Alcohol, beach, coolers

[kickash]

This July will be our first visit to Aulani. I’ve been reading up on their policies on their website and have some questions:

1. It says no coolers on the beach. How much is this enforced? We won’t take a hard cooler but what about a soft sided one? We want to take juice boxes, etc with us. Can we take the soft cooler to the pool?

2. Bringing/buying your own alcohol. I’ve read lots of posts of people stopping and getting their own alcohol before arriving. This may seem silly but I don’t know: do you drink it at the beach? The pool? Just in your room? What do you put it in if you go to the beach or pool? A yeti or something similar? I honestly don’t know. I’m assuming no glass bottles? It says no outside alcohol at the beach...? Do people get around this?

On all of our previous beach vacations we could take a soft cooler with ice and juice boxes, some beer, etc to the beach so I wanted to inquire about Aulani. We are not big drinkers at all but if we can save some money by buying our own alcohol I’d like to do that.
Thanks in advance.

 

[cedricandsophie]

We have been to aulani many times. But we hang by pool because we’re not sand people. Locals who can come to all beaches bring coolers all the time so I’m surprised aulani has that restriction. But if you pack a soft sided small cooler in your beach bag no one will know.


As for alcohol we always stop in kapolei on way to aulani for food and wine. But we don’t bring liquor to pool. If we want an afternoon drink we just order one. But I’ve seen people who bring water bottles or Disney cups that obviously have alcohol. We usually make lunch in room and bring it to pool. I just put the sandwiches in a beach bag to bring them to pool.

 

[kyton]

We have a soft sided cooler that we bring to the beach - never with glass, but we bring water for the kids, cans of beer for husband plus cans of something for me. We also bring snacks like pretzels, crisps etc.

If we are pool side then we tend to order from the servers instead.

 

[kickash]

We have a soft sided cooler that we bring to the beach - never with glass, but we bring water for the kids, cans of beer for husband plus cans of something for me. We also bring snacks like pretzels, crisps etc.

If we are pool side then we tend to order from the servers instead.

Thank you! What do you use for your cans of beer? Any type of koozie?

 

[nkereina]

Where did you see no coolers or outside alcohol? As PP mentions, the beaches in Hawaii are public and locals do this often, so I'm not sure how that would be enforced.

DH and I had tumblers and also the refillable mug that we'd put alcohol in. No one questioned anything. I don't think soft-sided coolers would be a problem. The only staff presence I ever saw on the beach were 1-2 servers, who were servicing the entire Aulani chair section, and were way too busy to worry about what people had at the beach with them.

 

[kickash]

Where did you see no coolers or outside alcohol? As PP mentions, the beaches in Hawaii are public and locals do this often, so I'm not sure how that would be enforced.

DH and I had tumblers and also the refillable mug that we'd put alcohol in. No one questioned anything. I don't think soft-sided coolers would be a problem. The only staff presence I ever saw on the beach were 1-2 servers, who were servicing the entire Aulani chair section, and were way too busy to worry about what people had at the beach with them.

It's on the Aulani website. Here's the screenshot of the beach activities portion of the website.

 

[jodybird511]

During our last trip, we purchased a bottle of rum and a mixer (mai tai) at Target. Some afternoons, one of us would go up to the room and make cocktails, and then bring them down in an opaque, insulated tumbler with a lid. We drank them poolside and also on the executive lanai. Never had any issue. We also brought a small soft-sided cooler down to the pool--again, no issues. Our first trip to Aulani, we bought cocktails poolside, but at $13 a pop, we quickly made up our cost for the rum, mixer, and tumblers purchased for the trip!

 

[kyton]

Thank you! What do you use for your cans of beer? Any type of koozie?

I LOL whenever I read “koozie” - we call them “stubby holders” here as Aussies (I love all the different slang terms each country has for things - especially your concept of thongs and ours!). Back to the topic at hand - nope we don’t bother with them. The husband loves a Bud Light and I tend to drink vodka and soda premix cans. Sometimes we will buy some of those red “kegger” cups so I can take baggies of ice cubes with me.

 

[tgropp]

I would always take a cooler with three beers each for my wife and myself and then order one from the servers. We could never get rid of our server from coming back all the time . Probably because I gave her a $10 tip for two beers. I felt that this would cover the tips that she would miss from the beers that I didn't buy from her but brought from my room. Please take that into consideration.

 

[cgattis]

During our last trip, we purchased a bottle of rum and a mixer (mai tai) at Target. Some afternoons, one of us would go up to the room and make cocktails, and then bring them down in an opaque, insulated tumbler with a lid. We drank them poolside and also on the executive lanai. Never had any issue. We also brought a small soft-sided cooler down to the pool--again, no issues. Our first trip to Aulani, we bought cocktails poolside, but at $13 a pop, we quickly made up our cost for the rum, mixer, and tumblers purchased for the trip!

Pretty much exactly this, except I brought my rum from home . And the ABC store across the street has a great selection of Kona Brewing Co beers (my fave). I think I bought one mixed drink and one Ace pineapple cider from the bar. I never actually saw a server—I just walked up to Off the Hook both times.

 

[corgi_monster]

You are allowed to bring any kind of cooler you want to the beach. I’m guessing the Aulani site is referring to the pool area or the private beach chairs.

The beaches are public but Aulani has a permit to set up chairs on a small strip of sand and restrict their use to hotel guest.

You may not consume or possess any open containers of alcohol in any public area, including the beach. I’m not sure if it’s allowed on the Aulani beach chairs, though. I’m not much of a drinker, but my friends who are will pour their beer in a hydro flask or yeti.

 

[Jurtys]

YETI or go home

 

[cgattis]

YETI or go home

And considering the ABC market carries Kona in 40’s, YES to this!

 

[dreamit]

The beachside servers will serve drinks to you in your beach chairs. We ordered a few drinks while there and the remainder of the time we brought our own drinks down to the beach and pool. They were definitely not policing this situation. Stay clear of bringing glass bottles or you may encounter a different situation.