Travel Guide | Carnival Vista to Western Caribbean

Ryan and I enjoyed our babymoon so much, that less than a month after we got home from it we went ahead and booked our next cruise! We knew we'd have an 8 month old at the time of sailing, and kept that in mind with our booking. We live in Houston, so we purposefully booked a cruise out of Galveston to make traveling with a baby as easy as possible. We were a little adventurous when we booked a 7 night cruise with a baby, but it worked out just fine!

Related post: All about cruising with an 8 month old

We really enjoyed our cruise, and I'm so glad my daughter was able to come with us! She had the time of her life and is already a VIFP member. Cruising as a parent is definitely a lot more hands-on then cruising as a kid who is just going with the flow. Ryan and I were grateful that we both had cruising experience so that we weren't having to learn all the cruise things for the first time with a kid, because traveling with a baby is a little more stressful than normal. Eventually, our daughter (and future kid) will be old enough to go play at the kids club all day and we will be able to hang out in the adults-only section in peace. 

Carnival Vista Review

The Vista was one of the smaller ships I've been on in a while, it holds about 4,000 passengers. A smaller ship was nice in our circumstance because it didn't feel overcrowded and we didn't feel like we were getting turned around all the time. It was a little weird seeing the main bar and shopping in the middle of the ship be so much less than what I'm used to, but what they had was still nice. The Red Frog Pub actually had a mini brewery on board which was cool to see, and the live music that they had was great. 

The rooms on Carnival Vista

 

We got a balcony room again, and it was perfect with a baby. We brought a non-wifi baby monitor and could sit outside with our drinks and watch downloaded Netflix shows on our iPad without waking her. The balcony was actually really big! I brought a baby pool and set it up on the balcony, and there was room for the pool and the chairs and patio table to all fit pretty well. Carnival lets you bring one bottle of wine per person, so I just made sure to bring wine bottles that had screw-top lids instead of cork to easily open without a corkscrew, and I brought silicone wine glasses for us. It was nice just to relax and sip my sangria to the sound of the ocean in the evenings. 

Having a baby on board did make the room feel a lot smaller than normal, so I was glad that we went with a balcony room because those tend to be bigger than Oceanview rooms and definitely bigger than inside cabins. I tried to stay on top of organization for this trip and I think it helped our room not seem like a tornado had just came through. We stashed a pop-up hamper in one of the closets and I found that really helped with not having the floors covered with dirty clothes, and we didn't have to sacrifice what few drawer space we had as a dirty clothes drawer. I also did the cruise hack where you put a shoe organizer on the wall with metal hooks (since the walls are magnetic). Unfortunately, the magnetic hooks I bought weren't big enough to fit the loop of the shoe organizer, so it wasn't set up right and couldn't hold much weight. Once we got home, I immediately got longer hooks for next time.

I did the water package and wi-fi package again, and recommend both. The bottled water is really cheap on Carnival, and it tastes so much better than sink water. There is a "cooler" in your fridge that will keep the water (and my wine) cool, but it's not quite as cold as a fridge. The wi-fi is decently priced, we just pre-downloaded Spotify playlists, Netflix shows, and Ms. Rachel on YouTube (if you know, you know) and did just fine. It wasn't the greatest at downloading longer videos on Instagram or TikTok, but it worked for us.

Eating on Carnival Vista

We did the Your Time dining on this trip after loving it on our last cruise. Our thought was that this would be perfect with a baby because we could eat when she was hungry. That didn't work out so well this time. While on the Sunrise in 2022 we could check in to dining on the app as we were leaving our room and a table would be ready for us by the time we got to the dining room, on the Vista in 2023 it was a disappointing experience. 

 

On formal night, we checked in a little after 7, and didn't get seated until 8:30 and didn't get our entrees until 9. We wanted our daughter to experience the "formal" dinner and got great family photos of us all dressed up, but she was miserable and we skipped the 2nd formal night (because it was a longer cruise, there were 2 formal nights) and did the buffet instead. It seemed that every time we tried to have dinner (or even breakfast on our last sea day) in the dining room, the service was incredibly slow. I'm used to servers taking your order pretty quickly and getting your food out not long after that, but that definitely didn't happen this trip.

 

The buffet on the Vista was great. They had little tables with umbrellas set up inside to make it feel like you were at a beachfront restaurant inside, which was a cute touch. We also ate at Guy's Pig & Anchor BBQ and that was really good food. We had planned on trying out the JiJi Asian kitchen on a sea day, but we never had time for it. Overall, the food was good, but the dining experience just wasn't up to cruise standards.

What to do on Carnival Vista

For a smaller ship, there seemed to be a lot we could do, even with a baby! We took her to Deal or No Deal and she did just fine for one round of that before she got bored. There was a putt-putt course that we did with her, and Ryan just wore her in the Tushbaby and golfed with one hand. On the last day at sea, we took turns holding her while the other went down the water slides, which were great even for adults. Outside of the RedFrog pub were some picnic benches that were attached to the table as one big gliding swing. It was a really unique place to hang out during the day. 

There was also a kids club onboard. We went to a Dr. Seuss reading, which honestly was just okay because it was so quick. But it was cute that they gave each kid the same book so you could follow along with the story. There was actually a whole Dr. Seuss library for the kids right outside of the kids club that I thought was cute. It was a big room with a toy box of baby toys, so although our daughter was too young for the kids club, it was still a safe place for her to practice crawling. There were activities planned on sea days where babies could come, but the parents needed to stay with them. We forgot about this on the first sea day, and were disappointed that we were the only ones who showed up on the second sea day. The staff was still great and let my daughter have the kids club all to herself, and they gave her a whole bag of ball-pit balls to play with. 

