One-Night Only at Aulani Disney Resort

On my recent trip to Hawaii, we made a quick stop at Aulani Disney Resort! It’s been a goal of mine for a long time now to stay at Aulani, and while a few Hawaii trips have gone by without the opportunity to do so, we finally made it happen!

We were only in Oahu for a few days, so one night was all we could make work, but I still think it was a great time! And now that I’ve experienced Aulani myself, I’m excited to share about my experience to hopefully help you if you’re planning to visit in the future as well!

Goals

A little optimistic for only a single-night’s stay, but here were all the things I was hoping to do during my stay:

• Try ‘AMA’AMA restaurant

• Character dining

• Enjoy the pools

• Swim in the lagoon

• Try some community events

• Meet Duffy and/or Olu

Booking our trip

The first step to staying at Aulani is, of course, booking your stay! Here are a couple things to keep in mind when planning and actually making your booking.

DVC Rentals

Aulani is a Disney Vacation Club resort, so a lot of the rooms are for DVC members. I’m not a DVC member, so I have no idea what that process is like, but luckily for us non-members, there are some great rental services that are available to check out!

These DVC rental sites essentially allow non-members to purchase rental points / reservations off of DVC members who don’t need them.

A couple rental sites that I tried looking into were David’s Rental Club and DVC Rental Store.

Why these are a good idea

Looking into DVC rentals is a great idea because the rooms that are bookable by DVC members (and rentable to you), are a lot cheaper than the same rooms that you would try to book directly through the Disney website.

For example, if I try to book a room through the Disney Aulani website for a hotel room with a standard view for one night, the price is $650/night (pre-tax). In comparison, if I book through David’s Rental Club, the same room for the same dates is $368/night (pre-tax). That’s a pretty big price difference for the same thing!

Caveats

Availability

The biggest caveat with booking a DVC room through a rental site is that all reservations are subject to availability. Just because you submit your request to book through the online form does not guarantee that your request will be available for those dates! This is actually what I experienced, so I unfortunately was not able to utilize this method. I believe it’s because I planned this trip quite late relatively speaking (about 1-2 months out), and I think these DVC rentals require a much earlier booking request to get a better chance at getting what you want. So remember, if you want to use a DVC rental, make sure you’re trying to book these as close to a year out as possible! Even though I wasn’t able to take advantage of this process this time around, I definitely plan to in the future!

Cancellation Policy

Another thing to bear in mind when making these bookings is that the cancellation policy is not generous, so you’ll want to be as certain as you can be that you plan to take this trip, and that the bookings you requested are what you want.

Look into the specific cancellation policy of any rental site you might be using to get the real details, since they all are different. But generally speaking, you can’t get a full refund on a DVC rental done through these websites if you cancel your trip. With some sites, like David’s Rental Club, it does look like they offer travel credit so that you can reschedule, but full refunds do not appear possible.

Some DVC rental websites do require a deposit when you make your reservation request, and this deposit goes to your booking if it’s secured. However, if they are unable to make the reservation for you, you do get this fully refunded.

On the other hand, if you book directly through Disney Aulani, their policy is much more flexible. If you only book a room, you have until 5 days before your reservation to cancel in order to get a full refund. If you’ve booked other experiences as well, it’s a little less flexible, requiring 30 days advanced cancellation. But they still give you the opportunity to get a full refund, which is nice.

Pre-Arrival

Before our arrival, I prepared for our trip by downloading the Aulani app. This app allows guests to check-in online, look at the daily activities, manage reservations, and everything else, so it’s a very important app to have ahead of time!

45 days before the trip

Dining reservations open 45 days in advance. So if you’re intending to book any dining reservations, mark your 45-day mark on your calendar!

I was easily able to make reservations to both ‘AMA’AMA restaurant and the character dining breakfast at Makahiki Restaurant at the time slot I wanted without issue.

You can also book community experiences as well, either in the app or online. Experiences are bookable for check-in and check-out days in addition to any other days of your stay. To book experiences both paid and free at Aulani at the community hall, you’ll need to book them ahead of time at their reservation portal.

The main activity I wanted to participate in was the ukulele lessons, which are free with your stay, but unfortunately, I never saw these bookings open up. Perhaps I was too late, but I was overall not really able to book any free experiences for my stay.

7 days before the trip

The daily activities schedule for a given day is released 7 days in advance, so if you’re able to check it out the week before, you’ll better be able to plan your day according to the activities.

Character meet and greets are scheduled the morning of the day at around 8:30am - 9:00am, so you wouldn’t be able to find those until the day of. But everything else for the day should be available!

Online check-in

Before the trip, you can either check in online or on the app.

You can always check-in at the front desk when you arrive, but checking in online ahead of time makes it possible to get your room early if a room becomes available ahead of time.

This wasn’t the case for us, but I always like to check-in early just in case!

Arrival

Checking in

When we arrived, our room wasn’t ready yet, so we dropped our car off and the cast members helped store our bags. As a non-DVC member, self-parking and valet parking were the same price at $40, so we opted to use the valet parking option since that just made things easier.

