Aloha Aulani

We’re working on a means of showing photos from a variety of rooms around the resort so you can get an idea of what the different room categories will get you in terms of view and/or interior.  If you know your room number and have photos that you would be willing to share, please let us know!  Thank you.  

Aulani has a total of 351 hotel rooms and 481 Disney Vacation Club (DVC) Villas split between two towers.  All rooms have balconies.

For all rooms, there are five possible view options:

• Standard: “a view of the conference center or parking lot. “ Really.  That’s it, although some of these really aren’t so bad as you can look over the conference center or parking lot and see the mountains. examples: 367, 533, 655
• Island Gardens: “at least a partial view of the mountains, spa, or landscaping.”  This means your view could consist entirely of a tree and they’ll say that’s what you paid for.  These rooms are all on the outside of the towers on the side opposite the pools.  The first few floors are views of trees, but as you get higher up, some of the views can be rather nice.  Mostly looking towards the mountains, but if you’re lucky, you actually end up with a partial ocean view or get placed over the lawn where they have the luau and you can watch for free.  Examples: 573, 879, 965
• Partial Ocean: “at least a partial view of the ocean.”  This means that as long as you can see a glimmer of the ocean between all the trees, buildings, etc, you have received what you paid for.  Some of these views are rather nice, others are practically guaranteed to disappoint.
• Poolside Gardens: “at least a partial view of the pool, courtyards, water features, or landscaping.”  These views are all on the interior of the towers, looking towards the pools.  Unfortunately the lower three floors will almost all consist of views of walkways and trees.  Upper floors generally have lovely views.
• Ocean:  Disney’s exact words from their site are “Includes at least a partial view of the ocean.”  Notice the “at least a partial.”  That’s right, you can pay a significant amount beyond the price of a standard view, and still not get the full ocean view of your dreams.  To be fair, some of these views are spectacular, but some are partially obstructed to the point where you can’t believe any reasonable person would call it an “ocean view” instead of a “partial ocean” view.  examples: 911, 1284

Room Categories are Resort Rooms (AKA Hotel rooms), Deluxe Studios, Villas (1, 2, and 3 bedroom), and Suites.  While I link to pictures of a few rooms, a far better resource is the disboards.  Many people have taken the time to upload their pictures and it’s quite an amazing resource.

There are 5 hotel rooms (here’s one of them) that are designated as DVC bookable hotel rooms.  All of them are contiguous to each other on the 5th floor, and they all face the parking lot.  The view from these rooms consists of trees.  You are higher than the parking structure so you really aren’t looking right at it.  These DVC rooms all have 2 queen beds, the King/Sleeper Sofa type is not available.  While these are bookable using DVC points, they are not villas, meaning they do not have a bar sink, microwave, or toaster.  All other DVC rooms are called “Villas” and for more points, have different view categories. 

To see the nitty-gritty differences between the contents of each room type, go to Aulani’s official room comparison page.