Exotic Western Caribbean cruise

Roatan, Honduras

I've been to Roatan on a prior cruise, and it was my favorite cruise destination. Happy to report back, that it still is! My last trip to Roatan was through Royal Caribbean, and Carnival stopped at a differ part of the port. I think I like the Carnival stop even better! The water in Roatan is beautifully clear, there's lots of small fish that will swim with you even in shallow parts of the water, I've never seen a seaweed/seagrass infestation, and the water is the perfect temp.

The "excursion" we booked for this stop was just a clamshell, which essentially just guarantees you 2 beach chairs that are fully shaded. The staff at this port was AMAZING! We had to navigate finding where to give our tickets once we were off the ship, and the staff not only helped us get to the right person, they helped us find a clamshell that was near a tree for extra shade for our baby, and was near the sidewalk so we didn't have to carry our stroller far. Later, when our daughter fell asleep in Ryan's arms, the staff came over and propped a table under the clamshell to angle it down more to better shade us since the sun had moved. 

There was a huge bar/restaurant right behind the beach so you could easily get food and top off your drinks. They offered souvenir drinks that had a lid with a straw and a foam koozie to keep your drink cold, and refills were at a discounted price. We saved our cups and fully intend to bring them back the next time we stop here.

As for the stop itself, what I love about it is that you don't have to do an excursion (more on that later in Belize), so you can walk right off the ship and onto a beautiful beach in a couple minutes, and spend $0 the entire stop if you bring snacks and water with you and don't drink any alcohol. There is a chair lift like at an amusement park that can take you to the beach faster and save you the walk while giving you a unique view, but I don't think there were many other options that I'd consider. 

Belize City, Belize

Maybe Roatan set my expectations up too high, because Belize City was my least favorite stop I've ever made on a cruise. If you like adventure and everyone in your party is at least teenage level or older, then you might like this stop. None of the excursions offered were suitable for a baby, because they were all snorkeling, or river tubing through a cave, or taking an hour-long tour around the city. Since I couldn't book an excursion, I figured we'd just get off the boat and park it on a beach like Roatan. That was a mistake. There are no beaches near the port where you can play in the water, as they all are rocky shores. 

The port itself is still getting built out. There was 1-2 restaurants that I remember seeing and then basically like a flea market where you can buy bad knock-off designer bags or crappy souvenirs and that's about it. We walked around for a while trying to figure out what to do when my husband finally found someone who told us they could take us to an "adventure park" where the price would be $20 per adult and the baby free. We agreed to try that and then he walked us up to a random cash register to check out and suddenly the price jumped to $80 a person real fast and Ryan and I recognized a bait-and-switch scam when we saw one and left. Not going to lie, this was a little stressful and I started to tell Ryan that I just wanted to get back on the ship at this point where I knew we were safe and could find something to do. But, Ryan has a sense of adventure so he walked out through the port to a whole bunch of taxis and haggled with a group of them to see who could take us to the adventure park on the cheap. Our driver was great and he took us to Kukumba Beach and figured out what time our ship left and planned to pick us up exactly an hour before it left so we wouldn't be rushing to make it to the ship on time, but he gave us his phone number so we could call him if we wanted to go back earlier. 

Kukumba Beach actually worked out really well! You could get a bucket of beer for like $12 and there were several food options which were pretty cheap. The place itself is sandy, but it's not on a beach. It has a man made salt-water and sand pool that has a huge slide and floating trampolines to play on. Our daughter really liked playing in the sand and in the water. And it had free wi-fi! The one con was that the beach chairs were wooden, so they weren't exactly comfortable. I had packed a sandproof beach blanket with us, so I just laid that down and then a camping towel on top of it on the sand for our daughter to have a softer place to nap. 

We were talking to a family that showed up about an hour after us, and turns out that they were on one of those city tour excursions and that this was a stop on their tour. They were really jealous that we got to go straight here and back, because they felt that the tour was just meh and would rather spend more time at the adventure park than taking the tour to get there and then more of a tour to get back to the ship. We also paid significantly less than they did to get there. If we were to go back to Belize again with small children, we'd probably just take a taxi back to Kukumba Beach again, because there's really not much else to do if you're not dong a more physically-demanding excursion. Hopefully the port is a little more updated the next time we go, because it definitely felt sketchy. 

 

Cozumel, Mexico 

Our last stop was in Cozumel, which my husband and I have both been to several times before on past cruises. It has a huge shopping center with nice stores, and that's basically what we did. There's several bars right when you get into the port, so Ryan grabbed us some drinks and we just walked around and shopped. Ryan was begging to get our daughter a sombrero because he has an obnoxiously giant one from a prior cruise, so I told him if he could find a baby-sized one then he could get it. Really, I thought it was a fool's errand, but of course the very next store had one! We also stopped into Cariloha and ordered some sheets. What's nice is that they ship your purchases to your home for free, so you don't have to worry about packing what you bought when you go home. This is exactly why I always throw a foldable backpack into my beach bag on port days, so that we have a way to carry all our port purchases back onto the ship.

