Our Aulani trip is scheduled for late March. How's everyone doing?

[jpmango312]

I've been at Aulani with my family since Monday ... still here. It's been so nice to get away from all the panic on the mainland. The crowds here seemed a little sparse on Mon, Tues, Wed but that was probably a result of the time of year. It's picked up the past 2 days.

I saw a handful of people wearing masks at the airport but I haven't seen 1 mask at the resort or at any of our excursions.

Before arriving I had wondered about the character meet & greets, especially for Moana since she doesn't have a costume as a protective barrier and would be hugging people from all around the world. However, all the meet & greets have gone on as scheduled. Bless the 3 girls I've seen playing Moana, if they're at all worried about the virus they haven't shown it. They've been so sweet to my daughter and everyone else.

I occasionally think about things like everyone touching the soda machines or the utensil dispensers at Ulu but what are you gonna do? Gotta live your life. Everyone here seems so happy despite everything happening around the world with this virus.

I did ask an employee at the ABC store if they had any hand sanitizer but she said they were sold out. They did have plenty of travel packs of Wet Ones wipes for $2.50 each. I never made it out to Target but was curious about their hand sanitizer stock.

 

[OffToDWD]

I've been at Aulani with my family since Monday ... still here. It's been so nice to get away from all the panic on the mainland. The crowds here seemed a little sparse on Mon, Tues, Wed but that was probably a result of the time of year. It's picked up the past 2 days.

I saw a handful of people wearing masks at the airport but I haven't seen 1 mask at the resort or at any of our excursions.

Before arriving I had wondered about the character meet & greets, especially for Moana since she doesn't have a costume as a protective barrier and would be hugging people from all around the world. However, all the meet & greets have gone on as scheduled. Bless the 3 girls I've seen playing Moana, if they're at all worried about the virus they haven't shown it. They've been so sweet to my daughter and everyone else.

I occasionally think about things like everyone touching the soda machines or the utensil dispensers at Ulu but what are you gonna do? Gotta live your life. Everyone here seems so happy despite everything happening around the world with this virus.

I did ask an employee at the ABC store if they had any hand sanitizer but she said they were sold out. They did have plenty of travel packs of Wet Ones wipes for $2.50 each. I never made it out to Target but was curious about their hand sanitizer stock.

Thank you for sharing! We are currently planning to be there in 1 1/2 week so this is helpful. Enjoy your vacation!

 

[Lilsia]

Unless it turns into a major epidemic where they shut down all travel in this country, I am still going at the end of May. There are always illnesses and the flu and a whole variety of diseases out there that you can get to live your life in fear. A coworker of mine's husband got bacterial pneumonia from a water park when he inhaled some water and was on life support for a week. At this point, it is more likely for you to die in a car crash then to get this virus.

 

[CarolynFH]

just pay attention to the news.

if you see a big flashy story about how hospitals are full past capacity.

Hospitals around here are full past capacity with influenza patients. The COVID-19 patients who have been identified are at home because they're not that sick.

 

[cgattis]

Hospitals around here are full past capacity with influenza patients. The COVID-19 patients who have been identified are at home because they're not that sick.

Are you in Hawaii or somewhere else?

 

[CarolynFH]

Are you in Hawaii or somewhere else?

Sorry, I’m home in Texas. Wanted to make the point that there are other respiratory diseases going around that are worse than COVID-19.

 

[gumbydom]

Just returned with my family from Oahu this weekend after spending 4 nights at Aulani and 2 nights at Marriott Ko Olina. We rented a car and drove around the island including to Ala Moana Center shopping mall. The island seems to be functioning normally. Stopped by Costco and a few other grocery stores, all products stocked, no shortages of any kind. Glad we did not cancel due to Covid-19 scare. Brought Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, and masks with us on our trip to wipe down airplane seat and hotel room. We had an amazing time at Aulani. Disney characters were out everyday, pools and restaurants are all open, saw the luau and had too many Mai Tais!

 

[plasmo]

Just returned with my family from Oahu this weekend after spending 4 nights at Aulani and 2 nights at Marriott Ko Olina. We rented a car and drove around the island including to Ala Moana Center shopping mall. The island seems to be functioning normally. Stopped by Costco and a few other grocery stores, all products stocked, no shortages of any kind. Glad we did not cancel due to Covid-19 scare. Brought Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, and masks with us on our trip to wipe down airplane seat and hotel room. We had an amazing time at Aulani. Disney characters were out everyday, pools and restaurants are all open, saw the luau and had too many Mai Tais!

thanks for these reports, especially from folks who are at Aulani right now.
We are still planning on going in 2 weeks unless the situation changes drastically. Unfortunately it looks like a second case in HI now:
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2020/03/09/department-health-announces-second-case-covid-/

 

[Amw1064]

We arrive on Thursday. Thanks for the updates.

