Aloha from Maui Vacation Consultants

Maui Vacation Consultants

October 2011

Welcome to Hawaii, Disney Aulani

Greetings!

Mahalo for subscribing to our newsletter!

Wow, it has been a busy year and I want to start off with an update on my young friend Olivia. Olivia is a 6 year old Maui girl who, in February, was diagnosed with Medduloblastoma. It is a very aggressive brain cancer with low survival rates. Olivia and her family were at Kaiser Santa Clara for 4 months where they removed her brain tumor. She lost the ability to talk, swallow, walk, sit up or move her arms and legs. Then she went through chemo and radiation. Then in July they said take her back to Maui for home hospice, there is nothing more we can do.
Olivia is recovering from the removal of the tumor, she can talk, swallow, eats small amounts of food. Though she still cannot stand or walk, she is making great progress.

Olivia home

In October, Olivia and her parents flew to Houston to meet with Dr. Burzynski. He has had success in treating brain cancer. She was approved to start receiving his Antineoplastons therapy and is responding well. She will be on this therapy for about a year and we continue to pray for full healing for this beautiful girl. She had me at Aloha!

3 nights at Disney Aulani

I was able to take Aaliyah (9), & Maya (12) to Oahu for a surprise 3 nights at the New Disney Aulani in Ko'olina Resort, west Oahu. We also invited Aaliyah's sisters who live in Ewa Beach to join us, Dominique (15) and Sharae (16).

Aulani1

From the moment we arrived to the time of departure, we felt like we were part of the Aulani family and we cannot wait to go back.

We were greeted at valet, bellman got our luggage, greeter gave us leis and fruit infused water and escorted us though the lobby to the registration desk. The minute they knew our name, each cast member handed us off as the Ryan Family. Nice touch to start. Teona checked us and and she was a delight. She made sure she had each girls names spelled correctly with their ages and I gave each girl a charging limit on their room key. It allows for them to have charging privileges without my going broke. Very friendly and accommodating.

We headed up to the room and the bellman met us there with our bags. Francis was our bellman and he quickly became part of our Ohana. He explained certain features of our room, then my girls showed him a feature even he didn't know about (stay tuned). We saw Francis multiple times during our stay, passing in elevators, hallways and lobby. He always greeted us and asked how we were enjoying our stay.

We were fortunate enough to be accomodated in a 1 bedroom ocean view parlor suite. It was wonderful. Great view, we could see the entire Waikolohe Valley and out to the lagoons and ocean. There was a king bed, Queen sleeper sofa and a single murphy bed that pulled out from under the TV. Great idea. Though all beds were a bit to firm for us.

The master bathroom was wonderful, with a full shower with rainfall showerhead and handheld, separate jacuzzi tub, and the special feature? A Toto toilet with all the features. We had just watched a comedy show with this toilet in it, so the humor was definitely there. Features, front wash, back wash, back was soft, blow dry, oscillating, pulsating and a heated seat! It was all I could do to get the girls out of the bathroom. LOL Only complain here was that the bathroom was too dark with no makeup mirror. Definitely need one of those or better lighting.

Make sure to get a copy of the daily 'Iwa so you know what is going on each day. Plenty of activities for all ages. My girls are 16, 15, 12 and 10 so we had all age ranges covered and they all had so much fun! Aunty's Beach House is like a kids camp, that you would pay about $100 for a day at other Hawaii hotels. This is included in the room rate. At first my youngest peeked in the window and didn't want to go in. She didn't want to be the oldest. Though once we went on a tour of all the rooms, I couldn't get her out of there. Large iPad tables to play on, dress up for the little ones, computers, arts and crafts, movie room, kinect dance off. So much for them to do. Some daily activities have a fee, though only if these are special things you want to do. My daughter signed up to do Fish are Friends and really had a great time learning about Fish, making food and feeding them. We didn't mind the additional cost.

The older girls participated in teen and tween activities based out of the Painted Sky teen spa. Definitely more geared to the girls, though they have Xbox and computers for the boys too. They did a really fun scavenger hut with Flip cameras and went running all over the resort. I had cast members telling me how much fun the girls were having from so many different areas. They definitely covered some ground. One cast member who my girls loved was Aukai. He is like a pied piper there and the kids follow him anywhere. He also led the dance party at the Starlit Hui. What a fun evening.

