Disney Aulani Resort on Oahu (My personal review)
The Disney Aulani Resort on Oahu is now open. They had their soft grand opening this week with the hard grand opening to come sometime around mid September.
These are some of my personal thoughts about the Disney Aulani after personally staying in room 939 in the Waianae Tower from August 29th-31st.
You can walk through the Disney Aulani anytime. I suggest you check it out because the décor is beautiful. From the grand entrance throughout the lobby, you can immediately tell that they spent some serious money building that place.
There are two main restaurants which are the Makahiki and Ama Ama. Makahiki is a phenomenal buffet priced at $43 per person and it includes a non-alcoholic beverage too. The appetizers, main course and deserts were awesome. We will definitely go back there. Ama Ama is the sit down, table service restaurant on the ocean front. The food sucked, the portions were tiny, the price was high and the service was awful. We wont go back there until they get their stuff together. Admittedly, they have problems. The chef for Ama Ama also runs the burger place which services the pool area. Their food also sucked. Potato salad had uncooked potatoes and the burger was bland. Not good.
The hotel rooms have great quality koa wood furniture, a refrigerator, coffee pot, free internet access and the sheets/pillows/comforters were very fine quality. No cheap linens in that place.
There are 2 waterslides. One of them is a wide slide that you go down in a one man tube or a two man tube. That one is fun and is a normal slide. Not very long but still fun. The other one is an enclosed tube that is completely pitch black from start to about 10 meters before you hit the pool. It was pretty freaky going through that thing in the dark. There are also several pools, a few hot tubs scattered around and water park area for the kids to enjoy. You can also rent a very nice cabana with flat screen tv, wifi, refrigerator and ceiling fan for around $275 for the day.
The chairs around the pool are not the cheap kind you find at many hotels. The quality is more like something you might find at the Grand Wailea in Maui or the Four Seasons. Not exactly the same quality but much better than the white plastic lounge chairs found in most hotels on Oahu.
There are no Kama’aina rates but they “mentioned” that they might have some specials for Kama’aina during the “appropriate season”.
Overall the experience was great and I am sure we will do it again.