Our daughter fell asleep in her stroller while we were shopping, so we stopped and had a long lunch at Fat Tuesdays while she had her nap. We ended up deciding that this was enough for one day, so we didn't go to the beach on this stop. I think part of it was knowing that we were going to be back in Mexico on the beach for a week in Puerto Vallarta in just a few months, so we didn't feel like we were missing out. But, if we come here again we'll probably just take a taxi to Paradise Beach on our own. 

Overall thoughts of this cruise

We had a good cruise, and our 8-month-old really enjoyed her first cruise, but this was the cruise that made us consider going over to Royal Caribbean. Overall, I'd rate the cruise as a 7/10. It wasn't a bad cruise, but there was nothing really that stood out to make it a great cruise (other than Roatan). 

Our next trip

Mexico just once a year isn't enough for our little world North America-traveling baby, so we're going back! Every year we take a big family vacation with my in-laws and after how outrageously expensive Hawaii was, this year we've decided to save some money and go to an all-inclusive in Puerto Vallarta!

Travel Guide | Carnival Sunrise to the Bahamas

Ryan and I both grew up cruising. I've been on half a dozen cruises, mostly through Royal Caribbean with one Disney cruise. Ryan has been on about a dozen cruises, mostly through Carnival with one Royal Caribbean cruise. In June 2020, we were talking about how neither one of us had been on cruise in at least 5 years. So, I looked up prices on both Royal Caribbean (where I have a loyalty status) and Carnival (where Ry has loyalty status) and found a Carnival cruise at a great price for the week before our honeymoon. We were able to find a 5-night, e-stop cruise to the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos for April 2021, with a center-ship, high-level balcony room with the ability to pay $300 that day, and $150 a month up until our cruise. Being able to spread out our payments made this an easy impulse buy! I signed up for the Carnival loyalty program and pulled the trigger. 

What's great about Carnival's loyalty program is that for all cruises after your 1st cruise, you get a free liter of water bottle! This is per person! They don't exactly remind you of this, but you can just go to any bar and tell them your status (at least Red) and ask for your one free liter. After 25 days accumulated at sea (at least Gold status), you also get a free drink up to $10 at any bar after 5pm on the last day (yes, it's very specific but we just set a calendar reminder for my husband to go get his free drink).

I actually was 21 weeks pregnant for this cruise, so I had a unique experience. Technically, you're not supposed to sail past 24 weeks but I have no idea how the cruise confirms this because they just took my word and I also saw 2 other pregnant women who looked further along than me (I know everyone shows differently, but I don't know if they actually were under 24 weeks or if Carnival just didn't bother verifying this). Actually the only reason I think the cruise knew I was pregnant was because their website says you have to have a doctor fill out a form before you can cruise, but I couldn't find the actual form. I called their customer service and was told as long as I'm under 24 weeks there was no form needed (I'm assuming this is when my account got flagged as pregnant), but when we went to get on the boat they kept asking me for the form from my doctor and had to get a manager involved to let me on without the form that I was previously told I didn't need. I had previously been diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum (uncontrollable vomiting) and even hospitalized for it, on 2 different nausea prescriptions, and still throwing up almost daily up until our cruise so I was very nervous to go on the cruise, but it had been booked before we even tried for a baby. I took my nausea prescriptions along with Dramamine and didn't really feel I needed it. I don't normally get motion sickness so the rocking of the boat didn't do me in like I thought it would. I even took 2 smaller ship to shore boats and felt totally fine! I also thought it was VERY helpful to have essentially an unlimited variety of food non-stop so I could always eat right when I got hungry.

Carnival Sunrise Review

The Sunrise used to be the Triumph, but it got remodeled and renamed in 2019. The ship does look and feel updated, which I liked. It's a smaller ship, with only about 3,000 people. We really liked how the layout took advantage of the small size so it never felt like you had to walk far to get where you were going. Like any cruise, there were lots of small details that we loved. The Alchemy lounge at the back of the 5th floor was a great quiet place for us to play our favorite card game that we brought, but you can also borrow a deck of cards from guest services for free. The Red Frog Rum at the middle of the 9th floor (not to be confused with the Red Frog Pub at the front of the 5th floor) was a great place for a chill drink that had shuffle board and foosball hidden in the back corner. And the Skybox room in the back left corner of the Casino in the middle of the 5th floor was great for watching games on. We also  liked seeing the comedian, playing Deal or No Deal (the audience member won the grand prize on our ship!) playing trivia, and playing Bingo.

Now for my gripes... First off, the names are confusing as hell! As I just mentioned there's a Red Frog Rum and a Red Frog Pub. Why??? There's so many other colors and animals (like how they have Blue Iguana room) it just makes NO sense as to why the names are so similar and confusing. But wait, there's more! There's also a Liquid Lounge which is their main show lounge where Bingo/Deal or No Deal were played and excursions met (but to me sounds like a bar name) and a Limelight Lounge which is where there's karaoke and comedy shows. Again, too similar sounding so you can get confused. And oddly, the Limelight turns into the Punchliner when there's a comedy show, so it's confusing to call the exact same room 2 different names, depending on the activity in said room. This all makes it more difficult than it needs to be to meet up with someone in one of these rooms. 

