Hawaii Trip Report Part 8: Friday at Aulani

Trip Report so far:

Vacation Video
Part 1: Getting There
Part 2: Hiking Diamond Head Crater
Part 3: First Day at Aulani 
Part 4: Tuesday in Hawaii (Girls Version)
Part 5: Tuesday in Hawaii (Boys Version)
Part 6: Dole Plantation and the North Shore
Part 7: Out to Sea

Part 8: Friday at Aulani

Friday, March 13, 2015

We woke up at 5:30 a.m. and had breakfast. We played in the room until 7:45 a.m., then headed down to the pools. Today was our last full day at Aulani, and we had nothing planned except to enjoy the resort amenities.

The kids, especially my youngest, really loved the main pool with the zero entry:

The boys in the grotto pool:

Joshua at the infinity edge:

Ahhh....loved this infinity pool. Not too many people in the pools in the early morning hour.

I sneaked away to the adult infinity double-level hot tub. This was the lower level...I loved the waterfall from the top level.

Alyssa played in this splash pad for a short while:

We had originally signed all 3 of our kids up for the premium event "Fish Are Friends" at Aunty's Beach House today, which ran from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. The day before, we asked them if they wanted to keep the activity or have more time at the pool and beaches...2 of my 3 opted for more water time. So at 10:30 a.m., we dropped just Joshua off at Aunty's for the program.

The rest of us stayed in the pool area and ate lunch there (we packed our lunches from our kitchen, but Brian had to sample the coconut shrimp one more time).

Then we headed back to the beach! I was able to check out sand toys for free at the equipment rental shack.

Brian and Nathan tried paddle boarding:

At 2:00, Nathan, Alyssa and I went back to our room to shower and change. Brian picked up Joshua from Fish Are Friends. His class made fish food and fed the resort fish. He received this backpack, place mat and the Oceans DVD.

After we changed, I took the 2 kids to the community hall room. We hadn't been there our entire week. This room hosts some activities, and it has free DVD and book rentals.

We were really there just to check out an iPad to do the Menehune Trail. But Stitch was there and invited us to play Jenga with him. That was fun!

After Stitch left, we proceeded to play the Menehune Trail interactive game. It's kind of like the Midship Detective Agency on the Disney cruise ships.

We made some cool effects happen, like the lighting of this torch:

And the appearance of this turtle:

And some other cool stuff...but in case you're going to do the Menehune Trail, I don't want to spoil it for you! There are actually 4 different trails outside and 1 in the lobby....we only had time to do one. I wish we would have done this earlier in the week so that we could do more trails.

While we were doing the Menehune Trail, Brian was out with Joshua enjoying the pools one last time. They also did another round of snorkeling at Rainbow Reef:

We fed the kids dinner in our room, and then dropped them off one last time at Aunty's Beach House. Tonight, Brian and I had a dinner reservation at the nearby Monkey Pod restaurant. We sat on the upper level in the open-air restaurant:

Since our reservation was for 5:00, happy hour was still going on, which included $9 pizzas and half-price appetizers. We ordered one pizza and a few appetizers to split including chicken wings, pumpkin ravioli and lobster deviled eggs. A cast member at Aulani urged me to order the pumpkin ravioli, and it was SO good! It wasn't exactly pumpkin, I think it was squash, but it had goat cheese on top and was delicious.

For dessert we ordered a piece of chocolate pie to split. Yum!

Alas....our last date dinner for the vacation. We walked back to Aulani to pack while the kids were still in the club. Walking into the lobby is just simply beautiful every time:

The next day we were heading back to Waikiki for some activities, so we had to get everything packed up for an early morning departure. We picked up the kids from the club to head to one last Aulani activity that we didn't get to earlier in the week....the fire pit storytelling.

We were at the 7:30 p.m. storytelling. There are some chairs around the fire pit, but many people had to stand. Uncle did the storytelling, and it was really neat. Another thing we wished we had the chance to do multiple times. We actually couldn't drag one of our kids out of the club, and my oldest came reluctantly after he said he'd rather play his iPod in the room....but he was glad he came because it was pretty cool.

One last look at the beach:

Up next: Kualoa Ranch