adamak
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2000
Was in Aulani last week. My flight out on Sat was cancelled due to Nor'easter. Luckily (and I mean it) I found another way out on Sunday. So we only lost one day of my vacation. This is our 4th trip there so we didn't have *anything* planned. We just want to relax.
Flight from NYC to Atlanta to HNL on Delta. Surprisingly good. We had food (!) and 2 to 3 rounds of drink service. (I once flew from Chicago to HNL and they served one cup of coke my whole trip). There were plenty of movies to choose from. I flew international long haul a lot, and Delta has as best if not better selection than some of those carrier.
We did not rent a car because (1) we don't plan on leaving the hotel area (2) traffic was always bad and increasingly worse (3) we always got lost leaving HNL. Don't ask why but we always did and felt that we never started the vacation right. So this time we used Charles taxi to/from the airport. We called them after we landed, and the taxi appeared after waiting about 2-3 minutes. Taxi is clean and friendly driver.
Check in was smooth as always. We were in 1-bedroom ocean view on 4th floor Ewa building. I
like this side because the balcony is rectangle and larger. The room is dark, as always. We did most of our eating across the street. And we cooked. I bought poke, wine, groceries from Island Market. I brought my own rice and made good use of the rice cooker. Rice with poke, rice with ground meat, tomato rice, congee...etc. Made a nice side dish. You can also steam veggies in it. 1 thing I noticed is that their rice cooker cook a lot faster than mine at home. I also appreciate that they have plastic pitcher so we always have iced tea in the fridge.
We decided to take good advantage of happy hours near the hotels to cut down on dinner costs.
We ate at these places :
Overall, I found that cooking, ordering poke and dishes from Island Market served us the best. I love having a beer and enjoy poke on our balcony than anything else. Last time we had a car and we got even more poke from Safeway and basically lived off that for days.
Photopass. What a disappointment. We went out multiple times during sunset to take pictures. They were not very good. In general, I found the photopass system there very confusing. I couldn't pull up my photos on TV until the 2nd to last day. The kiosk downstairs always have lines. I don't know how to look for my kid's pictures taken in Auntie Beach House. I don't want to search for instructions. And I always forgot to bring photopass card with me (cause I'm in swimsuits!). So now I have multiple cards to deal with. And I still haven't ordered my pics. Probably too late by now.
I found this process frustrating. In my opinion, they should just use the wrist band thing like in WDW. Store the key and pass there. Including children. And scan theirs when they're in the ABH.
Speaking of Auntie Beach House, my kid enjoyed it as much as last time. He specifically asked to go there for pizza. There wasn't long lines. I registered online prior so the check in was quick. BTW, they don't respond to email well. So be prepared to wait a few days before / if they answer back.
Pool is lovely as usual. Water a little cold in March. Plenty of lounge chairs.
Our flight to Maui was at 9 am. We had Charles taxi booked but there are always cabs out front. We left at 6am and were stuck in traffic for one whole hour. Cab driver said it's very normal. Once you hit 7am, that highway is completely stuck until after 9 am. So plan well ahead. Our 45 min ride turned into 2 hours.
The security lines in HNL is also long btw.
Maui is beautiful. Again, plenty of poke there. But that's another report.
Guess it's not a mini report after all. Ask questions if you have any!
Flight from NYC to Atlanta to HNL on Delta. Surprisingly good. We had food (!) and 2 to 3 rounds of drink service. (I once flew from Chicago to HNL and they served one cup of coke my whole trip). There were plenty of movies to choose from. I flew international long haul a lot, and Delta has as best if not better selection than some of those carrier.
We did not rent a car because (1) we don't plan on leaving the hotel area (2) traffic was always bad and increasingly worse (3) we always got lost leaving HNL. Don't ask why but we always did and felt that we never started the vacation right. So this time we used Charles taxi to/from the airport. We called them after we landed, and the taxi appeared after waiting about 2-3 minutes. Taxi is clean and friendly driver.
Check in was smooth as always. We were in 1-bedroom ocean view on 4th floor Ewa building. I
like this side because the balcony is rectangle and larger. The room is dark, as always. We did most of our eating across the street. And we cooked. I bought poke, wine, groceries from Island Market. I brought my own rice and made good use of the rice cooker. Rice with poke, rice with ground meat, tomato rice, congee...etc. Made a nice side dish. You can also steam veggies in it. 1 thing I noticed is that their rice cooker cook a lot faster than mine at home. I also appreciate that they have plastic pitcher so we always have iced tea in the fridge.
We decided to take good advantage of happy hours near the hotels to cut down on dinner costs.
We ate at these places :
- Olelo Room : Nice music. Ok appertizers. Open seatings and seats were filled quickly around 5. I wish they have more 2-3 seaters instead of a big sofa with only 2 people occupying it.
- Monkey Pod : This was 1 of my fav before but I felt they had gone downhill. The musician was bad. Almost no Hawaiian musics. Drinks were too sweet. Service felt rushed. Happy Hour's prices were reasonable. Wouldn't go there for dinner anymore.
- La Hiki (at 4 Seasons) : HH again. Nice drink. Pretty decent appertizers. Nobody was there so it's very nice and quiet. Would recommend. We also ordered food and drinks from that bar outside Auntie Beach House. Nothing special.
Overall, I found that cooking, ordering poke and dishes from Island Market served us the best. I love having a beer and enjoy poke on our balcony than anything else. Last time we had a car and we got even more poke from Safeway and basically lived off that for days.
Photopass. What a disappointment. We went out multiple times during sunset to take pictures. They were not very good. In general, I found the photopass system there very confusing. I couldn't pull up my photos on TV until the 2nd to last day. The kiosk downstairs always have lines. I don't know how to look for my kid's pictures taken in Auntie Beach House. I don't want to search for instructions. And I always forgot to bring photopass card with me (cause I'm in swimsuits!). So now I have multiple cards to deal with. And I still haven't ordered my pics. Probably too late by now.
I found this process frustrating. In my opinion, they should just use the wrist band thing like in WDW. Store the key and pass there. Including children. And scan theirs when they're in the ABH.
Speaking of Auntie Beach House, my kid enjoyed it as much as last time. He specifically asked to go there for pizza. There wasn't long lines. I registered online prior so the check in was quick. BTW, they don't respond to email well. So be prepared to wait a few days before / if they answer back.
Pool is lovely as usual. Water a little cold in March. Plenty of lounge chairs.
Our flight to Maui was at 9 am. We had Charles taxi booked but there are always cabs out front. We left at 6am and were stuck in traffic for one whole hour. Cab driver said it's very normal. Once you hit 7am, that highway is completely stuck until after 9 am. So plan well ahead. Our 45 min ride turned into 2 hours.
The security lines in HNL is also long btw.
Maui is beautiful. Again, plenty of poke there. But that's another report.
Guess it's not a mini report after all. Ask questions if you have any!
