Hawaii Dining and Activity Suggestions

I would highly advise to download the Guide Along app. Pay the $9.99 Oahu tour. It was by far the best thing we did on our last trip. It’s your own guided tour with directions for the island. It’s showed us things that people don’t talk about. The history, points of interest and tidbits. We are going next month and looking forward todo it again.

We will look into it, thanks for the suggestion.

Roy's and Monkeypod are two restaurants we've been to that are close to Aulani and highly recommend, you can book them on OpenTable. I've also heard great things about Mina's Fish House, but haven't been there (yet).

As far as activities, I have always wanted to do one of the pillbox hikes. There's one on the North Shore that could be combined with some food trucks and sounds like a great time.

Mina’s Fish House is a must for us every trip. Recommend checking time of sunset and booking a reservation about 30 minutes before. Monkeypod happy hour is solid. Ama Ama was disappointing for the price paid; nothing was bad but expect better at that price point. Makahiki is great for breakfast but absolute GARBAGE for dinner! Off the Hook right on the pool deck is good for a casual low key lunch or dinner.

I second Monkeypod! Very good food last time, I absolutely recommend it!

Thanks for your suggestions.

Ooooh, jealous! We did Aulani three years ago for my oldest daughter's HS graduation present. This is going to be a super long comment, since I included the daily report of our trip for you. It shows what we did, where we ate, what we liked, and what we didn't like. Here it goes:

We just completed our first trip to Aulani. All I can say is, wow. This is a recap of our trip and includes some places we learned to go from the locals. I am writing it as I am midair on a 10 hour direct flight back to Boston, so I will remain as positive as I can (we are all really sad this trip is over). It was an amazing time in Oahu, that is for sure!

Our trip was a total of 11 nights that started with 4 nights in Waikiki at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. We had a room on the 25th floor that overlooked the pool and ocean. What a way to start vacation! While in Waikiki, we mixed up our meals between nicer/bigger restaurants and smaller restaurants where the locals go. We also had a rental car which made navigating the island very easy. I highly suggest hitting ABC or Foodland for room snacks and water while staying at any resort in Oahu, since you will save a lot of money by getting these items at these stores compared to the resorts. ABC stores are located on just about every corner, and they also have good food too (fruit, sushi…it’s all here and it's pretty good), and Foodland has some of the best poke around (I was a doubter, but it really is good and is where the locals go).

Day 1: We arrived Thursday afternoon and grabbed dinner at Tropics, which is located at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and overlooks the ocean. It was really good, with their poke nachos being the highlight. Afterwards, we walked around the Hawaiian Village shops to kill time and try to stay awake. The six hour time difference was a killer! We were able to stay up until 9pm before we all crashed. Being from the east coast, we were all up generally early throughout the entire trip and would start getting tired a little earlier than we would like. It wasn't necessarily bad, as it allowed us to rise early and enjoy Hawaii. The adjustment to the time change got better as the trip went on.
Day 2: Today was an “adjust to Hawaii” pool day. We hit Lappert’s across the street for coffee and pastries at 7:00am before grabbing pool chairs. We ended up hitting Lappert’s almost every day…their coffee and food is really good! They also do really good ice cream. As an FYI, a line starts to form around 6:40am each day so if you get there when they open (7:00am) you will be further back in line. On some days that line gets really long. The cashier gave us a customer loyalty punch card to use while we were there, and that came in handy. From there we cruised over to the pool around 7:30am and got our pool chairs...the pool chairs were mostly taken by 9:00am. We hung out at the pool until around 3:30pm, eating lunch at the small snack shack that is close to the pool. We had reservations for dinner at Merriman’s that evening, so we all showered and headed out a little early to shop along the way. My daughter had heard about Foodland Farms and wanted to see it. For anyone who has not been to Foodland Farms (not to be confused with regular Foodland) yet, wow! The place is like Whole Foods on steroids. They have a poke bar that seriously has some of the best poke in Hawaii, cooked steaks, and even a bar! Yet this is a grocery store, people! It’s amazing and we would end up doing our shopping here to stock our Aulani cupboards two days later. Merriman’s was REALLY good and my wife and I both got the best encrusted Mahi Mahi, which we both said is the best that we have ever had. After Merriman's we headed back to the Hilton and were in bed by around 10:00pm.

