Post #137394 by ikitnrev on Tue, Jan 25, 2005 9:11 PM

Here are my pics from my short trip to Florida ..... there are very few pics of the Tiki Central people who attended, since Humuhumu did a great job with her pictures.

I flew in on Thursday afternoon, and I soon found myself at Disney's Polynesian Resort

I happened to find myself walking by the entrance to the luau show 10 minutes before the show started - felt it was destined for me to attend

A good show, but I was annoyed that I paid 15 bucks for a lousy drink, served in a carved coconut mug that was mine to keep - except that some damn tourist swiped it from the table when I was taking pictures of tikis after the show.

I wanted to visit the Bamboo Lounge, but it was closed that night, so I went to Wai-tiki instead - the big monkey mural upstairs is incredible (no picture yet)

Because I had never waken up to the sight of a giant orange, I stayed at a hotel with this view out the front door.

The next day (Friday) started with two rounds of golf at the Tiki Gardens Miniature golf course

That evening was the group outing to a great dinner and many rounds of drinks at Julians .... Here is fantastic Bre-elle, with the curved bar and the fantastic Julians mural behind her.

and a closeup of the mural

Back at the Hawaiian Inn, there are some great neon witco lights, which reminded me of a Dan Flavia neon light exhibit that I recently saw at the National Gallery of Art.

I really liked the Luau show at the Hawaiian Inn - it has a more homegrown feel than the overly slick Disney production, and they also offer 2 for 1 drinks during the second half of the show. If you consume the right combination of drinks, and sit next to the bubble machine, you will experience a quite dreamy and hallucogenic 'Tiny Bubbles' experience that even the Mai Kai and Disney couldn't match.

Thanks to Pablus and Rusty Nail for their ukulele music, and to all the others who bought ingredients for the great rum drinks, and provided the atmosphere for a great weekend.

I should have got HumuHumu to hold up this empty barrel, as it would then seem much more realistic by appearing to be twice as big. I think Pablus has one of these every Friday night.

And finally, one Route 1 motel sign that I passed on Saturday, which I encountered when I was hung over and missed the turnoff onto the barrier island.

Vern

[ Edited by: ikitnrev on 2005-01-25 21:14 ]