Ulu Café — Restaurant in Oʻahu

The prepared food is excellent here! Definitely try the Poke bowls, the (whole) pizza and the ever iconic Dole Whip. My only issue with Ulu Cafe keeping from 5-Stars is the function. Structurally, you walk in with the wall menu on your left and straight ahead of you is ropes leading you to what looks like an ordering counter. I assumed that anything you see on the menu you would order it there at that counter. However, that counter is only for things like Poke bowls which can be seen on the small signs above their counter...that is until they took them down? So if you don't want Poke you walk in and turn right to go the cash registers to order your food. They take both room keys (tied to you credit card number with a pin) or a credit card. If you want the prepared food like the pizza, flat breads, dole whip or chicken fingers you order it at the registers. But pickup isn't inside at all and the instructions,"wait outside and they will call your name when it is ready" was so vague we weren't sure where to stand. Eventually after standing on the patio long enough a cast member came out with our food from a completely different area and called our name.

Now, am I nitpicking? Probably. We both received the food and enjoyed it; chicken fingers and pizza are both DYNAMITE. However, getting food from here is just weirdly unintuitive. Also seating is not phenomenal on the patio so many people waited for food on the landscaping wall or standing looking around with similar questions. I even asked someone that had been there awhile if he knew where the food was coming from and he also didn't know since it was his first time there. If you get Ulu it will likely be to-go. I still absolutely recommend the food here I just wish there was either better checkout flow or a sign near where the cast member walks up from that says "Food Pickup Here" to eliminate some guessing and confused...

Ulu is disappointing on so many levels. I love a good Disney counter service meal, unfortunately, Ulu isn't good. One of my favorites is Mara (inside Animal Kingdom Lodge). It's a good comparison because Mara shows how Disney typically molds its dining options around a particular theme. In Mara's case it's African themed. Yes, they offer the normal fare of chicken strips, sandwiches, hamburgers, and pizza. However, they also offer more unique options such as African themed (aka spiced) soups, sandwiches, flatbreads, roasted chicken dinner or alternating hot meal, etc. Not at Ulu. Ul7 has chicken fingers and fries (for a whopping $18.99 btw), poke bowls, flatbreads (burned 4 of 4 before we gave up), an alternating daily sandwich and an alternating daily hot meal. Not only are these options so few, they never tasted good either. The cooler has ready-made wraps and salads but that's little consolation. To top it off, the Caesar salad and cupcakes are almost never stocked (it can be quite a wait for them to get more). Still, the WORST part is the lack of organization. I understand the location is smaller than a restaurant such as Mara but it's confusing, not well noted or explained how it works, and it's poorly executed. Considering Disney's experience with these types of dining options, it's a shame they can't do better. And, considering the prices you pay in Hawaii, it's a shame that don't try harder to at least pretend like they're providing good food to high-paying customers. Then again, when there are only 4 restaurant options and 2 of them are $70 and $125 PER PERSON leaving only poolside dining (off the hook) or Ulu (counter service), they don't care because they know they've got you...

The Ulu Cafe is definitely convenient and is open all day which is great. We ordered plenty of food here throughout our stay and all of the food was very good. The only reason it doesn't get 5 stars is because of how it operates. Some food items are grab and go, others you walk up and they prepare it right there, and others you order at the register and wait. The ordering and waiting was always quite long and there was frequent confusion about where they were going to bring the food out to you. Since some food you have immediately and other things require a wait, we often had situations where someone was already done with their food and someone else in our party was still waiting for their food. The simplest solution seems to be to enable mobile ordering which they do have for one other restaurant at the resort. Ordering ahead would eliminate this hassle and make the experience all around more streamlined.

As a side note, if you're looking for refillable mugs and/or popcorn buckets, this is where...