Day 3: It was an early-ish wake up to grab coffee and pastries at Lappert’s before heading out to our 2 hour Raptor tour at Kualoa ranch. I highly recommend this tour! The guides do such a good job of explaining Hawaiian tradition and showing the natural beauty of Hawaii. The pictures from this tour were unreal. Even my teenage daughters loved the tour, which is hard to do. After the tour, we explored Kualoa a little and then headed out to the Poi Factory (a locals favorite spot that was on the way back to the hotel) for some lunch. Their pork was absolutely amazing. The parking lot and streets around this place were filled with Hawaiian families hanging out together and eating, so it definitely had that “locals” vibe. After we ate, we headed back to shower and walk around Waikiki a bit. We started by walking to the Mai Tai Bar at the Royal Hawaiian to test their claim of having the best Mai Mai. They aren’t lying! It was fantastic. It was a “low key” night for dinner, so after Mai Tai heaven we hit Poke Bar for dinner. My daughter described it as the “Chipotle for Poke”, lol. It was really good. You choose your poke and then walk down the line to chose the toppings. After that, we walked around the shops in the area (it’s a really nice area for shopping…maybe too nice) and really gave my wallet a beating. We headed back to the resort around 9:30ish for a night cap and live music. The Tapa bar has nightly live music that is good and lively. After that, we were in bed by 10:30.
Day 4: It was an early Easter Sunday for us. We woke up at 5:30 (yes, AM!!) to hike Diamond Head and see the sun rise from the top. It’s not a terribly difficult hike and the views from the top are worth it. We got some really good family pics at the top of Diamond Head with the sunrise. This was all my wife’s idea and we thanked her for thinking of it when we were leaving…let me tell you, there weren’t too many “thank yous” at 5:30am. LOL. After Diamond Head we went to Island Vintage Coffee, which is a place my daughter wanted to try. It’s good, but also more expensive than the average coffee place. It is Hawaii's "high end" coffee place. We headed back to the resort to get showered and ready for our Easter Day brunch at Duke’s. We had a nice walk along the beach on the way to Duke’s and we hit the restaurant's gift shop while we were waiting for our table. The food was good (my daughter said it was the best pork nachos she has ever had) and the views from our table were amazing. After lunch we headed back to the resort for some pool/beach time in the afternoon. Our last night in Waikiki was another “low key” dinner night, so we hit Blue Water Shrimp and Seafood for dinner (it’s in the shopping area right next to the resort). We had heard from other people at the resort that the food here was really good. We got there and the line was looooooong, which is a good sign. Someone who worked there recommended we call in our order for take out, which was a great idea because our food was ready in only 20 minutes. We took our food back to the resort and sat at outside tables located by the pool bar. We ordered some drinks from the bar and enjoyed our last meal in Waikiki while watching the ocean and people walking along the path. The food was outstanding, too! Very reasonable prices for the amount and quality you get. It was a good last night in Waikiki. After dinner we headed back to the room to pack up our stuff.

