Planning trip to Oahu but not staying at Aulani

halfmonkey

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jan 25, 2011
We're currently looking into a trip to Oahu with our entire family for Christmas 2018. Super early planning. I don't think we're going to book Aulani as much as we would love to but I've read way too many negative reviews about crowds and since we're planning to go over Christmas break, I think that will make for a very unpleasant trip if everything we do requires us to stand in line and wait a super long time. I've read that in order to get kids into Aunty's house, people wake up at like 5 or 6am. That doesn't sound like a vacation to me.

So instead, we're planning to book a beach rental house either through VRBO or Airbnb. We booked a house through Airbnb before in Santa Barbara for our family and it was nice. Right on the cliffs over looking the ocean by UCSB. It was also over Christmas break so most of the kids went home at that time so it was actually a very quite neighborhood when we stayed.

Since that turned out to be a successful trip and rental, I think we're going to do the same thing for our Oahu trip. We're planning to rent somewhere by Waimanalo Beach.

Anybody have any tips from those that have visited Oahu and originally wanted to booked Aulani but ended up booking somewhere else?
 
Aulani can unfortunately be very crowded. I've been trying to get us booked for June for my daughters birthday for months with no luck and I live on Oahu so can be flexible on dates. Last time we did stay there, I did have to wake up before sunrise to get in line to try to make an appt for aunty's beach house. Was crazy. But the place is amazing and we totally love it there and well worth it.

Waimanalo Beach is a good choice. As long as you aren't looking to be to close to shopping and things it is perfect. Waimanalo does have a little supermarket Shima's where you can probably get what you need. It is about 15 minutes, depending on traffic to the next largest town, Kailua. Traffic can be a little tricky going in and out sometimes, but it's nothing really bad, just might add 10-20 minutes on your drive. If you want to be closer to the beach, try find one behind the McDonald's area out there or anywhere near that. That whole stretch is a beautiful beach. Are you by chance Military? Kailua is also a great place to rent a VRBO. Kailua beaches are way more crowded than Waimanalo. I think that side of the island is great for trying to get around the island. Everything is easily accessible. I've lived on that side for most of my life.

Christmas is a good time to come. Get your flights early when they are on special. Weather can be unpredictable. We've had some Christmas that were beautiful and no rain at all. And other's where it rained the whole time. So be prepared for both just in case. But it doesn't get cold enough to need anything more than a light sweater.

Let me know what questions you have and I will try to help :)
 
Aulani can unfortunately be very crowded. I've been trying to get us booked for June for my daughters birthday for months with no luck and I live on Oahu so can be flexible on dates. Last time we did stay there, I did have to wake up before sunrise to get in line to try to make an appt for aunty's beach house. Was crazy. But the place is amazing and we totally love it there and well worth it.

Waimanalo Beach is a good choice. As long as you aren't looking to be to close to shopping and things it is perfect. Waimanalo does have a little supermarket Shima's where you can probably get what you need. It is about 15 minutes, depending on traffic to the next largest town, Kailua. Traffic can be a little tricky going in and out sometimes, but it's nothing really bad, just might add 10-20 minutes on your drive. If you want to be closer to the beach, try find one behind the McDonald's area out there or anywhere near that. That whole stretch is a beautiful beach. Are you by chance Military? Kailua is also a great place to rent a VRBO. Kailua beaches are way more crowded than Waimanalo. I think that side of the island is great for trying to get around the island. Everything is easily accessible. I've lived on that side for most of my life.

Christmas is a good time to come. Get your flights early when they are on special. Weather can be unpredictable. We've had some Christmas that were beautiful and no rain at all. And other's where it rained the whole time. So be prepared for both just in case. But it doesn't get cold enough to need anything more than a light sweater.

