Where: Ko Olina, Oahu, Hawaii
When: July 2012
Who: Family of 2 adults and 2 young school aged kids (that would be the 4 of us!)
We spent 5 nights at the Disney’s Aulani Resort, and even shares a lagoon with Aulani.
The JW Marriott Ihilani was a beautiful, well-maintained hotel in a gorgeous setting. Just thinking about it kind of gives me butterflies in my stomach, remembering my first view of a Hawaiian sunset from our balcony.
The rooms in this hotel are large (average 640 square feet), and ours had plenty of room for the 4 of us. The bathroom was huge! We were given a Deluxe Ocean View room (we didn’t have any status with Marriott, but got upgraded anyway). There was a very large balcony with a chaise lounge and a table and chairs where we could enjoy the view.
The hotel has a man-made lagoon with a beach area (this is shared with Disney’s Aulani next door). There are rafts and other toys for rent at the lagoon. This was our first stop on our Hawaii trip, and I am glad that it was. If I had compared it to other beach and ocean areas we visited, we would have been disappointed. The water is very, very calm. This can be great for babies, toddlers, and non-swimmers. For my kids, it was a bit boring. They like some waves in their oceans!
The kids had tons of fun at the JW Marriott Ihilani pool. This pool doesn’t have the bells & whistles (aka water slides and lazy rivers) that many other resorts have, but the water was clean and warm. There were plenty of pool chairs and towels. The service was very friendly, and they even gave out water ice and popsicles to everyone at the pool. There were also fruit-infused water dispensers, which is a nice touch.
This is definitely an upscale resort hotel, but it was very family friendly. There were lots of other families there, so we did not feel out of place at all. In fact, with Disney’s Aulani being right next door, the whole area felt like a kid-fest. The lagoon had tons of kids and families playing in the water and the sand. I am sure that this hotel was a much quieter option than Aulani would have been (plus this one was free for us, so a no-brainer). They have some activities for kids, like feeding the fish in the lagoon and the stingrays in the marina.
Ok, so it’s Hawaii. It is fabulously beautiful. With that said, this was not our favorite area. It was more contrived than other places we visited. Don’t get me wrong, we loved our stay here. But it was far from many of the places on the island that we wanted to visit and explore. The restaurants in the area tended to be more expensive, so we ended up driving to a shopping center a few miles away to eat many of our meals.
The grounds of the hotel itself are gorgeous, but there are other areas in Hawaii that ended up being much more appealing to us.
We adored the hotel itself & Hawaii is probably our very favorite destination. However, we are returning & are not going back to Oahu at all this time. It was our least favorite of the islands that we visited (although that’s like saying chocolate is my least favorite ice cream among chocolate, chocolate marshmallow, and chocolate peanut butter….can you really go wrong with 3 great choices?). The Hawaiian islands each have their own special and unique features. My favorite was Kauai and my husband’s was Maui. So we are going back to Kauai:)
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