Tiki Talk » Resorts

Disney’s Hawaiian Resort, Aulani, opens website

Ken Kanaka — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:36:25 +0000

Disney has finally put up a website for the massive resort it’s building in Hawaii. Called Aulani, the 21-acre, family-focused hotel is located on the island of Ohau featuring “ocean views, glistening white sandy beaches, a pristine cove, lush tropical foliage, a water garden and salt-water lagoons perfect for swimming and snorkeling.” The site features conceptual renderings and construction photos & videos and will be updated throughout the resorts build.

Disney worked with the locals to learn about Hawaiian customs and history in order to integrate it with the resort: pathfinding symbols on the floor of the lobby point makai, “towards the ocean,” or mauka, “towards the mountain,” menehune are hidden throughout the resort for children to find.

The resort is scheduled to open in 2011 and will feature both regular room and Vacation Club villas (Disney’s timeshare program).

Visit the Aulani Resort and Spa website

Tiki resort architecture alive and well in Cayman Islands

Ken Kanaka — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:36:00 +0000

One of interesting things about the Polynesian Pop movement of the 20th Century is that it crossed over into many art forms: visual, dance, music, culinary, and architecture. Sadly, as the allure was lost on the general public, many of the buildings that adopted the look have been renovated into more pedestrian forms.

Fortunately, the style seems to be making at least a minor comeback in the Cayman Islands, were a new bar and watercraft rental facility, Tiki Beach, is being built in the style. Architect John Doak notes:

“With the name Tiki Beach, the project required an iconic roof feature, hence the steeply pitched shape rising high above the treetops, to announce its location – according to some sailing friends, it’s already becoming a navigational landmark.”

The facility is scheduled to open at the end of July on Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman.

Rred Tiki Beach makes a statement at CayCompass.com

Amazing bamboo architecture at Green School Bali

Ken Kanaka — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:34:51 +0000

The Green School in Bali, Indonesia has a unique, ultra-modern looking campus fabricated entirely out of bamboo. The pictures have to be seen to be believed; it’s like an eco-friendly mid-century modern dream.

Tours of the facility are available to travelers in Bali for a nominal charge and the Green School runs full summer programs educating kids about the environment during the summer months (if you feel comfortable sending your kid to the South Pacific for 18 days.

See more photos at the Unique Travel Destinations blog | Visit the Green School website | Mahalo, Escape Artist

New merchandise at Disney’s Polynesian Resort

Ken Kanaka — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:48:10 +0000

There’s a new line of souvenir merchandise available at Disney’s Polynesian Resort, located at Walt Disney World in Florida. The new graphic, pictured here on a t-shirt, features a lineup of tikis, including an at first glance hidden Mickey, Donald, and Stitch tikis. Besides shirts, the image is also available on magnets, mugs, magnets and other trinkets.

Merchandise can be ordered over the phone by calling (407) 363-6200.

Free hula lessons at Disney’s Polynesian Resort

Ken Kanaka — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:33:35 +0000

Learn to hula dance at Disney’s Polynesian Resort, where complimentary classes take place most days in the resort’s lobby.

Auntie Kaui, a hula dancer and instructor with 50 years experience, leads most of the classes offered Monday through Saturday at 3:45 p.m., and Saturday mornings from 10 a.m. until noon. Weekday classes are geared toward the younger set, with leis and grass skirts aplenty, while the Saturday morning lessons encourage guests of all ages to do the hula shake. And whether guests stay for five minutes or the full two-hour Saturday classes, they’ll learn a variety of chants and dances from such tropical locales as Hawaii, Tahiti and more.

Learn more about Disney’s Polynesian Resort

Disney to open resort on Ohau

Ken Kanaka — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:48:57 +0000

Late last week, Disney announced that it’s building a new resort hotel on the island of Ohau in Hawaii. How the company is going to handle this will be interesting — they’ve were one of the forces behind the polynesian-pop phenomena of the ’50s thanks to the Enchanted Tiki Room — yet all the press about the project emphases how culturally sensitive they’re trying to be, so there may not be any of Rolly Crump’s tiki gods hidden in the bushes (but then you never know.)

Looking closely at the rendering, it looks as if the early plans are to build an eloborately-themed, thatched main building with more normal-looking wings radiating out from either side, much like the Animal Kingdom Lodge at Walt Disney World in Orlando. In the pool area there appears to be some kind of erupting volcano, so there’s a little bit of kitch in the mix. Could a luau dinner show be part of the plans?