Let me know what questions you have and I will try to help :)

Thanks for the info and good to know that a local agrees that Waimanalo Beach is a good area. We're ok with it being a little out there and more of a residential area. We're coming from San Diego so traveling 15 minutes is nothing. Driving 30 minutes would be nothing too so if we have to drive a little to get to restaurants and such, we're ok with that. We're more concerned with the area that we'd be staying in. Meaning is it a nice and safe area or is it a run down part of town? From Google maps, it looks like a nice part of town and the houses that we're interested in opens up to the backyard being the ocean. It would be my dad's first and only time to Hawaii so we're going to splurge a little. The way we figure it, we can rent two rooms because it's 8 of us or we can rent a house. For us, renting a house is much more comfortable and it adds to the family time because when you're done with your day and go back to two separate hotel rooms, you're pretty much done. With a house, you can go back and get ready for bed but then still come out to the family room and hang out and in this case, enjoy the ocean breeze. That's what I'm looking forward to.

A couple of questions for a local.

1. We would be interested in doing a nice family brunch and the one that keeps coming up is at Halekulani. Any opinions on this brunch or recommendations?
2. We've also heard of a luau at Paradise Cove. Is this the best in town or is there a better one?
3. You mentioned Kailua as another option for VRBO/Airbnb. Any particular reason why you might choose Kailua over Waimanalo or vice versa?
4. The other area that I've looked at is called Waialae Kahala. Specifically, the area on Kahala Ave. These look like really expensive homes to mansions so I don't think they're in the budget and the area doesn't really seem to have much of a beach. It looks like some of the homes seem to just have a back yard that ends with the ocean.
 
Anybody have any tips from those that have visited Oahu and originally wanted to booked Aulani but ended up booking somewhere else?
I actually like staying out of the area where Aulani is because I am out and about all the time. We spent one night at Aulani just to see it. We didn't have small children at the time, so it really wasn't for us. With that said, I'd stay there in the future. I would just know what to expect which is very loud, chaotic and no pool chairs available.

I have stayed in Waikiki a few times. I own a Hilton timeshare, so that ends up being my first choice financially, but Waikiki is far from my favorite place on Oahu. For the most part, I wouldn't recommend it with small children, but the Hilton does have a lagoon and lots of activities on site. While you can easily walk to anything else in Waikiki from there, you may not want to expose your children to everything going on in the area.

My favorite area on Oahu is on the north shore. There are lots of beach front homes for vacation rentals there. There are also some by Waimea bay tucked in between the ocean and Waimea valley (which is lovely). There is one resort on that side of the island, Turtle Bay Resort, and it is pricey and always seems to be full when I look at staying there. We stayed there on our first Oahu visit during a storm. It poured rain the whole time, but we loved it so much, we still did a lot outdoors and just got wet.

I am not familiar with the areas you mentioned that you are looking at. On the map, they look awesome.
 


I actually like staying out of the area where Aulani is because I am out and about all the time. We spent one night at Aulani just to see it. We didn't have small children at the time, so it really wasn't for us. With that said, I'd stay there in the future. I would just know what to expect which is very loud, chaotic and no pool chairs available.

I have stayed in Waikiki a few times. I own a Hilton timeshare, so that ends up being my first choice financially, but Waikiki is far from my favorite place on Oahu. For the most part, I wouldn't recommend it with small children, but the Hilton does have a lagoon and lots of activities on site. While you can easily walk to anything else in Waikiki from there, you may not want to expose your children to everything going on in the area.

My favorite area on Oahu is on the north shore. There are lots of beach front homes for vacation rentals there. There are also some by Waimea bay tucked in between the ocean and Waimea valley (which is lovely). There is one resort on that side of the island, Turtle Bay Resort, and it is pricey and always seems to be full when I look at staying there. We stayed there on our first Oahu visit during a storm. It poured rain the whole time, but we loved it so much, we still did a lot outdoors and just got wet.

I am not familiar with the areas you mentioned that you are looking at. On the map, they look awesome.

I've looked into the north shore too but I thought during winter time, the waves on the north shore can get really really big? I have 3 kids that will want to play in the water and with such huge waves, I don't want to have to worry about super huge waves. I think the waters at Waimanalo are supposed to be pretty calm so that'll be good for the kids and the grandparents. I definitely want to visit Turtle Bay because isn't that where it's known for the turtles to comes onto the beach? I believe in summer, they're there more frequently and less in the winter but we can still see them.
 