Day 5 was our transfer day to Aulani. We said goodbye to Waikiki and happily jumped in the rental car around 9:30am and made our way to Aulani. It's interesting how you build up something in your mind and create an image before you see it, and when we could see Aulani from the highway we all were somewhat nervous. I was under the impression (again, I built it to be this way in my head) that Aulani was tucked away in a hidden corner of Hawaii. Our nervousness was alleviated when we got off the exit and entered Ko Olina. Even the off ramp was beautiful, and there was a really nice greater at the main gates going into Ko Olina. In typical Disney fashion, we were blown away when we entered Aulani. The open air lobby was gorgeous. We had a two bedroom Island Garden view, and we had requested a room that overlooked the luau. The request was granted and our view was phenomenal!! We were on the 12th floor in the Ewa tower and we even had a decent view of the ocean. We watched the luau a couple times from our balcony, too. It was a great room and I would highly recommend the view from this location.
Day 5: Grabbed our coffee and pastries from Lapperts and made our way to Aulani. We actually had accrued a free coffee and pastry by utilizing their “punch card” all week, so it was a nice way to start the day. One of the things we ended up loving about having the rental car was just enjoying the views of driving from place to place, and the drive from Waikiki to Aulani was no different. When we pulled into Aulani, we all got the same butterflies we get anytime we arrive at any Disney resort. The bell staff was super nice and held our luggage because our room wasn’t ready yet, which was understandable because it was only 10:15am. We walked around the resort to get a feel of where everything was, and we got our pool wristbands so we could enjoy the pool if we wanted to. By that time it was almost 11:00am, so we grabbed lunch at Off the Hook (which became our favorite restaurant on site). After lunch we decided to drive up to the north shore and check it out until our room was ready. On the way we ended up stopping at a mango farm and picking up some fresh mangos that were absolutely delicious. While at north shore we had Matsumoto’s and were happy that their shave ice lived up to the hype...we ranked it as the best shave ice we had during our entire trip (and we tried it at a lot of places!). We received a text that our room was ready around 3:00pm, so we left north shore and stopped at a Foodland Farms for some grocery shopping on our way back to Aulani. We always love making some meals in our room while staying at DVC resorts (both to save $$ and just chill out). At Foodland Farms we loaded up on poke, snacks, water, beer, fruit and some other essentials to get us through the week. When we got back to our room we called bell services to bring our luggage and then spent that first evening unpacking and getting settled. We had dinner in our room that evening and then enjoyed the hot tub in the pool area before bed.
Day 6: This was an entire day spent enjoying the beach and pool. We ordered some cocktails poolside and took a break around noon for lunch in the room. We left the pool and went to the room around 3:30 to shower and get ready for the Ka Wa'a luau at Aulani. We had made preferred luau reservations months ago and we were pretty close to the main stage. I have to say, this was a REALLY good luau. The show was great and the food was really good, too. I would recommend it for sure. After the luau we grabbed a drink at The Olelo Room and then went and hung out by the beach. It was a nice chill day, and one that you would imagine when you think "Hawaii".

Day 7: We had 8:45am Pearl Harbor reservations, so we had to get up and out by 6:45am. I thought I had overestimated the traffic to Pearl Harbor (without traffic it is only 25 minutes and I estimated an hour), but I underestimated the traffic. Badly. You are supposed to arrive 1 hour prior to your tour and we ended up getting there just in time for our tour (we arrived 5 minutes before the tour). It took us almost two hours to get there! I was sweating it and there might have been a few expletives said in the car. Once we got into the pre-tour instructional session I was able to relax. The Arizona Memorial was truly humbling. It gave me chills being there and hearing the stories that a retired volunteer told. After the Arizona Memorial we spent about another hour going through the museum before leaving Pearl Harbor. My youngest daughter really wanted to check out the swap meet that is located at the stadium, which is only a 2-3 minute drive from Pearl Harbor. So under protest (by me) we went to the swap meet, and I wish I could get that hour back. It was miserable and consisted of really 4-5 booths that were repeated over and over by different vendors. Thankfully my daughter agreed that she was done after an hour…we couldn’t get out of there fast enough. When we left we headed into Honolulu to grab lunch at Ono Seafood, which is a local’s spot that consistently ranks as having the best poke in Oahu. It is a really tiny spot and It lived up to the hype! After lunch, we stopped at Leonard’s (a few blocks away from Ono) for their famous malasadas. We grabbed a bunch to go and headed back to Aulani. When we got to the resort we changed into our swimsuits and, before heading to the beach/pool, dove into those malasadas. They were delicious…my favorite was the cinnamon. We spent the entire afternoon enjoying the beach and pool. Around 5:30pm we headed up to change and then we grabbed dinner across the street at Mekiko, which is the Mexican restaurant. We checked out the stores that were in the little shopping center next to the restaurant while we were waiting for our table. After about 45 minutes we were sat at a table outside...it was a gorgeous night out. The dinner was pretty good…and the margaritas were excellent! Being from Arizona originally, I am a tough judge of Mexican food and Mekiko wasn't bad. We headed back to the resort after dinner and called it a night.