There’s probably more great details in that rendering waiting to be revealed, if the picture wasn’t the size of a postage stamp.

Read about Disney’s Resort at The Disney Blog | Discuss at Tiki Central

Live mermaid show at Ft. Lauderdale’s Wreck Bar

Ken Kanaka — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 11:38:41 +0000

The Wreck Bar in Ft. Lauderdale’s Yankee Clipper Hotel featured live mermaids as an attraction from 1956-1962, viewable in the swimming pool through large glass windows behind the bar (you may have seen it in the Billy Crystal/Robert De Niro comedy “Analyze This”).

Now for the first time in 44 years, Marina Duran-Anderson is once-again performing scheduled gigs as a Wreck Bar mermaid. Her YouTube video of a Wreck Bar performance is mesmerizing—one can only image the surprised look on bar patron’s faces as a beautiful mermaid glides past the window.

When not donning fins, Marina performs and teaches dance at multiple venues in south Florida and is available for hire for special events.

Sheratron Yankee Clipper Hotel, 1140 Seabreeze Blvd., Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Thursdays or Fridays at 5:15 pm • Call (954) 524-5551 for additional times and dates

Link

Daytona’s Aku Tiki Inn to meet wrecking ball

Ken Kanaka — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 18:23:39 +0000

It was announced this week that yet another beloved tiki-themed establishment is going to be demolished in the name of redevelopment.

Daytona Beach’s Best Western Aku Tiki Inn has been added to the list of hotels that are going to be demolished as part of a proposed 16-acre, 1,068 room redevelopment plan. According to the developer, plans are still in the preliminary stages and the demolitions are likely to begin in the north end of the project, which is away from the Aku Tiki, sparing it, at least, for now.

Link to Daytona Beach News Journal article

The origin of Disney’s Polynesian Resort logo

Ken Kanaka — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 14:27:39 +0000

As a graphic designer I’m always interested in where ideas for design come from. I like to think that a good designer understands their client’s dilemma and combines disparate ideas from the warehouse of visual images sucked up and stored in their brain over the course of their life to create a unique solution that solves the problem. But sometimes a single source will do.

In the early ’90s I spent every other weekend at WDW to try to shake off the pressures of my advertising job and ended up parking at the Polynesian Resort in order to avoid the long, hot tram ride from the Goofy parking lot to the Transportation and Ticket Center. That’s when I started to take a shine to Disney’s Polynesian Resort logo and especially to the little tiki character included in the system. The little guy showed up in just about every sign I passed in a variety of configurations: alone, stacked and inverted as a double, and even as a quad facing into each other. How can you not have a good time on vacation with the little guy smiling at you everywhere?

Which takes us back to question of inspiration. How did the anonymous designer come up with the idea for Mr. Smiling Tiki? After 35 years, I may have the answer.

The carving on the left is a decoration on the second floor of the hotel’s lobby, “The Great Ceremonial House.” It’s probably a reproduction of a spirit board from the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, bought for the resort from Oceanic Arts in California, who also carved the wayfinding signs for the Polynesian and provided props for Disneyland’s Adventureland years before. When placed side-by-side with the resort’s logo, it’s easy to see how the designer took the overall shape and pose from the carving’s character but made him “friendlier,” which maybe not so coincidentally seems to be Disney’s overriding ethic from their film plots to their theme park architecture: take the original source material and make it more accessible and enjoyable to the public.

Overall, Walt Disney World’s graphic design during the resort’s early years was exceptionally strong. In the research I’ve done on the company and the countless websites and magazines I’ve read, there’s little mention of their graphic designers, which is a shame. Anyone who can make the totally “out of the box” decision to use the then brand new Blippo Black, a thick, dark sans serif typeface to represent a south seas island-style resort (and pull it off) deserves recognition.

Maui Don the Beachcomber closing

Ken Kanaka — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:11:06 +0000

What is it with the rash of classic tiki bars meeting the wrecking ball lately? Last year we had the closing of Chicago’s Trader Vic’s (which will live again, fortunately) and now the word is that Don the Beachcomber at the Royal Lahaina in Maui is next.

The resort complex is going through a multi-year renovation that is going to flatten every building on the property except for the main tower.

Link to discussion on Tiki Central | Link to The Maui News story | Thanks thejp2000!