Aulani, A Disney Resort and Spa

Always enjoy the lazy pool.

What a beautiful resort! Fabulous Disney service, a great location, amazing property and services, beautiful views! We definitely look forward to staying here again. The character breakfast was amazing. Fabulous staff! Centrally located to all you will need.

We had a family vacation planned for early Feb '24 and had to book our accommodations back in summer '23 (with limited availability back then which is partially how we landed in early Feb '24 – that and to get away from the cold). To our surprise, American Idol was taping the entire time we were there. We were never notified and when I asked at the front desk they said I should have received an email in Fall of ‘23 letting me know this was occurring during our stay. We never received an email. When I asked other guests about it, only about a handful of them did receive that email. There was no notification at the front desk when we checked in either. Doesn’t help the supposed email came about 4-5 months after we had booked everything. Our stay was horrible. We had little kids, our youngest was 10 months old at the time, and had to deal with constant noise that went to 9pm on some nights (even though we were told there would be a hard stop at 7pm every night). The erected a massive stage on half the beach, cramming all the guest to the other half. There was a constant battle for seating and space. We were told we could go use another lagoon but that meant we would have to be responsible for bringing our own chairs and/or pay other hotels to rent theirs. A bunch of amenities were closed off due to taping, including some prime seating areas with views out to the ocean. Additionally, they stopped all night time amenities (uncles stories, shows, etc.) for guest and provided them only for American Idol taping and the guests were roped off from the areas. The worst part was the NOISE. We are coming from a large city and looking forward to some quite. The first 3 days we dealt with constant construction noise as they built the massive stage. Beeping forklifts, hammering, drilling, a true construction site. All the heavy machinery was not ideal with kids. After that is was constant screeching from the American Idol contestants as they rehearsed their songs. It went ALL day and into the evening. Then we had to deal with the actual taping of the show which went late. We were looking forward to having our windows open and feeling the ocean breeze but had to keep them shut most of the time because of the noise and just so my kids could sleep. Other guests were taken aback by this as well and were super unhappy as we all paid full price to deal with all the chaos. The managers at Aulani were super unhelpful. When I asked if this would be typical every year they said no. Thus, we decided to give Aulani another try. Booked for Feb ’25 and made sure not to cross any paths with American Idol again. Kept a look out for any emails and even call the front desk of the hotel to make sure American Idol will not be taping when we go again. Thinking I had everything covered this time, I was shocked a month before when I read online that American Idol will there again the same time we are. When I called the front desk again, they said they couldn’t comment on a “p