- Hey everybody we are at Disney's Aulani Resort.
This is where we decided to go for Christmas this year
instead of presents,
something we started doing a long time ago.
But I thought it would be a good idea
to film over here and show you guys
the things that you should know
before you come on a trip here.
All the ways we saved.
All the ways we saved
and ways that you guys can save too when you guys come to
Disney Aulani or if you guys wanna plan a trip here so.
Let's get started and I'll share all the things
you should know
before you go to Disney's Aulani.
(upbeat music)
Okay before you arrive to Aulani,
I would highly recommend
that you check-in online in order to save some time.
Disney staff will greet you outside
the main lobby entrance if you did.
- Hey, did you folks do online check-in, by any chance?
- Yes, we did.
- What's your last name?
- Johnson.
- And during check-in, kids will get a Menehune necklace.
Women will get a flower lei.
And men will get a cacahuete net necklace.
Now this wouldn't be a complete Aulani tips video
if I didn't show you what our room looked like.
This is the one bedroom villa.
And you'll notice that it has a full kitchen.
Even the standard rooms have a refrigerator.
So keep that in mind.
But if you can I would recommend that
you compare the prices of
getting one of the villa options
because they have a kitchen or small kitchenette instead.
And then you can save money on food
which is actually pretty expensive at Aulani
which I'll talk about later on in the video.
You'll also notice that villa rooms
have a washer and a dryer.
One thing we did find out,
before we went on our Aulani trip,
is to register online for =Aunty's Beach House
before you go.
You want to do that so you don't have to just stand
in line waiting to register your children once you're there.
The line did get pretty long
so it will save you time for sure.
Just register your kids online,
print out the forms and sign them and bring them with you.
This is a very important detail,
Aunty's Beach House will give each child
a GPS tracking device that does not come off.
They're supposed to wear it
the entire time they are at Aulani.
They actually look a lot like
the magic bands at Disney World, if you have been there.
They will temporarily authorize your account
for 12.95 plus tax for each band.
If it gets lost, if it falls off, if isn't returned,
Aulani will permanently charge you for that band.
However if you do return your band
at the very end of your trip,
before you leave,
they will refund your account
that of 12.95 plus tax that they pre-authorized.
Disney Aulani has a weird pool policy.
Basically there's not enough pool chairs
for everyone which is huge problem.
And just so you guys know
between August 19th, 2019, and December 17th, 2019
they are doing a huge pool renovation.
So I'm really hoping that they're gonna fix this problem.
Because it was a huge issue while we were there.
If you noticed it's about 8:45 in the morning.
And all of these chairs are saved.
You'll wanna get outta here before 9 am
if you want your chairs.
If you've left your chairs longer than an hour
without anyone there,
Disney staff will actually remove your belongings and towels
and give your chair to someone else.
So make sure you check-in to your chair
every 30 to 45 mins or your spot will be gone.
Each morning at the pool
you will have to show your key cards
for each person in your family
to get a colored wrist band and pool towels.
The colors change each day so
only people staying at the resort can use the pool area.
Life jackets are free to rent anytime during your stay.
So you don't need to bring those with you
unless you wanna bring
a puddle jumper style life jacket from home.
Another huge tip I would give you
if you are heading to Aulani is
to make dining reservations as early as you can online.
Especially if you are there over a holiday
like Thanksgiving or Christmas
because reservations go fast.
Alright, we're gonna get straight upon honest right now.
Food at Aulani was expensive.
I'm typically okay paying for food on vacation.
Especially if it's really good and yummy food.
But honestly, Aulani's food wasn't that amazing.
Yes, they have amazing super fun
Disney themed snacks and treats.
So those are super cool to grab and check out.
To give you an idea what I am talking about.
The cheapest meal you'll can find for kids is around $10
and that was for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
In our opinion the best food at the resort
is at the 'Ama 'Ama.
Which is the most expensive restaurant on property.
Go figure!
However, the kids meals aren't that expensive
because they are around $10 as well.
And their breakfast were
some of our family's absolute favorites.
- Mommy these chocolate chips are so good.
- They are so good?
- They're melted.
- They're melted!
We're eating here for breakfast at 7 am,
there's no one here.
So we got like, a really, really good table.
Right, guys?
Right by the ocean.
So, and since we've been up for three hours,
that's perfect, right?
- [Man] So perfect.
We just had the kids eat some pop tarts.
And since they woke up for three hours ago.
So they won't be starving,
and now we're having real breakfast.
I don't think I'd eat here every day,
'cause the menu is kinda expensive,
but we're hoping the food is really good.
Not to mention that the view was amazing
and since my kids were up at four A.M. and five A.M.
we got the very first reservation for seven A.M.
right when it opened and had an amazing table too.
