Aulani, A Disney Resort And Spa

This is our 7th trip to Aulani. We have been visiting since the grand opening in 2011. We are not DVC owners. I do regret not buying during our first visit but I didn’t really see myself coming back to the same place so frequently. That was not our traveling style back then but ko olina has been home away from home. That said, as a non-DVC owner, I feel like we are priced out of Aulani. As the main building is for DVC owners, there is only one building left for hotel guests. With limited supply, the demand is high. During this visit, we only stayed for one night, simply so we can use the resort for 2 whole days. As we have visited frequently, we have seen the changes. Gone are the days of the welcome leis, no lines for the characters, and being able to use auntys beach house for the kids. Most of the things get booked out months in advance, way before we even decide to come. The biggest change, though, is how nuts it is to get a place to sit by the pool. It’s crazy. My husband woke up early for a work call and decided to sit by the pool to take the call. He witnessed so many people being rude just to get a seat. This turned us off. There really isn’t a good system to control it either. We only saw the policing of the chairs in the afternoon, and this is when there was the most availability. We have so many fond memories here but I’m not sure we will be back.

We have been to Disney Aulani 3 previous times, this was the worst. For context, we have been to disneyland hotel, hotel Californian, disneyland, disney world, disney sea, disney tokyo, disney Paris, and multiple Disney cruises. Aulani just isn't worth it anymore. They don't put the effort in to provide an authentic Disney experience. Gone are the welcome lei's, nothing at all special to welcome you to the resort. At this price point, turn down service and daily cleaning is no longer offered, it's every other day cleaning. Be prepared to go at 5:30 am to reserve your pool.chair. The character breakfast used to be a buffet, now send $57 for 3 pancakes, a donut, and juice out of a can. There isn't any fresh pog juice or orange juice. Gone are the fresh tropical fruit. Now you spend one minute with stitch and Pluto as your "characters", they used to have more. Overall over the years the experience has been diluted and the prices have only gone up.

The place was nice overall. But the pool seating was absolutely terrible, and it ruined a lot of the experience. They "Claim" to enforce a 1 hour chair policy, but in my entire week there I never saw it enforced. There should be no reason people can hold chairs all day and not be there. This should be more like a bar setting. The moment you get up, the chair is open. You have cubbies to store stuff. You should only be able to have a chair when you are in the chair

The main issue we had was there not being any room service available through out the resort. Given the insanely high price for a room at this resort, room service should be a given. You’re on vacation with family and little kids and may not always be able to go down to get food. Also, only restaurant for seated breakfast through out resort where you can order. Everywhere else was take out. They had 10 guys waiting on cars but not enough staff to properly host breakfast. They only clean rooms once every other day. We asked for our room to be cleaned an extra day and were flat out told no. This is NOT a Disney quality resort. They may charge Disney prices but it is not worth the money you pay. Four seasons next door is 1000x better for the same if not lesser price.

Honestly, for $1,000 a night, I expected way more than this. Aulani is basically a lesson in corporate greed disguised as "magic." The service is just poor. You’re paying a premium, but they don’t even clean your room every day—only every other day. It’s ridiculous to be tripping over trash or needing fresh towels at this price point. Then there’s the activity situation. If you didn’t know you had to book everything 45 days in advance, your kids are out of luck. We tried to find things to do when we got here and there is zero availability. None. But of course, they still charge those massive resort fees for "amenities" you can’t even use. The pool deck is a total nightmare. If you aren't out there by 7:00 AM to camp out and claim a chair, you won't get one. If you leave for a second, the staff removes your stuff. By 8:00 AM, it’s game over. The whole area is so packed it feels like the pool deck of a low-budget cruise ship, not a luxury Hawaiian resort. I’m giving it two stars instead of one only because the Cast Members themselves are actually great. They’re genuinely trying to be helpful, but you can tell they’re struggling with bad policies and major understaffing. It’s a shame management is ruining what could be a good experience just to save a few bucks.

Great staff, good room and nice amenities. My only complaint is pool chairs. This is Disney folks and with their creative team they should be able to come up with a solution to pool chairs. 80% are unused but “saved”. I shouldn’t have to spend this money for a week and literally never have a pair of chairs together. Come on Disney solve this.

