Final thoughts
So yeah, I said that I'd come back and share a few closing thoughts on the trip. I'm sorry to leave you hanging for so long again
In addition to all the photos that I took throughout our adventure, I also captured several hours worth of video. Here are a few highlights...
Part 1 - Maui
Part 2 - Oahu
Part 2 - Aulani
All in all, it was a truly awesome, once in a lifetime experience. I had assumed that I would love Hawaii, but it was even better than I had hoped. I think I enjoyed the island of Maui itself a bit better than Oahu, but I liked that Oahu had a bigger variety of things to do. If I was to come back for a relaxing beach vacation, I'd come back to Maui without a doubt. The beaches around Kihei were easily the most beautiful beaches that I've ever visited.
And Aulani? It really was amazing. Truly amazing. But in some ways, I feel like it has a lot of room for improvement compared to similar priced resorts like the Polynesian, Grand Floridian,
Disneyland Hotel, etc. It's quite expensive for a family of five. Again, if we were a family of four in a smaller room, I think the value would have been much more in line with our expectations. And I think they could do better with their food offerings. We had some great meals on our 16 day trip, and unfortunately the Aulani ones were somewhat forgettable. And finally, I feel like much of the cast was truly awesome, but we came across too many that were just OK. (This is compared to our experiences at Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and
Disney Cruise Line.)
It's worth noting that it's easy for me to separate my Aulani experience from my Oahu experience, because we did all of the Oahu sites before staying at Aulani. For those who spend their entire experience at Aulani and mix their vacation with Oahu day trips, I think their overall impression of Aulani might be a bit more positive than ours.
I don't regret visiting Aulani in the very least. Actually, we're super happy and stoked that we did. But, I don't think we feel drawn to ever visit again. If we come back to Hawaii, we'd probably put the Aulani money towards nicer accommodations, meals, and activities elsewhere. Additionally, for similar amounts of money, I think I'd rather try visiting Tokyo Disneyland or Disneyland Paris
I guess that's it. Thanks to everyone for following along and providing such awesome feedback.
What's next for us?
I'm attending a Disney Institute training course at the Grand Floridian in May. Stephanie will be tagging along with me, but our kids will be staying at home. (Luckily, their grandparents are coming over to watch them while we are away.) It'll be a quick four-day whirlwind, but we'll probably write up a TR for it. We spent a good part of this past Sunday locking in our plans.
I'll have two evenings in the parks (the rest in training) and we plan to try out the Skipper Canteen in MK for the first time on one of the nights, and then do the new version of Soarin' and ride Frozen the next night. Stephanie is still trying to decide how she wants to spend her time while I'm in class. She has a lot of great ideas, and some tough decisions to make!!! (Oh and we plan to hit Trader Sam's before leaving for the airport!!!!)
Then... we celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary at the end of this year. Beyond our honeymoon (at WDW of course), we've never done much more than going out to dinner on our anniversaries. So for this milestone, we decided to do something special.
We'll be doing a cruise from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas on the Disney Wonder in October. And we'll stop at Disneyland for a couple days before we had back home. We're super stoked on this one!!!
And lastly, we'll be back at WDW in January. I have a work-related business conference in Orlando to attend. I'm in charge of the conference programming and I've got a few things up my sleeve that I hope work out. And then we'll probably spend the rest of the week in the parks. This should make a very interesting TR!
I guess that's all for now. Thanks again to everyone for reading along. And thanks again to Stephanie's wonderful parents for including us in such an amazing 50th wedding anniversary celebration!