So the 'Ama 'Ama does have a dress code as well.
Which is a little bit more strict for
dinner dining versus breakfast or lunch.
Tons of you messaged me on Instagram,
and told us we had to walk across the street
to go to the place called the Monkeypod.
Alright, we just ate at that Monkeypod restaurant.
Brady, what did you think?
- It was good.
- Better than the food at Disney?
- A lot better.
- Crazy right?
Better than the food we've had a Disney so far.
We love this so much we actually went and ate there twice.
So we would highly recommend eating there.
In the same area you're gonna find a place called
Island Country Market it's an ABC store.
And you'll be able to save money on
everything from groceries to sunscreen
to cheaper souvenir options.
There's a lot there to choose from
and some other shops over in that area as well.
There is a Costco about four miles away from Aulani.
So if you do have access to a car
you could easily head there
to save money on your groceries as well.
Or, you guys can use instacart,
and have groceries delivered to Aulani
from either Costco or grocery stores nearby like Safeway.
If you guys don't know how to use Instacart,
or never have before,
I will give you guys a link below
in the youtube description.
So, you guys will have access to that
and can possibly use it on your trip.
Aulani does have a character breakfast.
However, it was $41 for adults and $21 for kids.
We were kinda disappointed actually because
there were only three characters
the entire time we were there.
We took a picture with Mickey before our meal started,
and only had Goofy and Pluto come to our table.
We actually even asked if there were more characters
and we were told that
there were few more characters like Stich
if you're willing to pay for
their dinner character meal called Mauni Huni Mischief,
and that cost $54 for adults and $27 for kids.
One of the coolest tips though,
that I wanna share with you guys right now is
if you don't wanna pay to stay at Aulani the whole time,
you could come and just pay to have character breakfast
where you can meet a handful of characters,
and eat their buffet, so that's like an option,
if you wanted to come here for breakfast one morning.
Disney also has their own Luau.
It's not cheap just being straight up.
It's not cheap.
But it is different than all the other typical luaus
that we have done through out the years
in different countries and different resorts.
They do have really fun pre-show activities
that you can do with your family, like
Fake tattoos, Ukulele lessons, Poi making,
making flower lei bracelets.
There's tons to do.
They also have a VIP luau.
If you want to pay extra money to get those perks.
They basically get you in earlier to the event to have
more time to do all the fun activities with your kids
and also get you a closer VIP seating
to the front of the stage.
There is a lot of authentic Hawaiian food.
So authentic that my kids would not eat it.
But that's where Disney did excel
because they had an entire tiny little kids table
full of food that they would eat.
Like chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese.
Also one thing to know about the Luau
is that drinks are not included.
They do give you like a little welcome drink when you enter.
That's part of the experience during the activity section.
But as far as actually having a drink
with your meal if you want soda or alcohol.
You do have to pay for that.
And I saw a lot of people bringing in their refillable mugs.
Which I will talk about in just a second
and it is something we did in order to save money
on our trip too.
Okay so we heard that the there are turtles at Paradise Bay.
- Woohoo baby too.
- Yeah so we're gonna go on exploring
for the turtles right now.
- Before we eat breakfast.
- Before we eat breakfast because it's like seven A.M.
Okay if you're gonna come and try
to find the turtles at Paradise Cove,
this is the cute little walk way you find
and go down yup we're going down that.
Looks like that and like this.
C'mon Bud.
Everyday there's something called the daily Iwa.
It's basically a run down of
everything that's happening that day.
The free activities available, food activities.
It's available the night before
around seven P.M. at the concierge desk
and at Aunty's Beach House.
(phone rings)
If you want to meet and greet Disney characters
you do have to call a special number
from your hotel room phone.
To know which characters are around that day,
what time they'll be there and where to find them.
This honestly was a little bit frustrating because
the only character we even saw out and about was Moana.
But the other characters were hidden throughout the resort
and you honestly would have no idea they were even there
if you didn't call the number in the morning.
So again that's another thing you have to remember to do
if seeing the characters is a big deal to you or your kids.
Okay now is the time to talk about the refillable mugs.
You guys have probably heard about this tip.
You pay 19.95 per mug,
and you can refill it up as much as you want
during your stay at different drink stations
located across the resort.
If you are a soda drinker or coffee drinker
this will save you a lot of money
versus paying for drinks every time you want them
and it also acts as a souvenir
because you can take the mugs home.
I would highly recommend that you do
the Menehune Adventure Trail.
Honestly, when I heard about this online
and read about it, it sounded pretty stupid.
But it is the most magical thing that Aulani has done.
Let me show you what I mean.
- This board's gonna come to life!
- What!
