One of the things I’ve been DYING to do is hit up Aulani, Disney’s gorgeous resort in west Oahu. But let me tell you this place is EXPENSIVE! So we finally found a good shoulder-season weekend and booked it. One good thing about being local is we can pick and choose when to go and get a bit of a discount for Hawaiian residents.

Okay. Seriously. When I say this place is gorgeous it. is. gorgeous. The whole thing is done in a traditional Hawaiian style, not cheesy Hawaii crap. They did an AMAZING job.

Am I right? Check out this lobby…

And I managed to get a photo of our room before our bags threw up all over the place. This never happens. Most of my hotel room pictures have unmade beds, dirty laundry on the floor, towels hanging of the beds. You know, vacation mess.

Cute right? And if you are into that kind of thing, find the hidden Mickey’s in the quilt pattern.

Main pool was pretty big, managed to snag a couple of pictures while it was closed for water testing.

There is another family pool and an adult only pool that we didn’t make it to. Also a family hot tub and an adult only hot tub.

View from the pool area to the lagoon. I was SHOCKED at how empty the beach was. I mean aren’t most people coming here from like, the midwest? Would’t you want to enjoy some gorgeous beach time? Crazy. Also the chairs were practically empty there.

O.M.G. THE CHAIRS.

Okay so I had heard a little about the chaise lounge situation on one of the Disney forums I belong to (nerd alert, I know) well I just was NOT prepared. People were going down at 6am to reserve chaise lounges with crap and towels. So when you got there at a perfectly normal hour of 8am to actually start using the pool, the entire place is empty except for towels and bags on all the chairs.

I couldn’t STAND it!

One morning I did go down early and managed to snag three decent chairs in a shady-ish area. I come back after I grabbed the kids and this dumb woman had moved my stuff. And then acted all innocent. I was so pissed. So I grabbed my stuff and told her she didn’t need to touch my shit. And left. Which means she won because she got even more chairs but I couldn’t stand sitting next to that *lady* all day. Also I am shit at confrontation.

And you NEED shade. The resort is on the HOT part of the island and it is no joke come afternoon.

They have lots of fun activities for kids but my kids are pretty lame and don’t like participating. So all I could get them to do is the menehune hunt (Menehune are Hawaiian spirits) It’s a fun interactive little game that takes you all around the resort.

Also we didn’t do the character breakfast or take pictures with any characters. I know, LAME! However, in my defense we have done Disney Cruise Line which has an awesome character breakfast and we’ve seen ALL the characters and have signature frames, blah blah blah. Basically I hate lines okay?

Mckenna had fun taking pictures of her wristbands. Hmmm… I spy a water camera in the background. Wonder where the memory card for that is with all our lazy river pictures. This post may be getting an update (just in case it wasn’t photo heavy enough!)

One of our meals out was at MonkeyPod right across the street. I thought it was yummy, I got Kalua Saimen (ramen with kalua pork for all you mainlanders), Omar got something else, can’t remember. He thought it was overrated for as hyped up this place is. I might agree a teensy tiny bit. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but people GUSH over this place like it’s the be all end all of food on island.

Weirdo.

Insert obligatory Hawaiian sunset photo {here}. 

And our room was not partial ocean view or anything but we still had a nice slice of water. Not too shabby.

We really had a nice time, Disney does know what they are doing. I will say though that this place is pricey. I am a SUPER cheap traveler though so we brought a ton of snacks and drinks with us and didn’t eat dinner on the property. We definitely recommend and actually are going to try and swing another visit before we leave.