I've looked into the north shore too but I thought during winter time, the waves on the north shore can get really really big? I have 3 kids that will want to play in the water and with such huge waves, I don't want to have to worry about super huge waves. I think the waters at Waimanalo are supposed to be pretty calm so that'll be good for the kids and the grandparents. I definitely want to visit Turtle Bay because isn't that where it's known for the turtles to comes onto the beach? I believe in summer, they're there more frequently and less in the winter but we can still see them.
The waves are crazy huge on the north shore during winter and often have shore break, which makes wading the in the water impossible. You are right to stay somewhere where the are little to no waves for the kids.

Turtle Bay Resort hasn't had turtles when I've been there, but there are turtles not too far from there. I can't believe it, but I actually saw the turtles when we were driving to Waimea one time. On the way back, I told my husband that I thought I saw turtles and I wanted to stop to look on our way back. Sure enough, lots of turtles body surfing in the small waves and a few hanging out on the shoreline. There are volunteers there who protect the turtles (they keep people from touching them). It is a spectacular stop. We saw many there in the months of March and June. It's not generally a long visit, though. You could easily visit the turtles, watch the waves at Bonzai Pipeline, Waimea Bay and visit Waimea falls and then go to Turtle Bay Resort to snorkel in their lagoon and eat a meal in their restaurant all in one car trip. If you do that, be sure to bring water and snacks, too.
 
We're currently looking into a trip to Oahu with our entire family for Christmas 2018. Super early planning. I don't think we're going to book Aulani as much as we would love to but I've read way too many negative reviews about crowds and since we're planning to go over Christmas break, I think that will make for a very unpleasant trip if everything we do requires us to stand in line and wait a super long time. I've read that in order to get kids into Aunty's house, people wake up at like 5 or 6am. That doesn't sound like a vacation to me.

So instead, we're planning to book a beach rental house either through VRBO or Airbnb. We booked a house through Airbnb before in Santa Barbara for our family and it was nice. Right on the cliffs over looking the ocean by UCSB. It was also over Christmas break so most of the kids went home at that time so it was actually a very quite neighborhood when we stayed.

Since that turned out to be a successful trip and rental, I think we're going to do the same thing for our Oahu trip. We're planning to rent somewhere by Waimanalo Beach.

Anybody have any tips from those that have visited Oahu and originally wanted to booked Aulani but ended up booking somewhere else?

Ritz Carlton, but personally I would wait for the Mandrin Oriental !!!
 


If you like the Ko'Olina area, but don't want to stay at Aulani, look at the Beach Villas on VRBO. We stayed in a three bedroom villa, which was two lagoons away from Aulani, and loved the property and the area. We had a villa with two master bedrooms and a third room for the kids, full kitchen, three baths, washer and dryer for a fraction of the price of Aulani. We went to Aulani for dinner one night and to walk around the property. Ko'Olina was close to the north shore and Pearl Harbor and about 40 minutes from Honolulu, depending on traffic.
 
We just got back from our first trip to Hawaii. We stayed 2 weeks, with the second week at Aulani. We had a car and had no problems at all navigating the island. We did a complete loop and went back to the east shore a second time. The only issue is timing any day trips to not be on the H1 near Honolulu during any rush hour. As the PP mentioned, the Beach Villas next door to Aulani sound like a great option. We actually sat next to a family at the Paradise Cove luau (which we would absolutely go to again, though admittedly we have nothing to compare it to) and that family said they were staying at the Beach Villas and loved it. If I remember it was a family of 4 with a mother and father in law, so 6 in total. Swimming in the lagoon was fun, and there are 3 lagoons in that area. Very sheltered area for the kids to swim. As for the turtles on the north shore, that would be Laniakea Beach. We did stop there and thought it was great to see a couple of turtles on the beach sunning and some that were getting bounced around in the waves near the shore. There is also a turtle cove through the parking lot at Paradise Cove. We didn't know about this until after we got home so missed it, but I was reading another thread after we were back and it sounds like fun.
 

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