December 16 (&17th)- Aulani check out day and red-eye flight home
We awoke with sadness knowing it was our last day. We had called the day before to see if we could get a late checkout, but were told no, that wasn't available- not sure if this has to do with renting DVC points or if there were just already too many people requesting a late checkout. So we dawdled a bit as we packed up the room (dawdled meaning didn't get up until after 6:30 am, LOL) ate our last fruit for breakfast, and figured out how many drinks we would need to drink to finish all our alcohol! We hadn't been huge drinkers the other days at the resort, so we had a bit of work to do, although we decided to give the leftovers to T as a second thank you for letting us use her shower later in the day. M went to save us some pool chairs just after 8am while I waited for bell services. They were extremely prompt in coming up to get all our stuff and I told them about when we thought we'd need it so they could store it in the right spot.
Then it was all about enjoying our last day. We had decided to keep all our bands from each day, so after we were settled, I grabbed this shot before I forgot! I joked that it was a good thing we were going home today because I was running out of arm.
The Rainbow Reef staff told me the previous day that any towel location could also punch my band, so I didn't have to make a separate trip later, which was nice! Although I did have to make a separate trip to get the life vest, mask and snorkel. I had decided not to have to pack a wet mask/snorkel, so used Disney's on this day. It worked fine, and I wasn't worried about them being clean- I had every confidence Disney was keeping them very clean between users.
We had settled near the grotto area both the day before and this day. I loved being able to see the pool and the ocean at the same time and my sister agreed this was her favorite place to sit as well.
We were always able to find somewhere, even if it wasn't ideal, but there were only 2 of us, and we were either looking right away in the morning (8 am-ish) or mid-late afternoon (3 pm and after).
We ordered from the pool menu again for lunch and this time I got the club sandwich
It also came with fries. This had avocado on it, which isn't always on a club sandwich. Otherwise it was pretty standard, but also pretty hard to mess up, and extremely filling for our super long day ahead. My sister got the mushroom pizza, which I didn't get a picture of, but she enjoyed. We spent about half of what we spent the day before on lunch- much better value for our money, although still more than if we'd gone to Ulu Cafe. We talked briefly about trying Off the Hook, but the menu wasn't that much different, and we would have had to get up and put on cover-ups- far too much work for our last day!
We did decide to go over to the lawn for the 1 pm character greeting- we could see it was happening on the Aulani app, but we couldn't figure out what character it would be. We're up for any characters, so we didn't care. We walked over about 12:50 and got in line about 3 minutes before 1 pm behind 1 other family. Can you imagine getting in line 3 minutes before a character's set starts at WDW and being the 2nd family in line??
There was a photopass photographer there taking pics, and we were allowed to take selfies with our own cameras and take our masks off for the photos, then replace them before we walked away out of the area. So who did we get?
Stitch!
This was extra awesome since we were in Hawaii. I wished I had my Stitch mask on me, but as I'd worn it a different day, it was already packed in my suitcase stored at bell services. You win some, you lose some!
After that, it was time for one last round of swims in the pools and one last Disney snack favorite:
Ahh Dole Whip. Why are you so delicious?
All too soon it was 4 pm and time to start heading to T's house. We packed up our beach bags, threw on some clothes, and said our goodbyes as we walked through the pool area to the elevators, up to the 3rd floor. M grabbed the bell services ticket and I grabbed the car keys and we met at the front entry to pack up the car.
Here's where I goofed- We didn't officially "check out" with a person because we had to be out of the room before 11 am, but were told we could still charge to our room account after the check out time. We had been charging a bunch of stuff to the room, and I had gone in earlier in the week and taken screenshots of the account balance on my phone, so I knew how to split things up later when we got home. Except I didn't do that for our last 2 days, assuming I would get an emailed bill of my total balance, as I have every time I've stayed at WDW. But I didn't get one! I think I've got almost everything figured out from memory, but this was a surprise to me! So make sure you stop at the front desk to ask for an accounting of everything before you leave, or screenshot your account or something!
We headed over to T's house, which was in Makakilo, to the north of Kapolei. She gave us a lovely tour of their house, a chance for both of us to shower and change into plane clothes, and a chance to visit a bit more on her lanai. She asked what we were doing for dinner, and when we said we didn't have a plan, we discussed several options and decided on Kalapawai Market (aka Kalapawai Cafe & Deli, depending on what sign/map you use). They had outdoor patio seating, which we chose, as well as indoor seating available.
I ended up with the shrimp & penne pasta with curry cream sauce, hold the red pepper flakes.
This was very good, but the red curry sauce just built and built in my mouth until the last few bites were on the high side of my spice tolerance. Yes, I'm a spice wimp.
I paired this with a hard cider, Guava Lava, from Paradise Cider, an Oahu-based cider company. I was super sad that I didn't find out about them until we were almost leaving- I don't like beer, but I love hard cider, and there sounded like so many fun flavors to try. It doesn't appear that they sell on the mainland yet, but I'll keep stalking their webpage and maybe someday!
My sister got the fish of the day, and I got to eat the last of her brussels sprouts, since she's not a fan and I love them!
We were both extremely happy with our last meals in Hawaii. With much sadness we paid our bill and said goodbye to T. Then we had to find somewhere to fill up the rental car before returning it. M was sure she knew places near Pearl Harbor from when she was there the last time she was on Oahu, and we had a bit of an adventure almost ending up on the base when we took a wrong turn and me frantically trying to find her military ID before we were able to do a u-turn and not end up at the security check. Nothing like driving through road construction on dark streets in a place you've never been before!
We did finally find a place, and so got that squared away and then drove what felt like an extra 20 minutes around the airport trying to figure out how to get into the rental car return area. I was very glad I had left us PLENTY of time before our flights. We then had a country mile to walk from rental car return over to the one station that was doing agricultural checks for American & Delta airlines, then get checked in, and then stand in a very long security line, where standing 6 feet apart wasn't happening. M got to skip into the TSA pre-check line because of being in the military, so she waited for me on the other side. Since we were flying different airlines our flights were in different concourses, we gave each other long hugs and said our goodbyes.
It's 50/50 whether I will sleep on a red-eye flight, and I had joked with M the previous day that I had to be careful not to fall asleep at the terminal and miss the flight altogether, since it would be the latest we had stayed up at night since we got to Hawaii! I did make it on the plane safely, but didn't really sleep on the flight- it was turbulent and every time I would start to doze off, a jolt of the plane would wake me back up.
The plane landed in Seattle and I had to transfer from the A concourse to the S concourse to catch my second flight. Not sure what if anything would be available at the S concourse for food, I stopped and ordered a breakfast sandwich from a coffee shop in A concourse. I really should have realized that the fact that there weren't prices listed for the food was a hint that it was going to be really expensive, but my eyes flew open when they rang up my bill. Over $12! For eggs, bacon, cheese and bread. I'm clearly not awake enough to make good decisions at this moment. I gave in and paid the "tourist tax" because I knew I wouldn't get home until dinnertime and I wanted to be sure to eat something. I also grabbed a cheese/grapes/apples tray to eat on the plane.
Another bumpy flight with no sleep and a 20 minute drive from the airport to my house, where I forced myself to stay awake until 9 pm and then collapsed into bed, waking up at 7am Friday at the ring of my alarm. Back to work, and to real-life!
I'll be back with one more update to sum up my final thoughts about this trip. Thank you all for reading along and for those who've commented! Best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year!