My other complaint was that they didn't consistently enforce the "adults-only" rule in the designated area. We went to the adults only pool two days in a row and got splashed by kids playing Marco Polo while the lifeguards said nothing. After like 15 minutes, all the adults abandoned the pool because of the yelling and splashing. This is totally fine in the main pool, but we went there for a quiet area to sip pina coladas and read or relax in the pool. I'm not surprised that kids ended up in the adults-only pool, because the main pool felt tiny for a cruise. It looked about the size of a backyard pool.

The rooms on Carnival Sunrise

We got a balcony room on the 8th floor, room 8391, and absolutely loved it. Our room had 3 closets, a long desk, in-wall storage shelves, a couch with small coffee table, king bed (that splits into 2 twin beds), one nightstand (they could've fit 2 and I think it's weird there was only one), and a small patio furniture set. Not only did we have all of the space and light from the balcony and balcony door, but our window right by the balcony was HUGE so we basically had a full wall of windows. We played around and if you were outside on the balcony you couldn't hear someone on the inside talk or even raise their voice, but if you were on the inside you could hear someone on the balcony. 

One thing I was surprised at coming from Royal Caribbean was that there were no drawers in our room, only closets and cabinets. There was still plenty of room to store clothes, it was just weird to put underwear in a cabinet instead of a drawer. One thing I'm really glad I did was have 2 dozen water bottles delivered to our room on day 1. It was like $10 to do so and absolutely worth it. Sure you can also get free water from the several drink stations around the boat, but that tastes basically like tap water and cold filtered water straight from your fridge is much better on a hot, humid day. 

We also got the social wi-fi package ahead of time and I do recommend that (it's more expensive to purchase starting the night before the cruise and on-board). The next tier up is the value package which is essentially just the wi-fi package but with email and is about double the price per day so I think it's pointless. We could iMessage each other and people back home, Google, and post to Instagram. The only thing we couldn't do was stream music/videos, but we just downloaded those ahead of time. If you don't want to get the wi-fi package, you can also just pay $5 for messaging other cruisers in the Carnival Hub app so you can stay connected with everyone you're cruising with.

Eating on Carnival Sunrise

We thought we had early dining, but we accidentally booked the Your Time dining and that was a first for us. We LOVED it and honestly probably have permanently converted to this from normal dining. With formal dining, you eat at either 6 or 8 at a designated table every single night. The downside to this is that literally hundreds of people are lined up to eat at the exact same time so it can be a long wait to finally get to your seat and get fed. You also have to plan all of your activities around your dinner time. In comparison, with Your Time you just get on the app and reserve a table and usually by the time you get from your stateroom to the restaurant your table is ready so you just walk right in, give them your table number, and you're instantly seated. You're also at a new table every night so if you don't like your table location you're not stuck. We looked into it and the menus, restaurant decor, and entertainment were all the exact same as the normal dining (with the exception that you might just miss the entertainment). With Your Time, if you're not hungry or not ready to eat until later, your dinner can fit your schedule rather than the other way around. You also can eat any time from 5:30 - 9 so you have a huge window of when to eat. I definitely think this is the best option for families because of the flexibility.

For the Your Time dinner, the restaurant you eat at is on the back of the ship on the 3rd and 4th floors. Because of its location, we could definitely feel the boat rocking way more than we did in our room. We both realized after night 1 that we would need to take Dramamine while we were getting ready so we could make it to dinner. But, it did have beautiful views on 3 sides of the restaurant. The normal dinner was in a restaurant in the middle of the ship on the same floors, and I bet it rocked a lot less. The other main eating area was basically the entire 9th deck. The buffet was at the back of the boat, with a lobster station and pizza station behind it, and a taco station and burger station in front of it. So, you essentially had the taco/burgers between the main pool and buffet, and then the lobster/pizzas between the buffet and the adults pool. 

As always on a cruise, the food was great. A pro tip is that breakfast room service is free, so don't forget to put out the door sign and order breakfast in bed! There were other specialty restaurants on board that were for a fee like sushi and steak, but we didn't try those out because we felt there were more than enough free options. 

What to do on Carnival Sunrise

We did your typical cruise ship activities on board. My husband did a ropes course (make sure to bring closed-toe shoes if you plan to do this), we did Bingo, and we actually won a "stick on a ship" at trivia!

We also spent some time near the central bar on ship and just hung out at a table playing card games we had brought from home. You can rent a deck of cards from guest services, but we prefer to bring Monopoly Deal when it's just the two of us. We also wen to the SkyBox Sports Bar to watch some basketball together, and it was a really nice and comfortable bar. One of the nights we went to Deal or No Deal and the first girl actually won it! I had never seen someone win that before! After Deal or No Deal, they actually started up The Newlywed Game and Ryan really wanted to go (we were celebrating our 1 year anniversary [and babymoon] after all! Unfortunately for him, by now it was 9pm and as a pregnant girl, I was was too tired and had already been nodding off at that point.

We also went to the late-night comedian on board in the Limelight Lounge, and although most of his stuff was funny, some of it was raunchy just for the point of being raunchy so it was just meh. Another let down was the pool situation. We went to the adults-only pool at the back of the ship, and it consistently would have 4-5 kids playing marco-polo taking up the whole pool (which isn't that big to begin with), and there seemed to be no one enforcing the "adults only" part. I think part of the problem was poor planning, because they put this pool right near the pizza and ice cream stations. 

