This is post #7 in my series all about our honeymoon! If you haven’t already, make sure you read the other posts first – they’re listed chronologically here 🙂
DAY 7 – FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9
When I last left off we had just checked in to Aulani! We were so excited to be there and we were up early today to head to breakfast. We posed for a few photopass pictures on the way too!
Our breakfast was at ‘Ama’Ama, a beautiful open air restaurant overlooking the water.
We had the perfect beachside table!
Everything on the menu sounded amazing:
And they had my favorite POG juice too!
For our meal, here’s what we ended up with:
Chris had the lobster breakfast sandwich and I had cereal-crusted French toast – which was definitely Captain Crunch! It was so good!!
At the end of our meal, our server also surprised us with some dessert for our honeymoon – so sweet!!
After our breakfast we headed to the car to start our adventure for the day, where we were heading to Pearl Harbor.
We weren’t able to get tickets in advance but decided to head over anyway to see what we could do without them, and we could actually do a lot!
Tickets were required for the memorial itself, so we couldn’t do that, but there was a little museum and a lot of other things to look at in addition to the actual memorial. We were still able to walk around and spend a decent amount of time there even without tickets.
Of course I appreciated this section about women and the part they played in the war!
There was a little reflection area with quotes and stories from those who witnessed the attack. I found the whole thing to be very moving and really well done. Thankfully everyone was being respectful and the whole place was quiet and calm, despite the large number of people there.
We had debated going to visit Pearl Harbor at all – visiting a war memorial isn’t exactly an ideal honeymoon activity – but I’m really glad we did end up going. It was something totally different than anything else we did there. Even though it’s not something I would have said I was excited to do while we were in Hawaii, I think it’s important to acknowledge things like this and in hindsight I’m really glad we went.
We popped into the gift shop on the way out where I picked up these cute vintagey magnets:
Then we headed back to Aulani!
After spending the morning outside we were more than ready for a relaxing dip in the pool. Aulani had many beautiful pools to choose from, but we decided to hop in one of the adult pools first, which was amazing. Maybe it sounds stupid to want to go to a Disney resort and not be around kids but… the less time I can spend around children on vacation the better 😎
The adult area was so pleasant, quiet and relaxing, but after a while we decided to hop over to the lazy river!
It was so much fun!!
The weather was beautiful and the river was full of all kinds of caves and waterfalls, and it was just so refreshing! and fun!!!
And it offered some beautiful views of the resort, too!
We could even see character meet & greets going on just outside the pool areas:
We went around a few times and then decided we wanted some food. We hopped out to get some snacks on the pool deck, where I spotted…
Shave ice!!! I was so excited – I had been looking forward to Mickey shave ice ever since we booked our trip!
And it did not disappoint!! It was life-changingly good. You got to pick 3 flavors and I also chose to add condensed milk on top of mine for added sweetness. It was so good. I’m salivating thinking about it again right now.
Unfortunately tragedy struck and I lost an ear:
But I quickly ate the rest before any more disasters could occur.
For lunch we got chicken nuggets from the poolside snack area, which were great too! Once we were all finished, we headed back inside to refresh and nap.
There I took a quick nap and had a shower, and soon it was time for us to start getting ready for our dinner.
And dinner tonight was an exciting one! We were heading to Ka Wa’a, the Aulani luau! We dressed up nice and headed down to the lawn to get checked in.
But not so fast – on the way we ran into the CUTEST character meet & greet I’ve ever seen and I absolutely had to stop. I don’t normally like meeting characters but it’s not every day you see Mickey & Minnie in Hawaiian outfits!!!!
Chris did not want to stop and you can see it in this photo LOL
It only took about 5 minutes and we got such cute pics!! We still had a little more time until the luau so we decided to get a drink at the poolside bar.
We got the Liliko’i-lada which was so good!
Finally it was time to head in to the luau!
Since the show took place on the lawn outside of our room, we tried to spot it from the outside haha – it’s on the floor second from the top in the third room from the right!!
Before the luau they had little tables set up with activities to get everybody excited for the show. It was really cool!
Chris scowling at me for making him wear a button haha
Some of the activities they had were pounding taro roots, getting temporary Hawaiian tattoos (which I skipped because it felt like cultural appropriation lol) and making flower leis! They were mostly for kids but I thought the leis looked fun and decided to do it anyway:
It turned out so cute!
We also saw them setting up the food which looked amazing!
Soon it was time to get settled down for the show!
The show started with this cute little band getting everybody ready and in the luau mood:
Since it was outside and getting dark, these next few photos are going to be rough…haha. But soon we got our food and everything was amazingly good!!
This was the kids’ dessert station which consisted of marshmallows and fruit in a little bowl…. seems weird but I took one haha
Also some Moana cupcakes!
The roasted pig was the main attraction!
More desserts – of course I took one of each to try them all!
Okay, so this purple stuff is poi, made from taro root and pounded into a paste. My mom had told me about it before we went and said we had to try it – so we did!
Once we had our fill we settled back in for the rest of the show.
The food was SO good. Highlights were the pulled pork, teriyaki chicken, and the taro macaroni salad! We did not like the poi haha
Again, not a lot of photos during this part because it was so dark, but I also wanted to focus on the show and enjoying it!
The show itself was awesome!! The first little part was some hula dancing, Moana came out to say hi, Mickey and Minnie hula’ed with children:
Then they brought out the crazy amazing hula dancers!! They were seriously SO stunningly beautiful and talented, we absolutely loved watching them. There was a loosely woven story throughout the show, very fun and family friendly as expected. There were a lot of different types of hula and they finished the show with some amazing fire dancing! We LOVED the show so much and were completely stuffed after.
I did take a few short clips, just on my phone – they’re not very good quality or anything but I still wanted to include them because they’re fun 🙂
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSqB6oVGjhM&w=560&h=315]
After the show it was pretty late and we were very full and tired, so we headed back up to the room to immediately pass out! It was such a fun day full of a lot of cool Hawaiian things – the luau was one of my favorite things we did and I would absolutely do it again if (hopefully when!) we ever go back 🙂
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we’re actually nearing the end of our honeymoon!! 🙁 But not to worry – there’s still 3 days left and they were some of the most fun, relaxing days we had the whole trip. I’m so excited to write about the rest of them and finally finish up this series! I hope you’ve been enjoying these posts and will return for the rest of them too 🙂 thank you for reading as always! <3
One Comment
lkc4052
So glad you tried the poi…it’s not something you can get on the mainland and hey, why not eat purple colored flavorless paste at least once in your life. : ) I knew you’d love the hula. They are so graceful and beautiful.