FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Welcome Home!

With DVC member celebrations only happening on Mondays. I had to go just this once to see what it was all about. The even started at 8am with registration from 0745am. Pre-registration prior to the event was also required. If I had known that family members were able to come along, I would have dragged the children! There was a simple breakfast provided. The morning consisted of a few games and a series of presentations which outlined existing properties, upcoming features across the Disney family as well as incentives for DVC add ons. It was very American, a little corny, very over the top but a lot of fun! I left with a free DVC cap :)

The registration line at 7:50am. It moved pretty quickly

Tables inside set out with leis for members

Breakfast goodies provided, along with teas, coffee and juices

Ballroom set up for games and presentations

The free gift!

The family had a few logistical items to get through in the first half of the day. A certain member of the family who had been gallivanting around Las Vegas with his high school buddies had to be picked up from the airport. However, prior to that, we had a room change to manoeuvre. We were moving from 2 studios to a 2 bedroom villa. Thankfully, Disney made the move extremely easy. They made sure our new villa was ready as a priority. By the time we called bell services for the move at 11am, we had a new room number. Bell services moved our luggage as well as our groceries and fridge items. They had special crates for food items and even pack and unpacked them for us! It was so stress free! The hardest thing was ensuring the children packed properly...

Living with 2 sofa beds

Kitchen/dining area

The King bedroom

Our new view. You can just see the ocean. We'll take it!

After we resettled into our new abode, it was time to pick up the last remaining Albany from the airport. Fortunately, the trip to the airport was without incident. We had arranged to meet at Thrifty so Malcolm could be added on as a second driver. We later found out that his plane was stuck sitting on the tarmac because they could not park at the designated gate on account of the plane already at the gate being delayed for take off...45 minutes later we were finally reunited and once again headed back toward Aulani. This time, the drive was without navigational drama!

Everyone was starving by this time and so we braved Hungry Mama's Snack Stop. It wasn't cheap at USD15/16 each but we tried three out of the four mains on the menu, fish and chips, ono sandwich (fish burger), and crumbed prawns. The food was reasonable. What we were really hanging out for though was the Mickey Ears shaped shave ice. As we watched kid after kid walk around eating them, we could resist no longer! Shaved ice, with syrup and condensed milk never tasted so good...(they'd want to at USD 5 + USD1 for mickey years!) You can choose your flavours with the price varying depending the number of flavours chosen.

One of the pool side dining option

Lunch

Mickey Ears shave ice

Yay Malcolm is finally here!

We spent our afternoon by the beach. Choice of dinner was unanimous, something not deep fried. And so we drove to Aloha salads which was conveniently close to Costco so Malcolm could have his fix too!