Exotic Eastern Caribbean cruise itinerary

 

Bahamas

We had 2 stops in the Bahamas, one in Nassau and one at their private island Princess Cay. For Nassau, I strongly recommend you stick to the group on the public beach or with an excursion. I do not believe it is safe to leave the port on your own, because apparently 2 people were robbed at gunpoint during our stop. Personally, we went for the Blue Lagoon VIP Adults Only excursion and I give it 4 stars. The Blue Lagoon is its own island so you take a smaller boat from the ship to the island. The island has an inflatables park in the ocean, a dolphin encounter, a shark encounter, and the adults only part. Everyone all rides the little boat together (snacks and alcohol are available but cost extra, even if you have the unlimited drinks excursion) and then split up into different groups based on your wrist bands. The VIP adults only had unlimited drinks, but it was only Bahama Mamas or non-alcoholic fruit punch, lemonade, or water. Lunch was included and we thought the food was great. There's also several staff members always walking around to bring you a drink or food, so I do think the VIP lives up to the name. And because the staff was always out serving, they were really good about keeping out anyone who wasn't in the group from crashing our private area. This is because the inflatable park and VIP area are connected by a bar (I think if you want to drink anything other than the Bahama Mamas you have to pay for drinks here). The lack of star is because the beach and fenced-in ocean part are TINY. As in like 2 minutes to walk from edge to edge. We brought our snorkel gear but there was definitely not enough room to snorkel in the water, even with over half of the group not being in the water. My biggest tip is to make it back to the boat about 20 minutes before they tell you to, because if you're on the last boat out like we were, you have to wait until they round up every last straggler onto your boat.

For Princess Cay, the ship anchors down in the middle of the ocean and then smaller boats take you from ship to shore. We didn't do any excursions and just booked a clamshell shade for the day. This turned out to be a GREAT use of our money! The clamshell was about $30 ahead of time and it was great to have a great spot reserved and to have shade. We will forever do this if it's an option on future cruises. You could also rent the normal snorkeling, water bikes, kayaks right there on the beach for pretty cheap, or use whatever you brought. The beach is a little on the rocky side, not bad, but I did think water shoes were helpful. The lunch had really good burgers, but for some reason the buffet was set up where you get your toppings, then burger, then condiments, so it's weird to have to construct your burger later. 

Turks & Caicos

We didn't have an excursion planned for Grand Turk, and it worked out for us. It's a pretty established port that has shopping and restaurants with a big pool surrounded by free lounge chairs or you can rent like a mini house. We grabbed lunch at Margaritaville and then headed to a chair by the pool. We were only there for about an hour before it just started downpouring on us with no end in sight, so we went back to the ship early. There was also a beach that looked really well-kept, but we didn't make it in time to see it. 

Overall thoughts of this cruise

This was my first Carnival cruise, and it was better than I expected. Carnival's own island, Princess Cay, definitely was much simpler than Royal Caribbean's Coco Cay that I'm used to. And while Carnival's ship had waterslides, mini golf, and a ropes course, it didn't seem to have much else. That's not to say that Carnival cruises are bad, it's just going from an over-the-top Royal Caribbean cruise to a "fine" Carnival cruise was an adjustment. I think I might like a Carnival cruise if I went on a bigger ship with more bells and whistles. But, Carnival is significantly cheaper than Royal Caribbean, so as an affordable getaway, it did the job just fine. I'd give this cruise an 8/10. 

Travel Guide | Disney Aulani in Oahu, Hawaii

My husband's family are Disney Vacation Club members and for years Ryan and his sister have joking-but-not suggested we need to take a trip to Hawaii and visit the Aulani resort. For Christmas 2019 we found out it finally worked and it was announced that the next Disney trip would be to Aulani in 2021. Obviously this was long before anyone had ever heard of Coronavirus, but after 2020 we decided that as long as we could, the trip would still be on. 

So vaxxed and masked, we went for Labor Day week, which just so happened to include my 29th birthday. Our trip was a Saturday-Saturday trip and what was great about such a long trip is that we had plenty of time to just relax and explore at the hotel while also being able to go out and explore a bit of the Oahu island. 

Disney Aulani Resort Review

Disney Aulani was smaller than I was expecting. It is just a hotel, not a monstrous resort like what you get at WDW. It was part of the Ko Olina suburb (idk how best to describe it so we'll go with that) on Oahu, which is about an hour away from Honolulu and Waikiki (everyone told us to avoid Waikiki because it is overcrowded, even our Uber driver avoided that area!). The entrance to the resort is open air and the view is breathtaking, if not obscured by the massive rock where there's a water slide, and was a beautiful resort. 

Overall, though, if we weren't DVC members I can't say if we'd say it we'd go again. I know it's Hawaii, but the prices were really outrageous and it didn't feel very Disney aside from the one lone Stitch statute by the lazy river, the one lone Mickey lamp in our room, and we did see a Mickey and Moana character. The staff was still really nice, but despite our trip being during Aulani's 10th anniversary year, it felt they just had this location for the sake of capitalizing on Hawaii.

 

The rooms at Disney Aulani

Because this trip was through DVC, we had the most amazing suite I've ever been in. We absolutely could not afford them if we had to pay with cash instead of points. We stayed in a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, ocean-view villa. Our villa took up the entire width of one tower of the resort, and our balcony was the entire width. I can't stress enough how amazing the balcony was! 