Day 8: We slept in a little before our 9:00am character breakfast reservations at Makahiki. The food was just meh, but I felt they did a good job with how they organized the interaction with the characters. Before you even get sat, you have a private picture with Micky (and they are happy to use your personal devices to take pictures). Then as you are being sat they take you for a personal picture with Minnie. I like how they ensured each guest gets those pictures, because sometimes the character breakfasts can be a free for all. Then they have other characters come by as you are eating: we had Stitch, Goofy and Pluto come by our table. We were sat outside and the weather was great, so that was really nice. After breakfast we went back to the room to change into swimsuits and hang out by the pool before our 12:30 catamaran/snorkling excursion. The catamaran leaves from Ko Olina harbor, which is great because it was walking distance from the resort. Our charter was through Ko Olina Ocean Adventures and I highly recommend them. The staff was excellent and they took us to a really good spot for snorkeling. On the way to our snorkeling spot, we happened across a pod of dolphins and the captain changed courses to hang out with them for 30 minutes or so. The dolphins were breaching and playing...it was incredible! We have really good videos of the dolphins right alongside the catamaran. Snorkeling was great too and we saw a ton of interesting fish. After snorkeling, they provided a sandwich lunch all of us and were shocked at how delicious the sandwiches were. We got back to the dock around 4:00pm and headed back to the resort to shower and change. My wife and I originally had reservations for Ama Ama, but we heard from multiple people who visit Aulani regularly that Mina’s is much better (and I had also read that prior to our trip). We ended up cancelling our Ama Ama reservations before our catamaran and we ate at Mina’s instead. We sat at the bar because they didn’t have table reservations available. The bartenders were awesome and made drinks that were some of the best I have had in a while. The food was delicious as well. It was a good date night. Our daughters had dinner at Off the Hook on their own, so it was a fun night for them as well. My wife and I ordered an espresso martini to go as a nite cap and it was maybe the best espresso martini I have had in a while. We all got back to the room around 11:00pm and called it a night.
Day 9: This was another “chill by the pool” day. We got breakfast to go from Eggs n Things across the street. It was delicious!!! I had the rainbow pancakes that were smothered in fresh fruit. We ended up just ordering lunch from the poolside menu because no one wanted to leave, so that tells you how good the pool day was going. We left the the pool around 4:45pm to shower before heading over to Monkey Pod around 6:00pm for dinner. The food was OK…nothing crazy. The service was probably the “worst” of the trip. Not that is was terrible, but we had such great service the entire time that “average” service was a let down. After dinner, we went back to Mina’s for a couple of those to-go espresso martini’s and enjoyed some time in the hot tub. It was very relaxing and a nice way to end the night.
Day 10: This was our final full day of vacation, so we wanted to soak in Aulani and the Hawaiian weather. That called for another full pool/beach day! We did lunch in our room to finish off eating our groceries, and we enjoyed several poolside drinks. Dinner that night was take out from Ulu Cafe (on property), which wasn’t the best. I ordered their “special” pizza of the day and I could only eat two slices because it just wasn’t good. I was really jealous of my daughter’s chicken tenders, lol. We knew we would be packing that night, so we got a few drinks and watched the luau from our balcony as we packed. So sad that tomorrow we have to leave :-(