 

[We'reGoingToDisney]

I'm watching this thread with interest. We (me, DH, DD13, DS13, and my DMom and DDad) are booked to travel to Oahu for spring break March 20-28, with non-refundable hotels booked - 5 nights at a Waikiki hotel then 3 nights at the Marriott Ko' Olina next door to Aulani. We went with nonrefundable because we booked at relatively short notice and got better rates by choosing the nonrefundable option. Also my DMom was able to book flights for 5 of the 6 of us on her credit card reward points, and I'm not sure if those can be easily changed, either. So, as of right now we are going to carry on with the trip as planned, but hoping we are not being totally irresponsible by doing that. We have the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our area (Alberta) this week, and my DH has just gotten back from Germany for work and will fly straight to San Francisco for work from our Hawaii trip. I'm honestly more worried about his travel for work to those destinations because they have higher rates of infection than Hawaii right now. And I'm not really worried about him getting sick (he's a pretty healthy 48 year old) but for him unwittingly picking it up and spreading it around - they say there are people who are infected but show no symptoms but have then infected other people. I think once we're in Hawaii, the likelihood of picking it up is going to be similar to our likelihood of being exposed going about our daily life here, except that we do have a tour of Pearl Harbour planned - that was the main draw for us to go to Oahu. I can imagine that will be crowded with lots of people, and so perhaps not the best idea. I guess we will wait and see, and perhaps consider cancelling that? But it would be a huge disappointment - we've been to Maui and the Big Island before, so this trip to Oahu was really for DH and DDad to visit Pearl Harbour, as they both have a keen interest in WWII history. The flight itself seems like the biggest risk.

 

[corgi_monster]

In general, people in Hawaii no longer seemed panicked about covid-19. Aware and cautious, but mostly calm and rational. This is just my opinion based on talking to friends, family, and what I see on various Hawaii-based social media groups.

But in a nutshell, everything is mostly normal here. If I were to turn off all media, the only indication of there being anything unusual going on is the number of lame toilet paper hoarding jokes I hear. And the lack of Asian tourists.

 

[Sepo]

I am a physician. This is a common feeling among my colleagues chatting in the hospital:

It’s double edged: we are testing very few people so the case numbers are lower than they likely are and the mortality rate is currently reported as relatively high (2-4%). Truth likely is that a great many more people are asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic. Incubation time may be as high as 5 days. As long as international travel exists (up to 500 (edited to correct: 5000) Japanese fly into/out of Honolulu daily (or at least did until recently); screened but not tested; and international flights from the rest of the world with thousands of passengers to the continental US daily (again screened but not tested), and we still are gathering in groups everywhere and doing nothing like Italy and China are, really, this is out of the bag. It’s possible that if we knew the true numbers we would be shocked at the magnitude but concomitantly relieved at the massive drop in mortality and morbidity.

Of course this is serious but I agree with most of everything posted here. Keep it in perspective. I think it will be hard to avoid exposure over the next months, which is why reading between the lines the latest advice from health experts is that those most susceptible (elderly and compromised) avoid crowds in general.

Planning to go in a few weeks. My mini concern is the chance of getting trapped there in case there is a massive change in operations.

 

[CarolynFH]

I am a physician. This is a common feeling among my colleagues chatting in the hospital:

It’s double edged: we are testing very few people so the case numbers are lower than they likely are and the mortality rate is currently reported as relatively high (2-4%). Truth likely is that a great many more people are asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic. Incubation time may be as high as 5 days. As long as international travel exists (up to 500 Japanese fly into/out of Honolulu daily (or at least did until recently); screened but not tested; and international flights from the rest of the world with thousands of passengers to the continental US daily (again screened but not tested), and we still are gathering in groups everywhere and doing nothing like Italy and China are, really, this is out of the bag. It’s possible that if we knew the true numbers we would be shocked at the magnitude but concomitantly relieved at the massive drop in mortality and morbidity.

Of course this is serious but I agree with most of everything posted here. Keep it in perspective. I think it will be hard to avoid exposure over the next months, which is why reading between the lines the latest advice from health experts is that those most susceptible (elderly and compromised) avoid crowds in general.

Planning to go in a few weeks. My mini concern is the chance of getting trapped there in case there is a massive change in operations.

I fully agree with you. Unfortunately it seems to me that this is playing out like hurricanes usually do - need to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, and there are lots of complaints afterwards because the preparations seem to have been a waste.

 

[corgi_monster]

@Sepo Our LG is also a physician and has been tasked to head up the battle against covid-19. He's proven to be very rational and I don't think he'd tank Hawaii's economy and supply line by cutting off the islands. He's planning on running for governor soon so I doubt he'd tank his political career either.

