January 14, 2011 - 2011, The Year of Aulani

[Werner Weiss]

The official opening day of Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa in Ko Olina, is August 29 of this year. I walked around the construction site with my camera this week. I’m very impressed with what I saw.

Link to 2011, The Year of Aulani

Please discuss it here.

[mark]

I was blessed to be at the site right before Disney announced there plans. I took a few pretty good photos. You can see them here. Maybe, I'll get to return one day. Thanks for the update!

[Maus]

This most recent Aulani update caused me to go back and read all of your articles about my home DVC resort. Good stuff, keep it coming as I won't be able to return for a stay until next year.

In one of your older articles you mention that there is "only" 14,545 square feet of space in the conference center. As a meeting planner I know that this is actually quite enough space for a convention of 1000 people. The 3,500 sq ft outdoor patio will be quite popular for 300 guest wedding receptions and other dinners. Certainly not huge numbers, but quite a bit larger than your estimate of "undoubtedly small off-site corporate retreats, lawn weddings, and other social events." However, due to the nature of Hawaii conventions (not too many locals attend), combined with the fact that there are only 350 total hotel rooms available, conventions will likely be smaller, but it will still be possible to see several hundred "people running around with name tags."