For this villa, you walk into the living room, with the living room in the front, the kitchen/dining to the right, and the master bed/bath to the right of the dining area (there was also an second separate entrance just for the master), and then to the left of the living room was the smaller of the 2 secondary bedrooms with a detached bathroom, and to the left of that was the larger of the 2 secondary bedrooms with an attached bathroom. 

Our villa had a full functioning kitchen, complete with supplies, so all we had to do was Door Dash groceries from Safeway on day 1 (and run the dishwasher) and we saved a lot of money on breakfast and snacks. There also was a full washer and drier and soap to do dishes. 

My husband and I ended up in the smallest bedroom because we were too busy gawking over the balcony to realize that his sister and her husband where already choosing rooms. I was fine by this because although our bathroom was detached while there's was attached, our bathroom had a tub/shower combo while theirs only had a stand-up shower option (the master has both a separate shower and jacuzzi tub with a view of the ocean, oh and a very fancy toilet!). This meant I could use my Lush bubble bar (easier to travel with than their bath bombs) and the leftover petals from my lei for a luxurious bubble bath (sadly, Disney did not give us leis! We didn't get any until our luau). Both secondary rooms had 2 queen size beds, but unlike a cruise they couldn't be combined into a bigger bed. But there was plenty of room with lots of places to store clothes and suitcases, and it was great that we had a wall of sliding glass doors to lead to the balcony from our room. My only gripe was that our room didn't have a lot of plugs so charging both our iPhones and Apple Watches wasn't as easy as a normal hotel.

Eating at Disney Aulani

We actually didn't eat at Aulani all that much. On our first day, despite it being 3pm, our villa wasn't ready so we headed to Off The Hook near the water slide. It was odd being sent to the bar (only for the bartender to tell us that we were standing on the wrong side of the bar and to scooch down to order drinks) and then going back to the hostess stand to try to get a table. Ryan and I split the mushroom pizza, and it seemed like everyone else really liked what they had. I got the mint coconut mojito for my drink and it was so damn good it's the only drink I ordered the rest of the trip. Ryan's sister and brother-in-law got the Lava drinks and said they were really good too, and his mom got the Mai Tai and she said it was very strong. All of our drinks came with flower garnishes that were fabulous. You'll mostly find local beer on your trip, so I suggest the Longboard beers in the red cans. 

The most of our eating came from Ulu Café, which was directly under our room and right between the main pool (Waikolohe Pool) and one of the side pools (Wailana Pool). It was great because it had beer/white claw (the bars didn't open until 11, so you also couldn't get liquor before 11), snacks, pre-made meals, and fresh meals. Our first night we ordered 2 pizzas from them and they were great. 

The only other place we ate at was their main restaurant, Makahiki, which is right under the main entrance. Go at night and it is beautiful! Outside, you can look up and see stars, or inside there is a huge mural that takes up the entire length of the restaurant and the lighting constantly changes which gives the mural new and interesting looks. The menu is a pre-set 3-course menu for $62 each ($25for children) where you choose 1 appetizer, 1 entrée,  and 1 desert. I got the caprese salad and it was good, but after trying Ryan's Cesar salad, I would recommend that more (it does come with anchovies). The shrimp fettucine was also good, and I got the brownie desert. It was good, but it wasn't amazing. This place also had breakfast where again it's a set price and set menu, but we never went. 

What to do at Disney Aulani

Our party was 6 adults, so for us I felt there wasn't a whole lot to do besides the pools and beach. One weird thing is that you have to go to the towel stand every day to get a towel and a wrist band to access the pool/beach. The wrist bands are neon for non-DVC and glittery for DVC but you have to get a new wrist band every. single. day.  I don't know why, but that was very annoying. Because we went during Labor Day weekend, we did learn that a lot of locals actually are DVC members and come for stay-cations during long weekends.  

 

There were several pools we went to: the main pool Waikolohe, a lazy river at Waikolohe Stream, which also had access to the 2 water slides, an infinity pool at Ka Maka Grotto which also had a hot tub, a secluded pool at Wailana Pool, an infinity 2-level adults-only hot tub between the main pool and the beach. The pools were actually heated so it was no problem at all to switch from the hot tub to the pool. You can bring drinks in the pool, but you have to stay on the edge of the pool to drink them. There are wait staff that will come by so you can at least order food/drinks around the pool. 

The beach is part of a cove that is 1/3 Disney, 1/3 Four Seasons, and 1/3 public access. There's lots of beach chairs, but they are zip-tied together so you can't move the chairs and the umbrellas are buried so you move them, and there's a table between every set of chairs but you also can't move that because the chairs are zip-tied together. If you're a DVC member, a cast member will help you find a chair but we never needed to use it because the beach was pretty empty most of our trip because we went at the end of the busy season and during COVID. There is a big boat that will take you beyond the cove for a couple hundred dollars, and there are stand-up paddle boards that you can rent for like $50/hour. There's also 2 seater covered loungers for about $100/day that Ryan's sister got and said it was nice, but those are up on the grass behind the beach. There is a beach-side bar that opens at 11 but we never used it because we were gone by then. But, there is no wait staff at the beach so you have to leave the beach to order drinks/food. The water itself is pretty cold, but you get used to it quickly once you get your whole body wet. The water is also very clear and you can see fish that will swim up into the cove, or you can snorkel in the cove for an even better view. Even while we were there, a wild seal came and sunbathed on the beach with us.

