Aloha Aulani! A 20th Anniversary Trip Report!

[Cinderpamela]

After our great lunch/dinner we headed to the front desk to find out about our room key, another front desk cast member checked on everything and said that everything should be in working order, but she said she would walk up to our room with us just to confirm.

We had a nice walk up chatting about the new pedometer that she had purchased and how many steps she was getting in per day.

Well, she was about to get in some more steps because when we got up there the keys still did not work.

She was able to let us in with her staff key but she said she would go down to the front desk and come back with a solution.

Meanwhile we found a special card that had been left in our room by Mickey and Minnie:



Another nice touch by Disney!

Soon she was back with some new keys for us and this time they worked.... she said something about the key card maker for that computer not working correctly.

We were just happy to be able to get into our room, and happy that she had done most of the walking down and back for us!

It had been a long travel day for us and we were getting tired.... even though it was only about 6pm Hawaii time it was 9 Seattle time and we had been up since around 4:30 Seattle time. So we stayed up and watched the Olympics for a bit and then it was lights out.

The next day we had an 8:30 reservation at Pearl Harbor that I had made through their new online booking system.

That meant we needed to arrive there at around 7:30 am and with traffic and travel time being what it was we would need to have a Hawaii wake up time of 5:30am... not a big deal since we were still on Seattle time. But it was time for us to set the alarms and hit the hay for our early morning wake up!


Up next: Early morning alarm, Pearl Harbor, and more!

[Cinderpamela]

Day 2 in Oahu, Monday July 30th:

The alarm went off bright and early at 5:30 am, our goal was to get ready quickly, find the Starbucks in Kapolei, (note: Kapolei is about a 5 minute drive east of Aulani, and has all the big major stores like Target and Wal-Mart and Costco) and then be on our way to Pearl Harbor by 6:30, allowing an hour travel time in Monday morning traffic. Our estimate was about right, and we pulled into the parking lot right around 7:30 am. One of the advantages of getting there early is that there was still plenty of parking, we got a nice shady spot under a big tree.

The advantage to the new reservations online is that unlike all the folks who don't have a pre-reserved boat time, you don't have to rush to collect a ticket. As we sauntered into the park/museum complex we were passed by many a speed walker rushing to grab up a ticket.

I had also reserved the Audio Tour devices for us. I find those to be super informative and helpful when doing any sort of tour like this. They can give so much more insight and perspective on what you are seeing.

So after picking up our tickets and our audio devices, we headed off to tour the museum area with about 40 minutes before our boat was to head to the memorial. The Audio tour included some great firsthand accounts that really added to the tour, so I would highly recommend spending the extra few dollars on these, if you are into that kind of stuff like we are.

Here is the entry into the park/museum complex:


The "Tree of Life" motif by the museums, that you see repeated out on the memorial:


40 minutes turned out to be just about the perfect amount of time for us to get through the 2 museum buildings, use the restrooms, and then line up for our boat.

Soon we were heading by ship out to the memorial.

After touring the museum and watching the preloading film the crowd was understandably quite somber and respectful as we rode out to the Memorial.

The view to the memorial from on the boat:


Even though I didn't take this picture, I find its really helpful to help you get your bearings on what you are seeing while out in the memorial building:


The boat pulling up to the dock:


Looking out:


The oil still leaking out of the ship:


Continued in next post-

[Cinderpamela]

Pearl Harbor continued:

Once back from the memorial we looped around to see the rest of the park and listen to the other parts of the audio tour that corresponded.

This picture shows one of the anchors that was recovered from the Arizona. In the background you can see the ships heading to and coming back from the memorial.


Pearl Harbor has always been on my bucket list and I am so glad we took the time to see it. It was a great tribute to both those who lost their lives there as well as to those who survived.

As we were finishing up there was a table set up outside the bookstore with 2 local veteran survivors as well as the author of a book who had included their stories of that day and more.

We purchased this book as well as another one by this same author on the Hawaiian Royal family. We had both signed by the local author and then had the two veterans sign our Pearl Harbor book.

We talked with the two veterans for a while and heard some of their story first hand. This was a special treat!

There are not many survivors left at this point so to be able to meet two of them and talk to them about that day was very special.

Pics of the book signing:




Sterling told us about how he was headed out on leave that morning and came rushing back to help as soon as he saw that we were under attack:


We choose not to tour the other parts of the facility, as we felt that our brains would already be on overload this first time around. As we left the parking lot, a car looped around behind us and was quite please to get our nice shady parking spot!

Up next: The one where we try to find Leonard's Bakery... will we succeed? Tune in to find out!!

[Cinderpamela]

After this we decided to try and find Leonard's Bakery to finally try some of those yummy Malasadas that we had been hearing so much about.

DH Kyle pulled the address off his smart phone and somehow it gave us the wrong address (we didn't realize this till after) so we drove around for about and hour, then gave up and drove back towards the resort stopping in Kapolei.

After our strike out finding Leonard's we did have good luck finding the highly recommended Aloha Salads, it's just in the strip mall by the Target.

We got there at about 11:30 right before the rush... and let me tell you there was a rush!

I ordered the Satay Salad, at $8.95 it was quite a price break from the prices at the resort. It was really fresh and yummy, totally hit the spot, for a nice lunch that wasn't too heavy.


Kyle ordered the Aloha Pineapple and said it was really good too, but sadly no picture was taken of it before he had finished it off!

I would highly recommend Aloha Salads if you make it over to Aulani. Here is their website to check out the menu:
http://alohasalads.com/

This lunch was perfect as we had 5pm reservations at Alan Wong's over in Honolulu and we definitely wanted to save lots of room for this meal.