We swam in the pool, went down both slides, played pool games, floated down the lazy river. Discovered menehune along the trail, played on teh Mickey Mats in the lagoon, Stand up paddle board. And one of my favorite activities was the Sting Ray Experince where you get to touch and feed the stingrays. Pretty darn cool, about $50 per person. Hannah who worked in the towels, wristband booth, is a beautiful girl with a beautiful personality. Definitely a pleasure to have met her.

Dining options, yes a bit limited. I think having a casual sit down place without the buffet would be good. We did the One Paddle, 2 Paddle for lunch and dinner one night. The food was fine, service was quick. And they were nice. My kids laugh as I talk to all the cast members, find out where they are from, met a few who were from Maui or went to school at Lahainaluna. I can honestly say that we didn't come across and rude or uninterested cast members. Each one had time to interact if just for a brief moment.

I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to visit Aulani early, I believe about 1/3 of the hotel rooms are open. I am trying to figure how to get back over before the end of the year.

Go, relax and enjoy!

Aloha!

Feel free to contact us with any questions at 808-669-0451.

We're here to help you plan the perfect vacation!

Aloha,

Kay Ryan
Maui Vacation Consultants

AALIYAH age 9
My trip to Aulani Was exciting we went swimming with sting rays, last time we went swimming with dolphins but better. By myself I went to Aunty's Beach House. They had a big i-pad you can play learning games on it. Best of all I saw all the Disney characters like Daisy Duck Donald duck Minnie mouse Mickey mouse and goofy. I wanted to go with the teenagers at first but we didn't know if they would let me. They did let me. So we did a trail we had to find menehune statues. Then at night we went to the Starlit Hui. I had a very good time but it was worth it.

Hi It's Maya Ryan. On October 5 we flew to Oahu, it took a little while to get there, but once we got there we were greeted with lays and then we got escorted to the front desk. Behind the front desk there was I big board of pictures that were all made from students from Hawaii. It was color sorted too. Then at the front desk we got our room cards that were also like credit card if we wanted something from the store we would just gives them our card and if would charge to the room. Although our mom put a limit on ours. Then we went up to our room. It was on the 14 floor and was really nice. The best part was our toilet. It was called a beday and it had buttons that said, "Rear cleaning, rear cleaning soft, front cleaning, and dry" Then we walked around at the pool and waited for Aaliyah's sisters. When they got there we all went to the pool they had two slides one that you go down in a tube that flows into a lazy river. Another one you lay on your back and its dark inside. There was a little food place across the street that we went to go eat at. The next day we had a lot of fun we hung out by the pool all day and we went paddle boarding that morning. It was so much fun but I kept falling off out in the middle of there lagoon there was to mats that you could swim out to and play on we had a lot of fun out there. Later on the day we went swimming with the stingrays. I was scared out of my pants. Uh hello there called sting rays for a reason. They asked me to feed them but I was way too scared. Later on that night we went on a photo scavenger hunt for teens and it was so much fun. We had to run around and find out where everything was. We went back to the hotel room and got dressed because that night there was a party called the scarlet hui and it was really fun. The next day I hung out in the teen room for a while it was really fun. Dominique, Sharae, Aaliyah and I all when out the Menehune trail which was the most awesome thing in the world. Then the next day we had to go home, which I was totally bummed about.

DOMINIQUE, age 15
Thank you so much for letting us stay with you guys at the hotel for a few nights, it was sooo fun. My favorite thing about the Aulani was all the activities that they offer, and I like that it wasn't like any other Disney hotel. I think that the hotel has great things to do for teenagers and I would have really loved to go to the teen spa. Maybe one or two more days at the hotel would have been fun so that we could've tried all of the activities.

SHARAE, age 16

The Aulani hotel was extremely nice and all of the employees were friendly and helpful. The best thing for me was the pool. I loved how big it was and the water ride was really fun. I thought that it was a great place for younger kids and adults because Aulani has activities for both groups. One thing that I wanted to try was the spa, but it was too expensive for me. But in all, I wished that I could have stayed longer than three days because there were many activities that I didn't get to try, it was a great place to relax, and it was really fun.