02 Oct

Day 2 – Gorgeous Resort Day

 

We were in bed pretty late, but with the time change and strong desire to see Aulani in the daylight, there was no way I was sleeping in. I think I was up by 6. I snuck out to the balcony for my first daylight look. We had a garden/island view.

It’s pretty unusual for me to wake up before Stephen and I was dying to leave the room. The balcony was beautiful and all, but I wanted to see everything else! And how many pictures can I take of a balcony? So I woke Stephen up.

Mean, I know.

Our showering noise woke Ally up (shutter door remember?) so we all three went out to explore while Chase slept some more.

Hallway!

Tammy is awake, so they are awake!

The lobby was our first destination.

The lobby was take-your-breath-away gorgeous.

To me, paradise is somewhere you can live and have open air rooms. Or lobbies in this case.

This is the sight that greets you when you walk out of the lobby.

A map of Aulani:

Mickey!!!! We know him!!!

Looking back at the lobby.

A character breakfast was happening!

Ahh. The lazy river. We were going to be spending a LOT of time here.

The snorkeling lagoon was empty.

No Shave Ice this early!

That’s what I’m talking about!

The infinity pool:

The beach was gorgeous!

This wedding chapel seemed constantly in use.

Ally is testing out the water.

We walked some more.

There are some big crabs in these rocks that you can’t see:

Sorry to the Stitch haters, but he’s always been one of Ally’s favorites!

We checked out a movie at the Community Hall for later and then we went back upstairs.

Here’s our room!

We’re all awake now!

The balcony is still here.

At this point we had to leave the Disney bubble for a little while to go get groceries. We had a kitchen, so our goal was two meals a day in the room and one out. We drove to Hickam Air Force Base to the commissary.

It was here that we realized that Ally’s wallet was MIA. We checked to see if any charges had been made and since none had, we decided to risk it and not cancel the card for a while. It’s such a pain while on vacation!

So we did our shopping and headed back.

I am not even lying that on the way home I was starting to feel physically ill. Oh no!! But then when we got back in the bubble, I was fine!

Looking back it was probably car sickness, but it felt more like a sign that my body should stay on Disney properties at all times.

We brought back our groceries and put them away, ate some lunch and then we were off to the pools. Well some of us. The US was playing a friendly soccer match if I remember correctly, so the boys stayed in the room to watch.

Ally and I went on down though. Not knowing how everything was going to work, I left my camera in the room.

I know! The shame!

Here’s a phone pic of us relaxing though –

There were a lot more people at this time of day! We found a couple of chairs though and moved later as more opened up together.

The lifeguards were vigilant about not letting people save chairs. If they saw a chair unattended, they folded the towels and laid them on the back of the chair. If that towel hadn’t moved in an hour, the belongings were taken to a towel station. We saw this happen a few times!

Ally and I started in the volcano slide. I was thinking it was a kid’s slide. Um. It’s not! It was a full out body slide!

After that we went for a lazy river float. We found tubes hard to come by at times, so we often just body floated down the river.

Chase and Stephen came down so we went to the infinity pool and then the ocean!

We also did the lazy river a couple more times!

Then the hot tub.

We’d worked up quite an appetite for dinner at this point, and we decided to walk across the street to the shops and restaurants there.

Walking out:

Looking back:

Dinner was at Monkeypod across the street. We didn’t think about calling for reservations so we had a short wait.

We’re in!

I somehow neglected food pics? I don’t know how on earth that happened! But dinner was great. I highly recommend Monkeypod.

We went into the shops and Stephen bought himself his first pair of flip flops. He apparently decided he’d been taking his feet too seriously for too many years.

We walked back to the resort just in time for sunset.

The kids climbed around on the rocks a little after that beautiful display.

We went back upstairs to our room for the night after that. We had rented Monsters University earlier in the day so we all watched it and went to bed. It was a great first day!

Hanging 10 with Mickey at Aulani June 6-15, 2014
Day 1 – Travel Day
Day 2 – Gorgeous Resort Day
Day 3 – Hiking to Kaena Point
Day 4 – The North Shore and Turtles! 
Day 5 – Resort Day
Day 6 – Manoa Falls Hike
Day 7 – Leaving Aulani 
Day 8 – Driving Up the Coast to Bellows
Day 9 – Last Day at the Most Gorgeous Beach Ever!