Dining at Aulani, 3 part series conclusion.

This is part 3 of a 3 part series by DreamFinder Travel agent Kim Merrill.

You may be wondering what your dining options are at Disney’s Aulani resort in Hawaii.  Having just returned from a stay at that wonderful resort, I can assure you that there are plenty of food offerings to satisfy all family members!

Quick Service:

Ulu Café is Aulani’s quick-service option.  Equivalent to Walt Disney World’s quick service options, there are a variety of pre-packaged grab and go items that satisfy many different levels of taste.  We ate breakfast here twice and were pleased with the different selections.  There were breakfast wraps, breakfast sandwiches on a croissant, French toast with eggs or bacon, pastries, oatmeal, or boxed cereals.  While I did not eat lunch or dinner here, they had daily specials that included different soups, sandwiches, salads, or entrees.  This is also one of the locations that you can purchase and fill the Aulani version of a refillable mug. There is a second location that is open 24-hours, but Ulu Café has the coffee, tea, and soda locations while the 24-hour option has only sodas/lemonade/juice stations.

Sit Down locations:

Makahiki is Aulani’s buffet option that is open for a character breakfast daily and an intermittent dinner character meal.  As you can see below, the décor was stunning!  All the dining locations at Aulani are open-air, so if you were to turn around from the wall pictured below, you would see open doors leading to a patio where there is live music playing in the evenings.

We ate there for dinner on a non-character night.  While pricey, we were VERY pleased with both the variety of selections and the quality of the food.  I’d like to point out that there were 3 types of sushi available (yeah!!) and that there were other regionally inspired dishes in addition to perennial favorites like prime rib and chicken dishes. Reservations are available for this restaurant, and can be done online prior to your arrival, during your arrival, or you can call the restaurant if you prefer.  We made a same-day reservation and obtained a 6:30 p.m. slot without difficulty. Please note that children over age 9 are charged as an adult.

Aulani’s other sit-down establishment is named Ama Ama.  Ama Ama is actually a local fish, so as you can imagine, the menu here for dinner is locally sourced and inspired.  This is their “signature” restaurant, and as such, the pricing reflects this. We were willing to give it a go, but in looking at the menu, thought that we would do better as a family going for lunch instead of dinner, as the dinner options were not tween-friendly (and our tween has a teen appetite and would not do well with a kid’s menu). They have a much more reasonably priced lunch menu as well as a breakfast offering if you’d prefer a table-service option instead of a grab and go breakfast.  Had we managed to do this as an adults-only dinner, this would have been a lovely romantic dinner for us.  Reservations are also available here and can be made as described above for Makahiki.

Bars and pool/beach options:

My favorite find for this trip was the O’lelo Room.

Dedicated to the Hawaiian language, all the bartenders here are fluent in Hawaiian and can help with pronunciations!  They have a bar menu from 5-7pm each night and my husband and I spent a lovely evening here having drinks and appetizers after our daughter actually opted to participate in an activity at the kid’s club (more on that later). They had a list of tap beers for $5 and house wine for $7. We had Kahlua pork nachos for $9 and then had the Calamari with different dips for $15.  Both were very tasty and they brought small samples of a few beers when my husband asked for recommendations.

Poolside, there were 3 different options:  Shave ice, the lava shack (where you could get DOLE WHIP and refill drinks), and an area where you could get hot dogs, chicken tenders, coconut shrimp and the like. There was also a small place by the beach to get snacks that were not your average fare!  Sadly, there is not a drink refill station right off the beach.

Near the adults-only pool there is a bar, as well as one located just off Ama Ama.  Interestingly, none of these bar areas are off-limits to children.  That being said, there really is nothing there that would attract kids to those spots, and there are areas that can be near and serviced by the staff that work there but are out of the “bar” area itself.  I did also notice drink orders were being taken on the beach, but I was not approached once by any of those cast members, so I’m not sure whether that was due to under staffing or my lack of looking interested in beach-based alcoholic beverages.

I hope you have found my information on Aulani helpful.  There are some great promotional offers available, and I am happy to obtain a pricing quote for you.  Please contact me for more information, or use the "request a quote" option on the blog, website or Facebook page.  I will follow up with more information on the Kids Club for you in a new blog post, and include the "kids" point of view as well.