Yes, planning a trip to Hawaii is no small expense. Aulani's standard hotel rooms start at $400 per night, and although the stay comes with countless free amenities, depending on flights, it can be costly and take triple the time to get there than any other Disney excursion. It was a 10-hour airplane ride for us, and I can't tell you how many hours I spent nervously anticipating all the ways that journey could go wrong (and, in more than a few ways, it did). But once we touched down, our expenses were mostly reserved for food and the very occasional souvenir (hello, Aulani-exclusive Mickey ears with plumeria flowers!).
Plus, flights aside, our family of four would have spent far more for the same time away at Disney World, where the typical standard on-resort hotel room ranges from $250 to $500 and individual daily park entrance tickets are an average of $100 per person ($170, if you opt for park-hopper perks). For us, we saw ourselves saving upwards of $300 a day by opting to go to Aulani over Disney World. Over the course of a week? The savings just kept adding up.