Day 11: Our check out day, boo-hoo! We ended up hitting the gift shop one last time before checking out at 10:00am. We didn’t have to be at the airport until 3:00pm, so we decided to hit the north shore again. On the way we stopped at the Dole Plantation for some to-go pineapple. That place seems pretty cool and it is now on our “to do” list next time we are in Oahu. The pineapple was absolutely delicious. After Dole, we hit Matsumoto’s for one last shave ice…it was "award winning" again. We grabbed lunch at Giovanni’s Shrimp truck, which was on my to-do list. It was ok, but nothing I would go out of my way for again. I am regretting not getting one last poke bowl from a food truck instead. Once we hit that area of the north shore and got some pictures on the beaches, we decided it would be fun to drive the long way to the airport by continuing north and hitting the beaches along the way: pipeline, sunset etc. That turned out to be a great decision! We kept stopping and enjoying the weather and snapping incredible pictures, so we just kept going north along the ocean. We had no idea where we were going, which made it even better. We finally hit a spot that was the perfect place to say farewell to Hawaii and it was all by happenstance: La’ie Point. It was one of the most beautiful locations I have ever seen. None of us really talked, but rather we just soaked in the beauty and environment. I walked out to the point and enjoyed the ocean and waves crashing/splashing off the rocks. It was the perfect punctuation mark on a great trip! After that, we continued on with the rest of that scenic drive that goes along the ocean…and then we went to the airport.

It’s amazing how different the vibe of Waikiki is compared to Ko Olina. It was both of our daughter’s first trip to Hawaii, so it was good for them to see different parts of Oahu. All four of us unanimously agreed that we liked Aulani and the more relaxed vibe compared to Waikiki. I will say that the dining options were much more plentiful in Waikiki. We started running out of places to eat in Ko Olina. Still, Ko Olina has a much more “authentic” Hawaiian feel to it. It was more about the natural beauty of the area.

Disney did a fantastic job with the theming at Aulani. The “Disney” influence (characters, decorations, etc) is definitely muted, and when you do see Disney theming/decorations it is done very tastefully. There was an obvious effort to make the theming more about Hawaii than Disney characters. The entire property was awesome, from the pools/beach to the restaurants (although they are getting outdone by restaurants at neighboring resorts).

There were a couple things that everyone in my family noticed about Aulani that were slightly annoying, though. One was an air of entitlement and/or obnoxiousness displayed by many guests. It was much more prevalent at Aulani compared to other Disney deluxe resorts. I witnessed, for example, people throwing tantrums and/or just blatantly moving people’s things off occupied pool chairs to take the chairs over. The people would throw a fit when they were told those chairs were occupied. It blows me away that people think they will have their pick of pool chairs when they go to the pool after 11:30am. Beyond the pool chair examples, more than once I experienced people having a “get out of my way” or “I am just going to cut in front of you in line” mentality. I was a little shocked at the entitlement at such a relaxing resort. The other thing that was a little annoying was the little kids taking over the infinity pool everyday. I am not sure how the infinity pool became the unofficial kids pool, but it has. It has a great view, but we got splashed so many times that we just decided to stick to the big pool and lazy river. Lastly on the “could have been better” side of things is that Aulani and Ko Olina really don’t have a lot to offer in the evening. This isn’t necessarily a terrible thing because we were tired and ready to go to bed every night by 10:30ish, but it is good to know if you are looking for “excitement” at night. Our teenage daughters weren’t too disappointed with that because, like us, they were also tired by 10:00pm each night (especially since we are from the east coast and the time adjustment was rough).

All in all, it was a fantastic trip! We mixed in a little of everything (Waikiki and Ko Olina, excursions and beach/pool, large restaurants and smaller “local” restaurants) and saw a ton of the island. We definitely plan to go back, but next time we might split our trip between Aulani and Maui.

We have really enjoyed the Guide Along app. I've used it at Yellowstone, Arches, and the Badlands/Mount Rushmore. I'm glad it's available for Hawaii too!