Post #395706 by Tiki Rob on Tue, Jul 22, 2008 1:04 AM

Hey all you 'rabid' Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room Fountain coveters and collectors alike! I was lucky to land one of these Enchanted Tiki Room (dream?) Fountains for a "reasonable" price. I've seen them go on eBay from $400.00 to $555.00 (not including shipping)! You would think those gouged prices would be enough to make the Great Tree god "Tangaroa" uproot himself in disgust. :evil:

Kudos and "Tiki-on"(!) for the fortunate few who either purchased at the Park back in June, or like me, found himself an acceptable deal. For all you fans that have not purchased one (yet) at these inflated prices, let me share my experience with the quality of this semi-remarkable piece.

These fountains were manufactured in China ("Disney China"), and they are not without their flaws. Like most of Disney imports, they come well packed in molded Styrofoam. No doubt they were 'assembly-lined' produced, nicely formed pieces and hand painted. Though I assume there were certain guidelines for the factory assemblers, it appears that the final molded (resin) product parts must not have been inspected for (consumer) re-assembly. Notably, the poles or columns that are anchored to the peaked grass roof and the fountain's basin were found to be less than uniformly vertical. They tilt or lean (slightly) off center. There is a flange-locking system that locks the roof & pole assembly to the basin below with a clockwise twist. Though this assembly fits into the basin, a manufacture flaw in the flange prevents it from turning freely and locking into place. It should twist-lock completely so the "view" of Jose's perch can be freely seen between the two rows of columns. Because of this flaw, one of the (4) columns ends up blocking your full frontal view of the famous 'master of ceremonies', and the finished assembly is not squared on. Despite the "can I live with this...?", it still looks rather good.

The Fountain runs on three 'AA' batteries. The LED colored lights, pink 8), yellow :), & green :D, are fantastic.... BUT the water pump feature may give you the blues :( . The water velocity emanating from the four tiny jets quickly declines in very little time of battery use. Seems like they may have not thought-it-through with the battery power ratio and pump requirements. With new batteries, the fountain jets begin to decline after 20 minutes (ugh)! This makes the water function more of a novelty than a real (happy) functioning fountain. In my opinion, incorporating a AC power transformer would of been the way to go for this piece, unfortunately, this was not thought through.

Despite these few 'flaws' it is still quite the eye-catching collectable! I just thought to post my personal experience with this piece in reference to its "realistic" monetary value. Of course this is relative. We tiki-philes decide what it may be worth. Personally, I do think its original price of $150.00 (under the circumstances) is about right. It is not a "high quality" piece to blindly throw money at. I know of no other posts nor collector/owners that have mentioned the few flaws that I have encountered. I have already asked the Great Tangaroa Tree god for his opinion, but he just seems to talk in circles for some reason! Hmmmm..."see-speak-hear no evil". :wink:

Happy collecting all you Tiki-philes! TIKI ON! :tiki:

-Tiki Rob

(photos of my home fountain display with 2nd edition of Enchanted Tiki Room Figures)