TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

This is a lovely Disney resort. It’s part water park, part Disney character meeting, part beach and a lot Hawaiian. It’s an expensive resort, but Hawaii is expensive and interestingly you get value here for the expense. Other Hawaiian resorts are just as expensive or more and don’t have the activities offered. It seems that Disney has taken a lot of time to research and add Hawaiian culture and art. That is really a nice part of the resort. Also, the staff is friendly and helpful. They are well trained and it makes for a pleasant stay. We had a good time here. In fact I can’t complain. I just can’t offer 5 stars as it’s not a luxury property. The rooms are clean and the couple of things we needed( conditioner refill, remote battery) were handled immediately. The spa is really wonderful. The restaurants are fine, not spectacular. Even AMA AMA their high end restaurant was slightly above average. The tasting menu was good- some things were delicious. One of our party has the plant based meal that was almost inedible. The pools, lazy river and water slides are fun. Lots of chlorine! Hot tub is tepid. The little ocean cove is cloudy and very mild waves. Wonderful for children. I don’t know that we will go back, but we had a good time. One other note: you are a little isolated in Ko’olina if you don’t rent a car. But if you are enjoying the resort it doesn’t matter.

The Mahaki Resturant service stinks . It took ten minutes of arguing to stop at the high chair bar table for our family . Hundreds of questions . Very rude. It looks like they don’t really give a damn - may be too much demand because of Disney brand ( that is already dicining ) . Sad state of affairs manage By is oblivious to !

My family stayed here for a week and paid $800-900 dollars a night per room. This is a hotel for Disney obsessed adults and Aulani time share members. The hotel is chaotic, packed full of people and screaming children. You spend more time searching for a chair around the pool than you do actually enjoying the pool. The dining options within the resort are VERY limited and to add to the difficulty of finding food there is NO ROOM SERVICE. We paid $209 dollars a ticket to get into the Luau and while we were waiting for preferred seating to find their seats we were all swarmed and attacked by mosquitos which went on for a good 30 min until they finally let us into the staging area. The luau was located in the garden area nowhere near the beach with everyone on their hotel balconies looking down at you. The food was mediocre and you had to serve yourself. Overall we feel disappointed and scammed. We learned our lesson and will never stay at a Disney property again.

We have just returned home from Aulani, it was our third trip and we still absolutely love it! It was busy with Spring Break but didn't feel too crowded and lines were rarely very long for anything. We rented points and were in an island view 1bed villa on the 16th floor which initially was disappointing as we'd previously enjoyed the view of all the action from poolside villas in past trips. BUT I grew to love the view out to the golf course with the mountains, the lanai was huge and the 16th floor meant the lift was always empty when it got to us so we never had to wait for room in the elevator! The cast members were all very friendly, especially those in Aunty's Beach House where my youngest (age 7) spent some time. I booked early for the 90 minute sessions and he loved it there. Super efficient check in systems. We loved Off the Hook but also went to Monkeypod across the road and Mina's Fish House at the Four Seasons. We loved the character breakfast at Makahiki. Best experience was the characters, they were out so much of the day and far more frequently than our previous visits! My kids got loads of quality time and lots of autographs and pin trading opportunities. I agree with a previous recent review that although getting a pool lounger is near impossible after 8am, one of my favourite memories of the trip is waking up at 7am, refilling my Aulani mug with coffee and reserving our chairs for the day. Staring out at the gorgeous ocean in the morning light with my coffee and a book while the rest of the family got themselves ready in their own time ended up being a perfect start to the day. We will definitely be back!!

I have a family of 6 so we had to stay in the villas. Super expensive and also super underwhelming. One bed and my kids had to sleep on pull-out beds. I'm sorry what? One bathroom. Nothing special the whole stay, literally felt like just a number here. The bell service had to be called with room number to get bags, and then the guy brought them up and we had to grab all the bags off the cart ourselves and put them into our room. What was the point, we should have just hauled them up ourselves! The only pros were the character interactions - my children loved that! And the valet staff was super friendly and amazing. All other staff fell short. You had to pay extra money for pretty much everything besides character interactions and using the pool. The elevators were extremely annoying, we often had to wait nearly 5 minutes for one to open, and half the time they were already jam packed full so we would have to wait for another. We love Disney but this lacked the magic. Left a bitter taste in my mouth and we will never return!