Day 5: Mickey Mouse and the Canoe!
This was our last full day at Aulani....:-( On the day I went to the spa my husband and Dot discovered a boat on the beach. It's in the design of a traditional Hawaiian canoe with a sail, but is made out of fiberglass. You can get a ride in it for an hour and explore the Oahu coastline. So my husband made the reservation for this day, but first we were off to Makahiki for the character breakfast!
When you arrive for your reservation, you're put in a line to meet Mickey. You hang out with Mickey, get some pictures, and then go into the Olelo room to wait — I guess to control capacity and flow. But it kind of stinks if you're a kid, because you've just gotten excited to meet some characters but then you're told you can't meet any more until you go into the main restaurant. There wasn't a line to meet Mickey, so he played with Dot a bit more, which was incredibly great. He was the sweetest Mickey I have met. That was the best part of the breakfast.
Our canoe reservation was at 10 and the clock was ticking, and we still hadn't changed into our swimsuits. So we were beginning to feel some time pressure. One piece of advice: don't do what we did. Go down to breakfast in your swimwear. Then you can just get going with your day.
We were finally seated and waited a bit for drinks, but nobody arrived. Well, that's not true — Minnie did! It was great to meet her so quickly after we sat down, and Dot adores her, so she was thrilled. After that Dot and my husband went off to get some food, then they came back and I went to get my own food. Finally, the server, who was very sweet, arrived, apologizing profusely. Fortunately the coffee came quickly!
The food at the Makahiki breakfast is very good — they have the best Mickey waffles I'd ever had, great fresh fruit (including sweet and sour pineapples, which were really yummy), great tater tots, fresh pastries — all fantastic. I was hoping for some more Japanese items but there weren't as many as I'd hoped for, just a few pickles.
During the meal Aunty leads lots of songs and parades, so it's very noisy but a good atmosphere. However, we didn't see all the characters — Pluto was also meeting but never came to our table, and they didn't ask about it like they do at Disney World. Fortunately Dot doesn't care much about him.
We finished breakfast, made it downstairs, and came down the stairs at 10:01 to discover that our canoe had left long ago. Oh no! Fortunately they were able to put us on the 11 AM boat, and gave Dot some sand toys to play with while we were waiting. Perfect.
I love the beach at Aulani better than any of the pools. The water is clear and pleasant to swim in and the waves are the perfect size for little kids. The sand is soft and great for sandcastle building. It's just lovely.
After playing in the sand and the ocean, it was time to get our canoe. The rental is a bit pricey but it's a lot of fun. The captain was a nice guy from Florida and the first mate was a local guy and we did an hour-long sail along the coastline looking for fish and turtles. We didn't see any animals, but it was hearing from them about how the canoe works and what we were seeing. The mountains on the other side of Paradise Cove (the Waimea range?) were gorgeous. Dot really loved the ride, but my husband sort of wished we could take advantage of the gusty winds to go really, really fast.
After that we went to grab lunch at Ulu cafe (poke bowls for my husband and me, fruit and croissants for Dot) and then it was time to go back to the pools! We splashed and swam for hours.
We had signed Dot up for Stitch's Space Goo at Aunty's Beach House because she loves Stitch (we had met him a couple of times) and because we wanted to have a little time for ourselves. Dot had been to Aunty's during the open houses but she wasn't really into it, so we thought if there were something specific for her to do she'd like it more. She was there for about five minutes before she started crying that she wanted her Mommy and Daddy. I think it's because she's the kind of kid who likes to hang back and watch things before she gets involved so she knows it's safe, and they wanted her to start getting involved right away. Maybe we should've insisted she stayed for free play one day, but for whatever reason, it didn't work for her.
So we all played for a bit longer and then headed back up to change for dinner. We decided to have dinner at AMA AMA — all three of us — to celebrate our last day. We really believe in taking Dot out to nice restaurants so she knows how to behave, but she was in a bad mood and really tired and wasn't having it. I took her out for a walk and when we came back she passed out in my arms.
We were sat alllllll the way in the back of AMA AMA, so if we craned our neck we could see the sun setting over the beach, but were mostly looking at people's heads. My husband took this picture from the front:
The service was really indifferent and unfriendly, but the food was pretty good. Except for the escargot. They were burnt. But the scallops and fish were delicious. It was quite difficult flagging the server if we needed anything.
My husband mentioned loudly that it was my birthday, and the server perked up and brought us a dessert to go, which was nice. Overall, though, that was probably the worst meal of the trip.
We went upstairs, put Dot to bed, and enjoyed my birthday chocolate mousse!