Best Place to Stay in Oahu for Families -

Our family of 6 got the opportunity to travel to Hawaii for 2 and a half weeks in September. This was the longest trip we’ve gone on as a family and we were so excited to spend extended soaking up some of the most beautiful views on earth. Our kids were almost 3, 8, 11, and 12 when we went and at such fun ages for traveling.

We spent the first 8 nights in Oahu in a luxurious 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom condo. We loved everything about the condo- views were great, everything was updated and nicely furnished, plenty of space for our family, the pool and resort was beautiful and never too busy, and the condo was stocked with so many extras! The only thing we didn’t love was the parking situation because it was a weird garage that wound around and took a long time to get to our designated parking spot. This was a very small thing and we ended up walking most everywhere so it wasn’t a big deal.

This was the view from the cove in front of Disney’s Aulani which was next door to our resort

My husband and I spent a lot of time researching the best place for our family to stay for this trip. Since we were going to be traveling for several weeks, we wanted to have plenty of space, wanted good views, and nice pools. We chose to stay at the Beach Villas at Ko Olina and can’t say enough good things about it! It was even better than the pictures! Here’s the link https://t.vrbo.io/p221WJqJ5vb to our exact unit but it looks like there are a lot of great ones.

One of the things that sold us on this unit was that there was a great living room with gourmet kitchen that had these huge sliding doors that opened all the way up to a large lanai making a great indoor/outdoor area. Our unit overlooked the ocean and Disney’s Aulani’s resort. We could hear their luau’s several nights while sitting out on the lanai. We spent a lot of time playing games, reading, eating, and the kids doing school out here.

Disneys Aluani and the Four Seasons can be seen here. The bigger one is Aluani.

We spent a lot of time playing games on the balcony

The water was crystal clear and so beautiful

This was the lagoon for our resort. It was rarely busy. Most mornings we had the whole cove to ourselves for the first several hours. It was a great place for the kids to learn to snorkel. We saw lots of beautiful fish and several sea turtles!

These coves gave us a very protected swimming area.

There’s 4 coves/lagoons right in a row. We looked at Aluani, and the Marriott before eventually deciding the condo was a better choice for our family. In my research, I found a lot of people comparing the Marriott to Disneys Aluani but I never saw anyone mention our condos. My husband just randomly found it while searching VRBO. I’ll include several pictures below of both Marriott’s Ko Olin’s Beach Resort and Disney’s Aluani.
We were happy with our choice, although I will say we did have a moment of regret when walking through Aluani the first morning. It is a BEAUTIFUL property with some impressive pools! We did not think Disney’s website showcased just how many pools there are and how fun they looked! With that said, we had MUCH more room in our condo for the same price as a 1 bedroom condo at Aluani was going to cost us. Also, Alunani’s pools and beaches looked crowded when we went back later in the day making them less appealing to us.

The pools at our resort were beautiful and never very crowded during our 8 day stay.

The pool area wound around with several different entry areas and these neat leaf chairs that were on ledges. There was a sandy/rocky bottom entry and pool area and 2 hot tubs. There was a second pool area for lap swimming I believe. We never swam in that area (might have been adults only).

We bought these refillable mugs at Alunai and walked over there for our coffee every morning.

There was a wide sidewalk that connected the 4 resorts in Ko Olina. You can see the trail lit up here (picture taken from our lanai). We went for walks every morning along this trail and ended up walking most every where we went during our stay. There is a shopping area and restaurants that we walked to at least once daily. We took this path and then there was a sidewalk between Aulani and the Four Seasons that led to shopping and restaurants. There was a little market, 2 coffee shops (a local one and a Starbucks), Monkey Pod (our favorite place we ate in Oahu), and an ice cream place next door along with several boutiques.

These pork tacos from Monkey Pod were my favorite! Kids loved the burgers and truffle fries and my husband loved it all! They even give free noodles topped with Parmesan cheese to toddlers! My son has a peanut/tree nut allergy and there were very helpful with accommodating that.

This sidewalk that went along the beach connected all of the resorts to each other.

