Aulani,  Chraela Honeymoon - Feb 2018,  Disney,  Honeymoon,  Reviews,  Travel

Laniwai, A Disney Spa at Aulani – Review

As we creep closer and closer to being done with my honeymoon series, I decided I had one more special experience I wanted to write a standalone post about similar to my Club 33 and Walk in Walt’s Footsteps Tour posts. Today I want to tell you all about the fabulous experience we had at Laniwai, the Disney spa at Aulani!

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We decided to book a couples massage at Laniwai as part of our honeymoon, which we graciously received as a gift from off of our honeymoon registry! Many thanks to those who gifted us this amazing experience 🙂 We had read reviews of the spa before our trip and everything was just absolutely glowing. We were so excited!!

We had been advised by cast members at the spa beforehand to head down a bit early to take the tour and get the full experience.

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Even just entering the spa there is an immediate sense of calm. It’s in a secluded area of the Wai’anae tower, and behind the doors all is quiet and relaxed.

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I low key regret not getting one of these ducks on the way out.

As we entered we were greeted with some spa water and soon taken back for the tour of the facilities. On the way, we were told to choose a “wishing stone”: a smooth rock with a word etched in both Hawaiian and English, that we could focus on during our treatments. I drew the word “Harmony”, and Chris got “Listen”.

Our tour guide took us further into the spa and stopped at a large rotunda with a pool in the middle. There we were instructed to cast our stone into the water and make a wish.

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After that little bit of reflection, we were taken separately to the men’s and women’s sections and given a tour of our respective areas. Obviously I only know what the women’s side looks like, but I assume the men’s is very similar 😉 We also were shown the coed relaxation room and the outdoor hydrotherapy gardens, which I’ll get to in a moment.

The women’s area was beautiful. There was no one in there once my tour guide dropped me off so I had a chance to take a few photos. First there’s the lockers and dressing room:

Where I was given this beautiful lush robe:

There were a bunch of showers:

As well as a “getting ready” area, with hair products and tools available:

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And of course, tons of towels – every Disney spa I’ve ever been to has more towels than I’ve ever seen in my life haha

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There was also a steam room and a sauna, with chilly towels outside of each. Chris and I both checked out our respective steam rooms and saunas later, but coming from the Florida heat we weren’t really focused on spending too much time in a steam room 😉

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I explored my area a bit before getting my robe on and heading outside to meet up with Chris!

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Heading outside to the coed outdoor area…

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There was an outdoor shower and preparation area, with a little station to mix up your own scented scrubs:

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We were both given a scrub to take home. They said we should use whenever we missed Aulani <3

This outdoor area was SO nice – there were two different wading pools to hang out in. One was warmer than the other and both had nice relaxing jets that you could push a button to turn on.

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Caught Chris relaxing there ^

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This walkway was meant to get your circulation flowing and feel good on your feet, but I actually thought it was kinda painful haha

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There was a lot of seating and plenty of places to lie down:

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We were able to snag this cute canopy:

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There were also a few hot tubs as well as a “cold tub”, where the water was freezing! We saw a few people using this, and I guess the point is to go from hot to cold and get your blood flowing – but just a quick dip was more than enough for us!

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But by far our favorite part of the outdoor area was the hydrotherapy showers:

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It’s a large open section with a few showers surrounding. They each had different – I guess, showerheads? from which the water flowed in different ways. They were motion activated so you just stood in front of them to start the flow. The water in them also got warmer the longer they ran, which was so pleasant and relaxing!

These were SO amazing. Since we had arrived pretty early, we were able to enjoy the gardens for a good amount of time. Access to the gardens was included with our massage and we were able to enjoy it as long as we wanted before and after our treatment before leaving the spa. We laid outside for a while and enjoyed it all until about 15 minutes before our appointment. At that point we headed into the coed relaxation room, which had lounge chairs, snacks, and spa water to enjoy while we waited to be fetched for our appointment.

Right on time we got called back for our massage! Obviously I did not take photos in the room but we loved absolutely every second of it. We were able to choose the scent of our body butter and the massage therapists asked us ahead of time if there were any specific areas we wanted them to focus on. It was the most relaxed I’ve felt in my life and those 50 minutes went by way too fast!! It was so relaxing and we both loved it.

After our massage, we headed back out to enjoy the gardens a little while longer before we had to head to lunch. On our way out we got a photo next to the reflecting pool:

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And we were also both given a little pack of bath salts that matched the word we had chosen earlier! They had different scents corresponding to which word we had chosen. I thought it was such a cute little touch and I loved the scent of mine!

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Feeling fresh and completely calm, we finally left the spa after almost 4 hours of relaxation. We had SUCH a good time at Laniwai. It was a bit of a splurge and not something that we get to do often, which made it a perfect activity for our honeymoon, and I am so glad that we got to go.

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Our time at the spa was amazing and unforgettable and I hope you enjoyed reading about it! This standalone post will be part of another one outlining the full day, so make sure you also check that out once it goes up or even some of my other honeymoon stuff in the meantime 🙂 thanks for reading this one, and if you’ve been to Laniwai or any other Disney spa let me know what you thought!!

xo,

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