I did not stay at the resort but had a day visit. I booked the character breakfast and this review is primarily about the character breakfast. I did have a chance to walk around the resort, check out the beach and stop at the gift shop. All of those were great. I really enjoyed the breakfast. Staff were very friendly. Everyone gets a picture with Mickey on the way in. They had three other characters walking around the breakfast. The characters made sure they stopped at each table multiple times for multiple photo/interaction opportunities. Food was good. Expensive for breakfast, but not really so expensive for Hawaii and for Disney, and for characters. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience and everyone should give it a try. I have food allergies so always appreciate Disney’s allergy conscious restaurants. Valet was free for 2 hours as a breakfast guest.

We have been to the Aulani several times and are Disney Vacation Club members. If you have young kids and can come when it is not a school break, the hotel has many positive features. It is very kid friendly, and you can get one or two bedroom rooms with full kitchens. On the negative side, it is definitely not luxurious compared to any luxury hotel, although it is expensive. The rooms are worn. The service is very hit or miss. But the very worst part is the chair policy. It is very strictly enforced. If you want to hold a chair before 8 when the pool opens, someone in your party must be in one of the chairs at ALL times. Then they mark the chairs and if you are gone for more than an hour, they remove your stuff. So, for example, I went and got chairs and sat there. At 9:30 we went to the character breakfast which cost over $300 for five of us, but I had to leave in the middle of my breakfast, which took over an hour, or they would have removed my stuff from our chairs. When I got to our chairs, they were already starting to remove stuff but fortunately I stopped them. Nevertheless, my breakfast was ruined, but the kids did enjoy seeing the characters. If it wasn’t for the nasty chair police and policies, I could put up with very outdated rooms, mediocre service and everything else. The pools are nice, water stuff is kid friendly, and the beach has large rock formations breaking the waves before they enter the lagoon, so kids can easily go in the ocean, which is nice. There also decent activities for the kids, like a character pool party twice a week, scavenger hunt, arts and craft activities, plus a club you can deposit kids in, that they like. But they just do not have enough chairs and very frustrating chair experience. Overall, if you have kids and are okay with their crazy approach, worth checking out. If you don’t have kids, stay away!

Staff was great. Guests were not! Rudest I've ever encountered. Selfish, privileged jerks!

This is an amazing hotel if (1) you enjoy really crowded pool areas where you’re SOL if you haven’t claimed a lounge chair shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers by 8am, (2) you love booking all of your activities and mandatory reservations for breakfast and dinner 45 days out, and (3) have lots of money to spend, as in haunt a bigger budget than the next door Four Seasons. If this isn’t you, then perhaps you should stay somewhere else. We’ve met plenty of families over the years that just rave about this resort. As part of a longer Hawaiian vacation, we booked 2 nights here with our boys (9 and 5). We booked the stay about 40 days out. To our surprise, basically EVERYTHING at the resort was already booked when we made our reservation! Breakfast at one of the full-service restaurants? Already booked. Dinner at one of the restaurants? We snagged literally the last option for a family of 4 for only 1 night of our stay - the other nights were already full. Kids club? Literally only 1 activity had room remaining for 2 kids during our stay. Star gazing or the outrigger canoe? Those and everything else completely booked. Think you can still arrive at the property and still drop in or sign up then for activities or dinner? Sorry, no, everything is full. Without a reservation, surely there must be good breakfast options, right? Yes, there’s Ulu, which basically provides the equivalent of a 7-11 to-go breakfast with eye-watering prices for overcooked drip coffee with Carnation creamer and mediocre food. The good news is the ocean lagoon is really enjoyable and you can easily lounge your time away there. Though the reality is you can do this same thing at any number of nice Hawaiian resorts at a whole lot less money than here. We’re not against mass-market family-friendly resorts. We’re big fans of ClubMed, which always provides a great time with lots of great activities for the whole family at generally reasonable prices. we’ve never had a problem enjoying endless activities, and there’s always ample delicious food. The value proposition at Aulani is absurd. We most definitely won’t be back.