Since our room was not ready yet, we went to the check-in table and they gave us access to the Luana Lounge, which is a small little lounge areas with showers/changing rooms so you can change and get straight into resort activities! Access to the Luana Lounge requires a specific key card that we were given at the counter. I believe for the remainder of your stay, you need to reserve access to this room at the front desk if you want to use it again.

Our room wasn’t ready until shortly after 4pm, so we just hung out at the pools until I got a notification that our room was ready. We did request a room that was closer to the lobby, so that could be why our room wasn’t available until later in the day.

Accessing the room

If you have the Aulani app, once your room is available, you can actually unlock your room door straight from the app. Additionally, if you have a magic band+ connected to your account, you can also use that to unlock your door, so you don’t even need to use your phone!

And of course, there’s always “the old-fashioned way” with a good old key card that you can get at the front desk.

The Room

For our stay, we stayed in the deluxe studio with a standard view. This was the cheapest room that was available at our time of booking.

Overall, the room was very spacious! There was a queen-sized bed along with a small couch and coffee table, desk, and wardrobe in the main room. At the entrance hallway is a small kitchenette with a small sink, mini fridge, and a coffee/tea station along with disposable utensils.

The room also has a small lanai with a small table and chairs outside. Our standard view was not facing much, so there wasn’t much to see there.

The bathroom is also pretty standard with a shower, sink, and separate toilet room. There were also some standard amenities.

The room is quite simple with not too much going on, but there are a couple of cute little Disney details like the Mickey lamp, and the rolled-up Mickey shaped towel!

Our stay

Now we get to the good stuff: what it was actually like staying on property!

Activities

The Aulani resort has lots of activities for families - some of them require additional costs, but there are some that come with your stay!

Wristbands

The first thing you should do when you are settled in is head to one of the towel tents that they have around the pool area (if you can’t find them, ask any cast member!). This is where you’ll receive your wristbands for your stay which will give you access to all the resort activities - it’s basically proof that you’re a guest there.

Every day’s wristband is a different color, and they give you all your wristbands at once so you don’t have to keep going back every day to get a new one. The wristbands are made of a hard plastic material and you can’t take them off until that day is over, so if you’re staying over the course of many days, you might not want to get them all at once? We only had two days there, so we just got them together.

Pools

All of the pools, the lazy river, the water slides, and the pool chairs are available to all guests.

However, there are a couple areas that are only available to guests 18+ years old. This includes a few hot tub areas and one pool area, the Wailana Pool. The adult-only areas are much more quiet and peaceful compared to the larger pool areas that are available to guests of all ages. But the main areas are also very fun and lively, so it’s nice to have a balance of both!

I personally really enjoyed the lazy river they have here. Grab a tube and just hang out! It’s a great time, and so relaxing too!

There are also two water slides - one with a tube and one without. These are super fun too, but beware of the tandem tubes! I fell right out of it when we hit the bottom of the slide, and that wasn’t so pleasant. But those in single tubes didn’t seem to have that problem!

Pool chairs are a particularly hot commodity - some people even wake up super early just to grab chairs before everyone else! By the morning, most chairs are already taken, so you might be able to find one if you’re lucky, but such luck evades you, there are also a few cubby areas where you can leave your stuff if you don’t have too much with you.

But here’s a pro-tip: if the Wailana pool area is open, there are tons of pool chairs there! On our first day, this area was closed for a private event, but when we stumbled upon it on our second day, it was so empty with so many available chairs, we were each able to get our own! As a plus, it’s also super quiet here and there’s lots of shade! This area might be the best bet at getting a chair if you’re coming in later in the morning or afternoon, and of course you do need to be an adult to access it.

Ko Olina Lagoon

Aulani sits right at the Ko Olina Lagoons with a beautiful beachfront that’s easily accessible to Aulani resorts and visitors alike. It’s a really nice beach with plenty of beach chairs all around. Even though the beach itself is accessible to the public, it doesn’t get very busy or crowded since I believe most of the beachgoers are resort guests.

There’s a shack right at the beach entrance where Aulani guests can rent different beach equipment like shaded chairs, umbrellas, and other beach gear. Most of the rentals come with an additional fee, but umbrellas and boogie boards are included with your stay! All you have to do is sign a waiver and give them your room number, and it’s yours for the day!

We didn’t participate in any of the paid activities like paddle boarding or other water activities, but we did rent out boogie boards and had a great time just hanging out in the water! I would highly recommending setting aside some time to just enjoy the beach!

Pau Hana community hall events

I mentioned in the pre-arrival section that you can reserve some additional paid and free activities during your stay. This includes things like ear-making, ukulele lessons, t-shirt printing and more. These are all done in the community hall located at the outskirts of the pool areas.

These do require reservations that are made ahead of time, so best of luck getting one! We weren’t so lucky, but there’s also a chance you could check in at the community hall area to see if spots open up for an activity you really want. Miles may vary on if you succeed this way.

Daily ‘Iwa

The Daily ‘Iwa is the schedule of the activities for the day. As I mentioned in the pre-arrival section, they do release the schedule around one week in advance, so you’ll be able to look at this ahead of your stay in order to roughly plan your schedule. The only thing not included is the character meets that are determined the morning of.