When we got back to the resort we had a few hours before we needed to shower and get dressed to head into Honolulu for dinner, so we went and spent some time enjoying the beach.

Our first intention had been to hang out at the pool but we were too late and could not see an open chair anywhere in the pool vicinity so to the beach we went.

Aulani has tons of chairs set up down on the beach so there is generally no problem getting a chair there.

The pool can be a completely different story, but it sounds like they are going to be remedying this soon by adding more pools.

Beach shot taken standing to the west of Aulani looking out over the brown beach chairs of Aulani and over to the blue and white beach chairs of the JW Marriott.



Ko Olina has 4 of these manmade bays and after looking at all of them I have to say that Disney definitely chose the best spot of all of them to place a resort.

They are front and center looking out at the bay strait on, and from what I can see had the biggest piece of land of all of them.

Here is an overhead map just to give an idea:


Up next: Off to see if celebrity chef Alan Wong is all he is cracked up to be ... with a few side stops on the way! Would we make it in time?!

[RunningTink]

Oooh I have to go to Aloha Salads next time we're there. The menu looks great. We also celebrated our 20th at Aulani in April. I'm thoroughly enjoying your TR other than feeling guilty since I planned to do one and the summer just got away from me.

Happy 20th!

Happy trails,
Jennie

[Cinderpamela]

Originally Posted by RunningTink

Oooh I have to go to Aloha Salads next time we're there. The menu looks great. We also celebrated our 20th at Aulani in April. I'm thoroughly enjoying your TR other than feeling guilty since I planned to do one and the summer just got away from me.

Happy 20th!

Happy trails,
Jennie

Thanks Jennie, I really debated about taking the time to write it... sometimes it can be hard to carve out for sure!
Thanks for reading and .... its not to late to still write one!!

[Cinderpamela]

But before I get into Alan Wong's and all that. I have something which I thought might be helpful for those of you thinking about planning a trip to Aulani.

When we checked in they gave us a welcome pamphlet that has lots of good information on how the resort is laid out, and where the food/shops/spa and such are. Plus other resort offerings.

I saved it and scanned it for anyone who might want to get a feel for all the offerings ..... so without further adieu here it is..... ta da!

Where are the restaurants?


Including a feature on the buffet spot Makahiki.... which I will review later:


How do I find out where to go?


Stuff to do:


More stuff to do:


Even more stuff to do:

[Cinderpamela]

Heading to Honolulu, Alan Wong's and more....

We got all cleaned up after a relaxing visit to the beach, and were soon on our way to Alan Wong's, but not without first stopping to get our picture with Minnie.



Next we were off to find Alan Wong's, we allowed a lot of time for any traffic once we hit Honolulu. In fact we allowed far too much time, and wound up there about an hour and a half too early. Normally this wouldn't be a problem as you could just hang out in the bar and have a cocktail, but we were the first seating at 5pm.

So instead we headed over to the Ala Moana Mall.

While there we stopped in the LeSportsac store, I had wanted to see the special collection of Mary Blair handbags to honor the anniversary of Its a Small World.

I was so glad I did, because they looked even cooler in person than on the website. Plus the bag that I wound up choosing, the Edna, is an exclusive that is only available in Hawaii and Guam. I was so excited!



To see the collection for yourself, check it out here:
http://www.lesportsac.com/store/iasw/iasw_2366.html

We also swung into the Pandora store, I have a Pandora bracelet that I got for Mother's Day and I wanted to get a charm to represent our trip to Hawaii. I wound up choosing the pineapple charm.

On our way to Alan Wong's we saw a rainbow in downtown Honolulu..... was this a sign that we were going to have a good meal tonight?!



The restaurant is in kind of a weird location, so you're not really sure if you are in the right place, but then you see his unmistakable pineapple logo:



We were quickly seated and opened our menu to a very unexpected and pleasant surprise...a personalized menu signed by all the staff!! Nice touch Alan Wong!



A picture of the busy kitchen:


We started off our meal by choosing the flight of locally crafted goat cheeses all from one farm:


Even though by view they all look very similar they were all delicious and interestingly varied, there was a goat blue cheese, an cave aged goat cheese and guava smoked goat cheese and a straight up goat cheese. Amazing and varied flavors.

Next I had the Caesar salad which was delicious:


DH Kyle chose Alan Wong's famous "Crazy Asian" salad:



Up Next: the main course, and a fun suprise!

[Cinderpamela]

For the main course I choose one of Alan Wong's signature dishes, the Kalbi Shortrib, the meat was amazingly tender and I understood why this was a restaurant favorite. It made me wish that I had skipped the salad to leave more room.



Kyle chose the Macadamia Nut-Coconut Crusted Lamb Chops. The chops were very meaty and huge. The au jus was just on the border of being too sweet.



Our dishes were accompanied by truffled parmesan whipped potatoes. Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, plus their portions were pretty large. Good value for the amount of food you get and the care and taste couldn't be beat.

We had told them that we were just too full for dessert but they had another surprise up their sleeve:



This meal ranked right up there amongst the best meals that we have had. The staff was well trained, very friendly, efficient, and they went above and beyond to make our anniversary trip special.

Bravo to Alan Wong!

Full to the brim we drove back to Aulani and relaxed a bit before calling it a night.

Up Next: Dole Plantation, the Northshore, trying to find Giovanni's Shrimp truck and wherever the road from the Northshore takes us!

[tomandrobin]

Joining in on the fun!

Really enjoying your trip report so far. Your pics and descriptions are great!