When did a character breakfast one morning which is the only way to actually see Disney characters at Alunani from what we could tell.

This is the Reef Pool at Aluani. You can snorkel in here!

This infinity pool at Aluani had the best view!

One day we were swimming at the beach in front of our condo. It was so empty so I decided to walk next door to Disney’s Aluani’s beach to see if it was crowded. It was honestly crazy to me how much more crowded their beach was. Here’s a comparison taken at the same time.

This was the Four Seasons/Alain’s beach. Their lagoon was definitely bigger but also WAY more crowded.

If lots of people and crowds don’t bother you, then Aluani might be a great fit for your family as the pools were really cool and overall the resort felt nice, it just seemed to get pretty busy throughout the day.

This was the Four Seasons area. Still plenty of empty chairs.

This was a different time of day (earlier in the day) but this is the Marriott’s lagoon and beach.

We didn’t go to the Marriott as often as we did Aluani, but it did seem considerably less busy when we did go there. There were several different pools (a sport pool, pool with a slide, as well as at least one other that we saw). You need a wrist band to swim. We did eat at a beachside restaurant at the Marriott and would NOT recommend it. The waitress was so sweet but the food was terrible. We got several different things and they were all awful.

This grassy area by our lagoon was fun for the kids to play football on and run around.

Our condo was stocked with so many extras! This stroller was in there and made our lives easier since we walked so much. There were beach chairs, and beach wagon, snorkeling gear, sand toys, pool floats, etc. There was even a fan which I loved since I’m used to sleeping with one at home. It really had everything you could want!

We had the best time in Oahu and were so glad we chose to stay at the Ko Olina Beach Resort. There is so much you can see and do while in Oahu but our family mainly stayed in the Ko Olina area and loved that area. It all felt very high end, was walkable, beautiful, not too busy. It was everything our family was looking for. I’m the “we need to see it all” type of person on vacations, but my husband is not. He wants a nice resort and lots of time to relax. We would wake up early because of the time difference and go for a walk. We’d get our coffee and the kids would do school and eat breakfast. We’d then go to the beach and then the pool for a few hours. We’d go back to our condo and eat lunch (we had groceries from Costco delivered by instacart) or go out to lunch. Many times we would eat a late lunch/dinner and then we were ready for bed early because we were getting up so early.

Jon took the older 2 boys to golf at Kohl’s Olina Golf Club one afternoon

We did explore the island a bit but we ended up in so much traffic or not being able to find a parking spot, that it wasn’t the best experience for us.

We did Pearl Harbor 1 day. You have to go online and get tickets ahead of time for the USS Arizona Memorial. If there aren’t any tickets available, check right at 3pm Hawaii time as they release more tickets for the next day at that time. You have to pay $1 for the ticket and you have to be logged into the account to check out. We were pretty easily able to get tickets the day before.

We had watched some things about Pearl Harbor and the kids had been excited to go. With that said, it’s a pretty somber experience and they enjoyed the tour of the submarine a lot more. We were able to walk up and get tickets for the Bowfin submarine. There wasn’t time to tour the battleship but I think my kids would have enjoyed that if we had more time.

We drove over to Lanikai Beach after going to church nearby. I had been there 13 years ago with my dad and sister and remembered it as my favorite beach. Unfortunately, there was ZERO parking. My husband dropped us off and drove for 2 miles in every direction and could not find a single parking spot. The beach and water was also very crowded compared to the beach at our condo. We were only here for 15-20 minutes and then my husband picked us back up since he never did find a place to park. If it would not have been busy, it would have been beautiful!

We also tried to go to Waikiki on the morning we were flying out to Maui. We only had an hour to be there and unfortunately also found it too busy to get out and do anything. I wanted my husband to see that area since that’s where I stayed with my family 13 years ago. I think he’d like all the things that you can walk to do, but it is definitely not as relaxing as the area we stayed in Ko Olina.

If we went back, I’d love to see Turtle Bay and the Jurassic Park area but honestly the time in Ko Olina was so relaxing and a nice pace for our family so I don’t feel like we missed out.

Let me know if there’s anything else you want to know about our trip to Oahu!