Since we were only there for one night and about 1.5 days and some of the activities’ timing didn’t work out with our schedule, we didn’t get to do a lot of specific activities. I can definitely see how spending more than a few days here would give you a chance to get to different activities each day, but you also have to prioritize since not every activity is available every day!

Food

Quick service

Aulani has a few quick service food areas like Ulu Cafe, Mama’s Snack Stop, and more. Here’s where you can get stuff like the famous Mickey Musubi, Dole whip, Mickey shave ice, and all those fun things you might see online!

They’re all super quick and easy to get, and you can enjoy them anywhere from benches to right at the pool chairs, and even the beach!

Quality wise, I would say these spots are not my favorite. Of course, they are cute and very aesthetic and they got the Disney vibes just right, but I really think they’re more for the novelty. Personally, I felt the musubi rice of the Mickey musubi was dry and not well-seasoned, and the proportion of spam to rice was too heavy on the rice. The shave ice, while cute, was much too coarse for my taste and the ice chunks were large and inconsistent. I don’t love crunchy ice for my shave ice, so this was not something that I would like to get again, especially when I compare them to other really incredible shave ice places elsewhere on the island (more on that in a future post!).

There’s a small plaza across the street from Aulani that has other things like Island Vintage, and there are nearby resorts whose food you can try as well. But if you’re looking for something quick and not trying to leave the property, these quick service options are likely your best go-to.

We actually stopped by Foodland before arriving at Aulani so we could grab food we knew we’d enjoy ahead of time. We got their delicious poke and some snacks, and I’d highly recommend doing that as well if you’re not as into the quick service food they have available on-property!

Restaurants

From my meet and greet with Mickey before our character breakfast at Makahiki!

There are also a few restaurants at the resort where you could enjoy more of a sit-down meal. For some of these restaurants, it’s recommended to get a reservation for them. While we were here we tried Makahiki for their character breakfast experience, and we had dinner at ‘AMA’AMA.

We tried to stop by Off the Hook, which is more of a casual spot that’s right next to the pool, since I wanted to try their coffee, but we missed their breakfast hours by 5 minutes since I thought breakfast ended at 11am, but it actually ended at 10am. Remember to check the schedules, and read times carefully!

I’ll dive into my experiences at Makahiki and ‘AMA’AMA in separate posts, so stay tuned for those!

Overall experience

As an overall first time experience, I’d say Aulani is a really fun and relaxing spot, and I love that it’s great for groups with or without children!

There are so many activities to do on-property in addition to excursions that they offer, so I can see how people can easily spend a week or more here; but I would say taking full advantage of your time here does require quite a large splurge since so many experiences require additional costs. The main thing I see being a potential issue is the food options - there isn’t a huge variety and I think by maybe the second or third day you can pretty much get through everything there.

If you’re looking to do only activities that are included with your stay already, and generally just want to enjoy the resort, it’s mostly a chill and relaxed time! This is what we did and we had a great time just hanging out in the pools and spending some time at the beach.

Since I’m not big on the additional paid activities, I think spending 2 nights and 3 days here is really enough for me. One full day to just hang out at the beach and the pools without worrying about checking in / checking out, or worrying about getting cleaned up and changed since you have your room to go back to anytime, sounds like a really nice time. Multiple days also gives you enough time to meet any characters you might want to see across the different days - since we were only there for 2 days, we didn’t get to see Duffy or Olu at all since they weren’t on the schedule for either day.

While I did find that the rooms themselves felt a little dated and lackluster, the grounds overall were very beautiful and I loved looking for the little Disney touches all around.

A huge highlight of the experience was the cast members - each and every person we interacted with was so kind and helpful, and really made the overall experience more magical!

As far as my goals for the trip went, I was able to experience almost everything I had set out to do! The two things I didn’t get to experience were the community hall events (sad I missed the ukulele lessons!) and meeting Duffy and Olu. Something to plan for next time!

Is it worth it?

The answer to this question is SO subjective, and as someone who is fully immersed in the Disney bubble, I know that Disney experiences themselves already have a premium attached to them. So if you’re like me and you just want to experience all the Disney things possible, you’ll likely end up here at some point, and you’ll probably love it. But if you’re a bit more hesitant, it might be a little iffy.

Including parking, our total cost for the 1-night stay came out to $791.42. This doesn’t include any of the meals we had or anything else - just the room and parking. That’s quite a high price in my opinion given that there wasn’t much more to the experience beyond some of the amenities that are also offered at other resorts as well, and the rooms themselves didn’t feel super premium. So I’ll admit, I think I was a little disappointed, but also still had a really good time. It’s a conflicting feeling to be sure.

But my big question to myself is: would I come back for another trip? My answer is yes, I would! Though in the future, I think I’ll be taking my own advice and trying to plan it out a little sooner so that I can book a room through a DVC rental service. Maybe then I’ll feel like the experience is on par with the cost.

As always, if you have any questions at all about my stay and want to know more to help you plan your trip, drop your questions in the comments and I’ll try my best to answer them!