Hawai’i 10 Night Cruise to Vancouver

I had been thinking to skip dining reservations, but we made spa rezzies this past weekend.

We would just need dining reservations for the sit down restaurants at Aulani? But there's enough quick-service choices?
 
I cannot eat at the quick service places due to my food allergies, but yes, there are several of them at Aulani:

Lava Shack: a snack and sundries shop near the kids club
Little 'Opihi's: beachside snacks and mini meals (I recall sushi and Dole Whip being there, among other offerings)
Mama's Snack Stop: a typical Disney quick service place, right in the middle the pool area
Pāpālua Shave Ice: all shave ice, all the time, in the pool area
Ulu Cafe: a quick service place near the adult pool, spa, and gym, similar to what you'd find in a WDW resort hotel
Wailana Pool Bar: snack foods and drinks near the pool

Menus for all of the above are on the Aulani website!
 
I was looking at possible excursions and noticed that some have been added and some taken away. Also, it appears to be a Work In Progress so far.
I've noticed that they have added a luau at Nawiliwili.
 


Aulani dropped their spring sale. We rebooked and are now staying at Aulani for 5 days rather than 3 + 2 nights somewhere else. For quite a bit less money. We're happy. :)

And there's an early booking bonus!
 
Yay for promotional rates! We were panicking that there would be no rooms available, due to so many people staying there before/after the cruises and rented DVC points to secure a villa at a good rate. Now it would be about the same price to book direct. I guess we get free parking this way, but I still wish I booked direct. Such is life. We're there, and that's what matters.

I have to look at the shore excursions again...
 
I feel like I should know this better, but as Gold, our booking window opens on Jan 24th. That means midnight of the 23rd? It's in the middle of the week so not easy to be up for in our time zone.
 


Squeee, we just booked a private helicopter ride to the waterfalls on Kauai, with the helicopter doors off so we can get a perfect view. (Weather permitting, of course.) First excursion booked. Check.

My husband has been dreaming of doing this since he saw Jurassic Park in cinema in 1993. I'm thrilled that he will get to realise his dream. He was extremely excited at Kualoa Ranch; this will be even better.

We rented an electric car for the rest of our time on Kauai. We want to tour the island and go surfing on our own. Should be fun!
 
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An electric car? Awesome. I didn't even see such options when I looked. We got a intermediate SUV instead.
 
We booked the car with Turo, a car sharing rental service, sort of like AirBnB. We booked a Tesla for in Oahu, also.
 
Ugh. Wait a pain.

We paid in full a few days ago and just now realized the TA messed up somehow. They overcharged us by a lot. Nearly 10K USD is what they charged us. Should have been nearer 5K. I would hazard a guess that, somehow, they put us on a new booking at this week's prices? But even that seems too much. I can book a new 5A for 9.1K. Disney shows us in a 6A GTY like we have had since the beginning. And because we are using a TA, it doesn't show prices so I can't see what Disney things. The TA doesn't open for hours yet.
 
Omg. I supposed it could be worse, but it's really confusing. And I'm really nervous of them cancelling something.

Somehow Costco or Disney added a 3 night Disney Vacation club stay in advance of the cruise to our cruise reservation. About 1930 USD for 3 nights. And we paid it. :(
 
Egads, that's awful! I will save my Costco 'travel agency' rant, but your experience pretty much sums it up. They shouldn't be in business as a travel agency, period. I hope you can get the issue sorted out and a refund to the correct price. It might be time to find a better travel agent.

I'm calling DCL today to make a payment on our cruise. Yay! I at least have the client copy of our reservation from our travel agent to verify the price.

We've never used Turo before either, and I'm a bit nervous about it, but we know people that have had outstanding experiences with the specific people we are renting from, so it should be okay. Worst case, we rent a car at Aulani or the Lihue airport instead.
 
We understand now. Back when we all booked in last year, a bunch of us asked Disney about pre-stays but it was too early. So they added us to a waiting list. When Aulani opened up for booking, we tried to check on the waiting list but it seemed to have disappeared and no one knew anything about it so we booked Aulani directly on our own - with no TA involvement. Sometime between then and now, Disney added a 3 night stay at Aulani, staying in DVC, to our trip as a land portion. The TA found an email from Disney showing the changed itinerary somewhere in their email folders but it had never been dealt with, nor sent to us. Nor had there been any approval or even a conversation with us for how long the pre-stay would be. When we went to pay last week, DW simply asked to pay off the balance and it didn't come up. Not until we saw the charge on the weekend did we realize it was too much.

BTW, the deal for the 3 nights of DVC seemed decent. It felt like it was oceanview for the price of standard view.

We think it's solved now after several hours of phone calls. But no money refunded yet. I'm fearing a currency exchange issue. It will likely be pretty sizeable. I'm not looking forward to trying to get that back if it happens. Not totally sure who would eat that because Visa isn't going to refund it...
 
I wish you luck on straightening it out! I booked the Luau at Aulani today. I figure Disney does entertainment like no other. It is also more cost effective than the Luau listed in our Port Adventures. Anyone else planning on going to the Luau?
We still haven’t decided on our Port Adventures. Everything seems so pricey! 😳
 
The Aulani luau has to be booked by phone. I'm hesitant to book it because they cannot tell me ahead of time if they can accommodate food allergies or not. Last time they couldn't, so we skipped it. I still want to see it, though... but don't want to have to pay for a meal at 'Ama'Ama and then the show separately, if needed.
 
I booked it online as instructed by my TA. It was very easy. I booked Wednesday before the Cruise as Thursday is not an evening they perform. Perhaps if you call you could address your food allergy situation? Disney is usually very good about making accommodations. Good luck!
 

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