Planning 1 | Planning 2 | Planning 3 | Travel | Disneyland (Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4) | Arrival | Surfing | Aulani | Excursion | Hyatt
It was finally time to leave Aulani. We had been at the resort for a total of six days. I think perhaps we stayed at the resort one or two days longer than we should have without leaving. We still had two days left on Oahu staying in Waikiki. We decided to take a tour of the island and see some additional spots! We had to check out of Aulani and couldn’t check into our next hotel until 4 pm, so we had a lot of time on our hands.
Our first stop was Waimea Valley. We thought one of the best things to do when visiting an island was to swim in a waterfall! The trip to Waimea Valley was easy enough as was the parking. There is an entrance fee for Waimea Valley ($16 per adult, $12 per child), so it isn’t free. There are some shops at the bottom of the valley along with a restaurant. We paid our entrance fee and started up the path. The path is paved, but it is quite a hike up to the waterfall area. There are lots of gardens to look at (filled with beautiful plants) as well as recreated villages. We didn’t spend much time looking at those on the way up, but enjoyed them coming down. The trip up to the waterfall was about 3/4 of a mile and it took us about 30 minutes or so to make the hike. You can also pay for a golf cart ride if you would like.
Once we got to the waterfall, there are free life jackets for anyone wanting to swim. The girls quickly got in the water and swam out towards the fall. Nancy and I stayed on the shore taking pictures. (If you’re a fan of the TV show Lost, you might recognize this location from an episode where Kate and Sawyer are searching for fruit and discover the waterfall). The girls swam around for about 20 minutes, and then decided they were done. They had a great time! We then headed back down the path and took pictures of the plants as well as the houses. We decided to grab lunch at the restaurant and it did not disappoint.
Our next planned stop was at the Byodo-In Temple in the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. This was on the other side of Oahu, so we decided to drive route 83 around the entire shoreline of the island in order to get there. The drive was fantastic as the road hugs the shoreline, so we got to see plenty of beautiful beaches and soaring green mountains. We stopped for shaved ice on the way as well!
The Park is a cemetery. It makes it a bit odd to visit a cemetery to see a temple, but that is what we did. The temple grounds require an admission fee, but it was very low. The temple has been in several television shows (another Lost episode!) and the grounds are beautiful.
Once we finished at the temple, we decided it was time to check in to our hotel. We were staying at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa. We were using our two free nights that we received on our Chase Hyatt Credit Card to stay there. The hotel is beautiful and located right across the street from the beach! The hotel has an open air mall on the ground floor with check in located on the second floor. There are two towers to the hotel.
We received a room on the 24th floor looking towards the mountains. The room was really nice, with two queen beds. There were fresh flowers spread throughout the room in addition to the leis the ladies received when we checked in. We dropped off our bags and went to to dinner at the Hulu Grill in the Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort, just down the street from the Hyatt Regency. The food was delicious and view of the beach was fantastic.
On our last full day in Hawaii, we decided to just relax on the beach. The Hyatt allows guests to borrow beach chairs for free along with towels. We grabbed some chairs and headed across the street to enjoy the weather! The beach, while a little crowded, was great. We planted ourselves under a palm tree and didn’t move for a few hours. We went shopping for the rest of the day and grabbed dinner at the Tiki Grill.
It was finally time to leave. Our flight didn’t leave until late in the day, so we decided to revisit the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. We had done a drive by of this place when we were on our Pearl Harbor excursion from Aulani. I’m so glad we went back. There is so much to see and it reminded me of touring Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
There are dozens of memorials as well as scenes of most of the major battles in the Pacific.
There is a fantastic overlook of most of Waikiki that you can easily walk to. The picture below shows most of Waikiki along with Diamond Head in the distance.
We decided to finish our day (before heading to the airport) by visiting the Dole Plantation. We knew it was going to be a tourist trap, but our youngest daughter LOVES pineapple with a passion. We thought we could go there and eat our fill of pineapple. Well, I have to say that unfortunately, it had the worst pineapple we had the entire time we were in Oahu. It wasn’t very sweet at all. Luckily, we got Dole Whips and that made everyone fairly happy. We passed on riding the train out to the fields, but did go with the maze. The maze was hot, but it was a lot of fun. We split off into adults vs kids and managed to finish the maze after some time.
After finishing at the Dole Plantation, we started heading towards the airport. We grabbed a late lunch from Teddy’s Bigger Burgers (which we ate at a few times on this trip) and then continued to the airport. Our flight was going to take us overnight to Dallas and then on to Dulles. We were going to be flying on American Airlines. I was excited at first because the first class cabin was supposed to be a the latest first class layout with lie flat seats. Instead, American Airlines changed out the plane for one of the oldest planes in their fleet. The seats, while better than sitting in economy, didn’t even come close to how nice our United seats were on the flights coming out to Hawaii. The flight from Dallas to Dulles was on a plane that was probably older than I was and it showed. The air conditioning could barely keep up with the Dallas heat. It did deliver us home safe and sound, so I suppose that was a positive.
The trip to Hawaii was fantastic! We managed to have a great vacation without spending a ton of money thanks to using credit card bonuses for the flights and hotels. We did pay for some of our accommodations, specifically staying at Disney Aulani Resort for six days (we did save money by renting Disney Vacation Club points). We also saved money by buying Disney Gift Cards at a discount and using those to pay for food at both Disneyland and at Aulani! We also had to pay for our rental cars (which we booked through Costco Travel) and meals. Overall, we spent as much on a 14 day trip to Disneyland and Hawaii that we would have spent going to Walt Disney World in Florida for less time.
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