The number of Japanese tourists visiting the islands is far more than 500/day. Over 133,000 people visited Hawaii from Japan in March 2019, and 13,000+ visited from Korea during that same period. (http://dbedt.hawaii.gov/economic/tourism-dashboard/tourism-dashboard-by-market-monthly/) I have no idea what the numbers look like right now, but there are still a number of direct flights operating between Japan and Hawaii and I have seen Japanese tourists out and about.

 

[Sepo]

Thanks for that info. Please know I wasn’t suggesting that they stop per se.

 

[jodybird511]

I am a physician. This is a common feeling among my colleagues chatting in the hospital:

It’s double edged: we are testing very few people so the case numbers are lower than they likely are and the mortality rate is currently reported as relatively high (2-4%). Truth likely is that a great many more people are asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic. Incubation time may be as high as 5 days. As long as international travel exists (up to 500 Japanese fly into/out of Honolulu daily (or at least did until recently); screened but not tested; and international flights from the rest of the world with thousands of passengers to the continental US daily (again screened but not tested), and we still are gathering in groups everywhere and doing nothing like Italy and China are, really, this is out of the bag. It’s possible that if we knew the true numbers we would be shocked at the magnitude but concomitantly relieved at the massive drop in mortality and morbidity.

Of course this is serious but I agree with most of everything posted here. Keep it in perspective. I think it will be hard to avoid exposure over the next months, which is why reading between the lines the latest advice from health experts is that those most susceptible (elderly and compromised) avoid crowds in general.

Planning to go in a few weeks. My mini concern is the chance of getting trapped there in case there is a massive change in operations.

Thanks much for the perspective. I suspect that many, like myself, are just trying to sort out how much of what we are hearing and seeing is hype. Of course it makes sense to take common sense precautions. Beyond that, it's difficult to know how scared to be. We don't go to Aulani until late June, so of course the situation will be completely different by then; however, we are scheduled to go to Vero this Sunday and continue to monitor the situation. After Vero, we will be visiting elderly parents, so the bigger concern there is what we could potentially bring to them by traveling. I had, over the last couple days, been leaning more towards canceling, but am now back to thinking we will keep the trip. Spoke with the parents last evening, and they appear unfazed and are continuing with their normal activities, so....

 

[RedStars]

We were set to be there mid-April but just switched to August; the airlines waived change fees so it was an easy decision. We also added on days to our trip so now we're going longer and will make a visit to Kauai (and Maui)!

 

[boferguson]

Our trip is in April over Easter. We won't cancel for anything short of a full-on pandemic, but I do worry about closures, cancellations and the like....

 

[thedogatemyhomework]

unless hospitals get overwhelmed there's generally no need to panic in any area. even if you're not in a high risk category for covid 19 overwhelmed hospitals mean less access to or longer waits for other injuries/illnesses...which can impact anyone.

any events or attractions that draw large numbers of people are the most likely to get cancelled or shut down in the event of "community spread" being detected. however any permanent attractions (like disneyland/disneyworld/universal) that are basically the financial anchor of a community may not shut down unless things get really really bad (they may not be as crowded tho)...for examples of this just look at the lack of a cancel/delay for the tokyo olympics...the upcoming ncaa basketball tournaments...and well the theme parks still running.

many events in hawaii have already been cancelled, and it seems likely more will be throughout march and possibly through april and early may...there haven't been any attractions shut down, but things like museums, pearl harbor, diamond head may see some impact (crowds in limited space areas are probably the types of attractions most likely to get shut down). it may simply mean that having backup plans are temporarily required rather than just a good idea.

 

[foodiddiedoo]

We're going mid-April. So far 0 plans to cancel our trip. I booked through David's vacation rentals so I'm already PIF months ago when I planned the trip. I booked our airline tickets with a soon to expire United credit for 1k months ago as well. The remainder of the cost of the plane tickets wouldn't be refunded. I have a direct flight from Newark to Honolulu and I'm not concerned since we have no layovers anywhere. My biggest concern is Pearl Harbor. Like a previous poster mentioned, I hope that it isn't consider too large of a gathering of people in one place and shut down prior to our visit. My coworkers all keep looking at me like I'm crazy when I saw I'm still going. NJ has more confirmed cases, I work in an awful open office environment with shared desks (you have to hope where you normally sit isn't occupied in the morning when you get in). Honestly I'm more concerned about someone at work getting us sick since we've now run out of hand sanitizer, purell wipes, and the desk wipes are almost all gone.
Also, I really really could use a vacation. Worrying constantly about the economy, election, coronavirus, work is taking a toll on tons of us.