Hawaii 2022 - Oahu (Part 2)

We landed early afternoon on Oahu and had a little snafu with our shuttle pick up. A few calls later we had a private car service and a full refund, and we were on our way. Ko Olina is a very nice part of Oahu. Twenty years ago when we went to Hawaii for our Honeymoon, my meeting planner at work recommended this area. Since then the area has grown with shops and stores and more hotels and condos. It's a great area with lagoons which protect the beach and the swimmers from the big ocean waves. Our hotel, Disney Aulani, was pretty magnificent in size. I mean Disney does not do anything small. We were only going to be there for 3 nights and 4 days so we made the most of it. Hawaii had just removed their mask mandate two days after our arrival but a lot of the restaurants were still closed especially at Aulani. You could tell they had a shortage of staff too. It wasn't necessarily the same Disney quality. Our quick lunch we had by the pool when we arrived was great and then we let the girls swim before heading off to our dinner reservation at Monkeypod in the Ko Olina area. The restaurant was cool - almost like a treehouse for monkeys and the kids had fun with all the fruity drinks. 

Stitch - Peyton's favorite Disney Character

Monkeypod and fruity drinks

Character breakfast

The next morning we had a character breakfast scheduled. But you know the great buffets that you loved from Hawaii? They are all gone now due to COVID. I really missed that. We took pictures with some characters from a distance and had an okay breakfast (not as good as I remember). We then spent the day at the beach with the kids running back and forth between the lazy river and the waterslides at the pool. It was much hotter in Oahu than on the Big Island and we got a lot of sun. We had to go in early anyway that day because we had the 5pm VIP seating for the Disney Luau. I wanted to arrive later but the concierge said we'd miss the special activity which was making fresh leis. We did have fun making the leis, listening to stories about Hawaii and the food was really, really good (especially the pork) although served in a bento box and not buffet style. Lots of fun Hawaiian dancing and specialty drinks and a little bit of fire throwing too (which was the best part of the previous luaus that I had been to). It was a 3 hour plus show so it took up most of the night. After a few shops (Peyton and Hailey loved the shops and had saved all of their gift cards and money to shop there), we retired to bed. 

Disney luau

Mickey ice - melting too fast in the heat!

Disney Aulani lagoon

Mickey ice cream bar and the Four Seasons in the distance

The next day was another beach day. The kids did snorkel in rainbow reef and then Austen and Peyton snorkeled in the lagoon as well. They ate Mickey Italian ice and ice cream bars too. We lounged in the lazy river and all of us had fun on the waterslides (well, except for Hailey who refused to go down). That night was technically our last night on the island so we enjoyed a fancier dinner beachside at the Four Seasons Ko Olina next door. We dined on surf and turf (Hailey a cheeseburger) and discussed our favorite family vacations. Alaska still ranks pretty high but the kids really enjoyed Hawaii and our ski trip to Breckenridge.

Dinner at the Four Seasons

Disney Aulani in the background

Waimea Waterfall walk

Pearl Harbor

Rental jeep

On Friday, we had had enough sun so we checked out and stored our luggage. With all of the rental cars sold out and a whole day to kill, we again turned to Turo who dropped off our Jeep at the hotel so we could drive around the island for about 10 hours before heading back for our flight. We hit up Pearl Harbor. The kids got to tour the museum and listen to the story behind Pearl Harbor as well as see the U.S. Arizona Memorial. We didn't get to go down in the memorial as the ticketing process was a bit crazy especially during spring break and COVID but it was good enough. They were there. We then went into downtown Honolulu because Peyton had to go to this Lululemon store to find Hawaii Lulu gear only to find out you can only get that in Maui. Guess we know where our next vacation will be! We had fun exploring and showing them the city though. Then we headed way back north to go to Waimea Falls. We hiked in and got to see the waterfall (and got caught in a torrential downpour). The way back took forever due to the unbelievable amount of traffic or we would have hit the Dole Pineapple Farm too but we had to get back to drop off the Jeep and catch our red eye flight home.

As we all said, we would have been more disappointed if we were leaving Hawaii and had nothing else to look forward to but once again we had First Class tickets which afforded us a bed as well as food and alcohol (for the adults) for the long trip home. We did have a connecting flight this time and when we arrived in Seattle we were seeing many flights canceled that day due to technical issues. Luckily, we were only delayed two hours and arrived home Saturday afternoon. 

Hard to come back home and definitely hard to come back home to the mix of sleet and rain that greeted us after we landed. It was a great trip. More memories made with our family, and the kids are already on to planning the next vacation (or at least Peyton is!).