Well, as I predicted yesterday our daughter wanted to hit the beach today. We were there from 10AM to 6PM, with only a few distractions thrown in (like lunch).
There are a couple of things I can share. Today (Sunday) was the only one of our three pool days, where I thought the pool was very crowded. We walked by the pool area on our way to the beach at 10am and there were plenty of open lounge chairs, though all the "prime" chairs were taken. I walked back to the pool area at about 11:15am and I only saw a small handful of lounge chairs that were open and no two of them were together. I walked by the pool again at 12:30pm and 2:30pm and it was just a crowded. When I came up again at 5pm, there were open chairs. It appears that weekends are the popular pool days, so if you want lounge chairs on those days, get down there a little early.
The beach, on the other hand, never seemed to get crowded. There are plenty of lounge chairs in the beach area, and I never saw it more that 50% of them occupied. We got an umbrella from the rental area (theyre free) and the cast member brought it out and buried the pole in the sand for us. We had it all day. There are also some beach chairs available (also free). I counted about 12 that were in use on the beach and also saw a stack of unused beach chairs back by the near the rental building.
The water in the lagoon area of the resort is pretty calm, as there are breaks that cut down the waves before they get to the beach. It is great for small kids and for leisurely wading and swimming in the ocean, but if you are looking for crashing waves to body board/surf/body surf in, then this is probably not the place.
For dinner we decided to stay close and go across the street to a place called Just Tacos Mexican Grill. We did not know what to expect. This is a sit down restaurant. There was a big party going on so when we got there the wait to get seated was about 1 hour. I think this was unusual since the huge party that was taking up all the outside seating. This restaurant specializes in tacos and has all different kind (beef, chicken shrimp, pork, steak, fish, etc). They also have other Tex-Mex items such as fajitas and burritos. We thought the food was pretty good and two adult meals and one kid meal, plus one appetizer cost us just under $50. We thought it was a good value.
Well, this was our last full day and it is a little sad to be leaving. There are a couple of overall thoughts about the resort that I wanted to share:
They keep this resort immaculate. We constantly saw people cleaning, dusting, sweeping, picking up trash, etc.
Every cast member we saw or interacted with offered you some kind of greeting and many asked about where we were from. It seemed like we were constantly saying "hello" or "good morning" or "good evening" as we walked around the grounds.
The staff at the resort kindly dealt with every situation that came up during our visit.
The lines for the Disney Characters were never very long and we never felt rushed. There were a couple of times when they would keep taking pictures even when we thought we were done. There were enough good pictures throughout the week to make the photo CD worthwhile. The charter handler will also take plenty of pictures with your personal camera while the photo pass cameraperson is taking them. So if you don't want the photopass picture you still can get plenty of pictures.
We have to check out around 8AM tomorrow. Though our Aulani visit is concluded, our Hawaii vacation continues as we head to the big island for a couple of days. If there is anything of note as we check out, I will make another entry.
I guess the best way to judge our experience is how badly we want to return. I will say that our DD starting talking about how soon we can come back to Aulani when we were only three or four days into our stay. My DW and I both agree that we need to find a way to get back here sooner than later.
Thanks everyone for reading this. Look for some pictures to be posted when we get back home.
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