea and the Marriott Beach Resort.
They Hyatt doesn't have a kitchenette, so we'll be eating out for 5 days straight, which is why I'm leaning towards the Residence Inn in Maui, but the Beach Resort would be more fun for our girls (11 & 14).

 

[cgattis]

How did you like the Wailea Beach Resort?
I'm planning our summer 2022 trip, I have us staying 5 nights in Hyatt Regency Waikiki beach then moving over to Maui for 5 nights. I'm on the fence between the Marriott Residence in Wailea and the Marriott Beach Resort.
They Hyatt doesn't have a kitchenette, so we'll be eating out for 5 days straight, which is why I'm leaning towards the Residence Inn in Maui, but the Beach Resort would be more fun for our girls (11 & 14).

Unfortunately the Wailea Beach Resort doesn’t book any of the suites on points, so we’re staying at the Residence Inn all but our last night. I’m cramming us into a regular room so we can lounge by the swanky pool for a day LOL I actually spoke to a Marriott employee who said she stayed at the RI with her kids and really enjoyed it. And she could’ve tried to sell me on the higher property…fingers crossed!!!

 

[becauseimnew]

Unfortunately the Wailea Beach Resort doesn’t book any of the suites on points, so we’re staying at the Residence Inn all but our last night. I’m cramming us into a regular room so we can lounge by the swanky pool for a day LOL I actually spoke to a Marriott employee who said she stayed at the RI with her kids and really enjoyed it. And she could’ve tried to sell me on the higher property…fingers crossed!!!

Good idea on doing 1 night at Wailea Beach resort might schedule ours for when we arrive in Maui, just take a rest day.

 

[nascargirl]

Awesome report.