- That's cool.
- What!
- It's magic.
- It is magic.
- Oh my gosh how cool.
If I would've known that Aulani was
literally steps away from the Four Seasons, right here.
I would've booked reservations
at the restaurants over here too.
I just didn't realize it was so close.
But like we literally share the same bay.
So that's kinda like a good tip to know too.
Also remember that you can check out boogie boards
and beach and sand toys for completely free.
And if you plan to snorkel at Rainbow Reef
pay attention to the prices because
you can pay $20 or $15 per day or $39 or $29
to snorkel as much as you want during your stay.
There's another sneaky charge you may not know about.
So I wanna make sure that I mention it.
It is $37 per day to self park at the resort
or to have valet take care of your car.
The only way it's free is
if you're a Disney vacation card member.
So that definitely adds up.
Our Uber cost cost us about $45 to $50 each way.
And renting a car would've cost us a lot more money.
If you guys have never used Uber or Lyft before,
feel free to use my referral code
if you want a discount on your very first trip.
I will give details below in the YouTube description
and a link for you guys to get that setup.
Some of you might be a little bit nervous to
use Uber or Lyft on your vacation with your kids.
But we actually use Uber and Lyft regularly
on all of our vacations and have never had an issue.
Another thing you might wanna think about
before you trip is the Aulani PhotoPass service
while you are there.
It's just like the PhotoPass at the Disney parks.
It does cost 99 dollars,
But if you go into your vacation planning on getting it
You will take advantage of all the photographers
throughout the resort at the Luau,
with the characters and all over.
Keep your PhotoPass cards and the wristbands
from your kids time at Aunty's Beach House
Because they can scan your kids wristband
if they take pictures of them while they are there.
And that was something I didn't know beforehand.
Which is great because you might even see discounts
available on different PhotoPass options online,
that they did not have at Aulani.
One thing we completely loved at Aulani was their spa.
It's honestly one of the best that we have been to.
And we always make it a point to use the spa
at every resort we travel to.
They even give you a free coconut or mango body scrub
with your service to say mahalo.
And if you're vacation club members,
they also give free upgrades with your services.
Obviously spa services are not cheap.
It is something to definitely do while you are there.
One genius thing that Aulani has done
is create the Luana Lounge.
It's basically a place to go,
take a shower and to get ready
if your flight leaves later than checkout time.
So if your flight leaves at night
but you have to checkout by 11
you have a place to go and get ready before your flight.
And now it's time to talk about
ways to save money when booking your trip with Aulani.
We did purchase a DVC membership last year
because we do so many Disney trips.
And after doing the math,
it end up making our room so much cheaper
than what they would have been
at high season which is when we went.
Because we went over Christmas.
So if you wanna go,
I would suggest looking at the Aulani calendar.
If you don't know how to get there.
I will link you guys to it below
in my You Tube description of this video.
It will actually show you when rooms are the cheapest.
When's low season, when's regular season,
when high season is.
And the cheapest times are
typically when kids are supposed to be in school.
So keep that in mind.
You'll also find regular promotions
and discounts on the promotions page for Aulani.
So I am gonna link you guy to that below as well.
So just head to my YouTube description
if you wanna check out those links
and figure out when you wanna go to Aulani.
Disney staff told us the busiest time,
even busier than any of their holidays is summer time
because kids are outta school.
You might wanna consider going at
a different time of the year.
And it will be cheaper anyway because summer is high season.
I know you may not want to do any sort of
times or presentation but I wanted to make sure
you guys knew this.
If you go through the Disney vacation Club tour,
you can get up to two adult tickets to their Luau
which are worth $258 for you guys to go
and checkout Disney Vacation Club while you're there.
If you don't wanna do it, no big deal.
But I did wanna make sure that I mention it.
Alright guys I hope these Disney Aulani tips
helped you guys, But I'm curious though,
is there any other family destination
or somewhere on your bucket list
that you would want me to do another video like this one.
Full of all the things you should know before you go.
If so, will you guys comment below
and tell me where you guys are dying to go.
We've done similar video like this one for
Beaches Turks and Caicos,
for Tahiti, for Disneyland
for Atlantis in the Bahamas,
and we have more travel planned for the rest of this year.
So majority rules on this one.
So the more comments we have for a specific bucket list
destination the more likely we'll be able to
head to that resort.
Alright guys thank you so much for watching.
Don't forget to subscribe to my channel.
So you guys don't miss future videos
And like this video if it helped you at all
and don't forget to follow me over on Instagram
if you want more hacks, tips, travel tips and
more over at The Melea Show.
Alright, thanks guys Bye.
( upbeat music and kids chatter)
- [Man] You gotta get packed.
(kids continue to chatter)