For kids, there's also a splash pad and a water playset to play at. There's also a small lagoon where kids can feed the fish or snorkel with the fish. People start lining up around 7:30am to get tickets for those because they sell out fast. We didn't do the snorkeling, but a family we chatted with said that your snorkel purchase lasts all day, but the water is so cold that kids don't really want to stay in there for long. There is a spot next to the snow-cone stand that is like an aquarium so you can see the fish swim by for free. There also seemed to be some scavenger hunt that kids could do on a green iPad, but we didn't look into that because we were all too old for that. There was a character breakfast that I saw kids going to, but it looked like Mickey was the only character you could see.

Eating outside of Disney Aulani

I think to get the most out of your Aulani trip, you really do have to leave the resort. This isn't a problem at all because you're on the small island of Oahu so everything is close by. We had dinner the first night and lunch our last day at Monkey Pod across the street from Aulani. The food was great and they have live music, but they only serve local beer (I recommend Kewalos Cream) and it's reasonably priced compared to the resort. There's also a great shopping center right there that has a grocery store where you can stock up and has gift shops and a Tommy Bahamas. 

For our second dinner, we ate at Roy's which was also within walking distance of Aulani. This was our priciest meal at over $100 per person. The food was great, but the service was the best I've ever experienced. Ryan's sister and I split a bottle of the house prosecco which was only $16 and really delicious. Ryan and I split the crab cake appetizer and it was amazing. His sister and her husband split the mac & cheese which was good, but more like risotto than mac & cheese. 

Our last meal was at Longhi's at the Marriott, also walking distance from Aulani. The zucchini fritta was okay, my crab-stuffed salmon was really good (the sauce was amazing), but Ryan's shrimp fettuccini was the best food we had the whole trip! This restaurant was also pretty pricey, but it was cheaper than Roy's and tastier than Makahiki at Disney.

The only other place I ate at was at Moke's Bread and Breakfast. Did I choose it just because it the name was similar to Monkeypod from earlier? Yes. Do I regret it? No. The food was pretty good, it was nice to just have normal food after all the over-priced fancy food. The waitstaff was the best, really, super friendly! But be warned to park very carefully because they tow like crazy (and quickly!!) over there.

What to do outside of Disney Aulani

What I loved about this trip was how we had so much time to do so much!! Our first big thing was the raptor tour at Kualoa Ranch. Kualoa Ranch is where a LOT of movies have been filmed, my favorites were Jurassic Park and 50 First Dates. The raptor tour is a 2-hour long UTV tour of the ranch, a little Hawaiian history, and a little movie tour. I loved it! This place also had 4-wheeler, bike, bus, and horse tours, each with their own focus at the ranch. There's so much to do here, I will definitely be coming back for more tours the next time I'm on Oahu. For the 2-hour raptor tour, it is very dusty so absolutely bring sunglasses (if you have skiing/off-roading googles bring those, you'll feel silly until you're on the trail) and bring a bandanna. But, this place is over an hour away from Aulani, so eat a big meal before (there's a small café but it was just okay) and be prepared to wait for over 30 minutes to find an Uber to take you back. What I wore: a bodysuit, jean shorts, Chacos, and sunglasses (women's/men's).

The day after Kualoa, we went to Pearl Harbor. You can book this through Disney and I recommend that because we had a van that could take us all over to it, and our driver showed us all around downtown Honolulu on our way there. Unfortunately, when we went there the actual memorial was under construction so we could only go to the submarine they had to tour and eat at the little food truck that was there. It was still a great experience, but I would definitely want to go back to the see the USS Arizona memorial. When we went, there was a clear bag policy in place and we saw several tourists being turned away for having the wrong bags, so pay attention! I knew this ahead of time so I brought my clear sunscreen bag, but I suggest you have a clear purse for this trip. There is a water fill-up station near the bathrooms behind the food truck, so pack a reusable water bottle to save money. It is mostly outside with not a lot of shade, so it gets hot fast. What I wore: black tank top, jean shorts, UPF hat, and sneakers.

One of my favorite dinners/things to do was at Paradise Cove luau and I can't recommend it enough. A lot of people we spoke to who had stayed at Aulani said that this luau was better than Disney's, and I can believe it. This is also walking distance from Aulani! It's a 5-hour ordeal so block off half a day for it, and get there early (doors open at 4:45). We did the Deluxe package, which I do think is worth it. For this package, you get front-row seating, servers (instead of having to go to the buffet), an arrival photo, and a free gift (they gave us metal wine tumblers with lids that we used the rest of the trip). Because we got there so early, we had time to take professional photos in the grass area. The photos were only $20 for a big photo, a medium-sized photo, and wallet-sized photos. It looked just like a cruise photo but instead of a fake background, it was a too-beautiful-to-be-real landscape for your background. They also had free spear throwing and Hawaiian bowling. There was also a small cove you could go to which had a canoe, but we didn't do that. The show itself was amazing and all of the performers were very professional! I also thought the food was great, especially the chicken and pork and salads, and the bar was great prices. Although the deluxe seats are right by the stage, the chairs are cheap flimsy plastic chairs, so if you want real chairs you'll have to book the Royal Box in the back, and those tables also have fans over them. But, the entire place is on sand!! We saw so many girls who showed up in heels and had to walk around barefoot all night because they weren't prepared for the sand. Where shoes for sand. Oh, but you do get leis when you get there! What I wore: maxi dress (so flowy and breezy) and platform sandals (super comfortable, wore them almost every day).

The last thing we did was on my birthday, Ryan rented a Jeep through the Alamo at Aulani. Every one else wanted to chill at the hotel, so it was our only day just the two of us, and we had such a great day! I wore a white body suit and paperbag shorts and my Chaco's, then I could easily change to running shorts for activities and a swimsuit for later. I threw this all in a packable backpack along with our JBL so we didn't  have to worry about syncing music to the Jeep and we had music for later. We did get delayed a little by eating at Moke's instead of eating before we left and as you can guess, our car was towed so we had to take an hour detour to go down to Honolulu to grab it and head back. After that, we hiked Lanikai Pillbox which is a gorgeous hike. Parking is difficult so try to park at any available spot you see near Lanikai beach, and if you've driven up to the golf course then you've gone too far to find parking. Once you're parked, walk up to the golf course. You'll see a small driveway/street on the left and there is a chain-link fence on the right side of the driveway. Walk along that chain-link fence and you'll find the trail. It is a short hike but it is HOT so bring a water backpack because not having enough water makes this normal hike pretty difficult. Tip: there is a lot of loose dirt so if you start sliding, turn sideways and crab-walk and you won't slide so much. After that, we tried going to Waimea Falls but apparently they stop accepting visitors after 4, so we just grabbed some beers and went to one of the free public beaches to chill until we had to head back and get ready for dinner. We had a lot more on our itinerary, but we didn't have time for it all. This is the itinerary that Ryan's dad gave us from a previous trip, and if we go back we'll definitely do more. 

Oahu Tips

Like I said, if we weren't going through DVC, I wouldn't stay at Aulani without kids. Don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful hotel and if you have the money to spend then do it, but it just seems like we could save a lot by choosing somewhere else. What I learned from our day Jeeping around the island is that if you have the time to just drive around and explore, there are LOTS of beautiful and free beaches you can go to without the Disney upcharge. Heck, 1/3 of the Disney cove is PUBLIC BEACH and right beside Aulani is an empty lot that will supposedly one day be an Atlantis Resort, but for now, it is also a FREE PUBLIC BEACH right next door. So, same view but for free and if you bring your own cooler you can save $20/drink and if you bring your own paddle board you can save $50/hour. 

As to getting to Aulani, we took a direct flight from Houston to Honolulu and then a private Disney van picked us up. For us, that was an 8-hour flight. If you're going during COVID, you'll have to show you're medically cleared to fly and you'll have to show this same screen again at check-in and again if you board a flight. For the flight, I highly recommend getting a Snuggie for the flight because the flights get cold and jackets are hard to take off when you're sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and blankets fall down, get a neck pillow, if you're short get an inflatable foot rest (the eye mask & ear plugs that come with this are also great), and a reusable cup with a lid because bumps are bound to happen in an 8-hour trip. Need a recommendation for movies/shows to download for your trip? Besides Lilo & Stitch and Moana, download something filmed where you can visit.

You're close to the Equator and the UV index can get up there in Hawaii, so avoid painful sunburns and focus on sun protection. I've had melanoma before, so I was obviously extra cautious. Here's what I recommend you pack: SPF face lotion to add to your skin routine (or a shimmery SPF for fun), an SPF foundation replacement, SPF lip balm which is also safe to use around your eyes, scalp SPF for your part (of anyone with thin hair), travel spray SPF to throw in your bag every time you leave the resort, and good old fashioned SPF lotion for everyday use because it covers better than spray. My rule is reapply every 2 hours IF the UV index is below 7, 1.5 hours for UV index between 8-10, and every hour if the UV index is above 11 (I've learned this from personal experience of burning too easily in high UV indexes. This is the Apple Watch face I use to keep track of all this. If reapplying sunscreen sounds like a lot of effort, the easiest thing to do is wear a long-sleeve swimsuit like this one or this one which I loved, pack a travel wide-brimmed hat, and wear water shoes to prevent both sunburned tops of your feet and hot-sand-burned bottoms of your feet.

For the beach, bring a metal koozie for your beer/cocktails or for your slim beers/whiteclaw to keep your drinks cold in the sun, pack towel clips (but also ask for an extra towel because one towel won't reach past your butt and the leg park of the chairs get REALLY hot), a silicone wedding band if you plan on getting in the water so you don't lose your diamonds (also recommend wearing this to Kualoa to keep dust out of your diamonds), a water bag if you plan to go to any waterfalls, an iPhone water pouch if you plan to swim with your phone (even if your iPhone is waterproof, it makes it easier to wear your phone as a necklace so you can swim and will float if you accidentally drop your phone), and a swimsuit coverup that is appropriate to go eat in. Other things that I'm happy I packed are a lightweight rain jacket because it is a tropical climate so it will rain on-and-off, a lounge outfit that is perfect for being comfortable while lounging on the balcony but also has a jacket for when the sun goes down, a sunglass box for all of mine and my husbands sunglasses (we packed 2 each just in case one of us lost on) and my extra large beach bag.

Last tip for traveling to Hawaii: book all of your reservations early in the day. We live in Houston, so a 7pm Hawaiian-time dinner reservation was the same as eating at midnight Houston-time. It sounds lame eating dinner at 4 or 5pm, but we actually found it really hard to stay up past even 10pm Hawaiian time. The good news is that it's very easy to wake up for a Hawaiian sunrise if you went to bed super early the night before!