Post #555321 by jokeiii on Wed, Sep 22, 2010 12:20 AM

Chiming in late-ish (hey, I'm the new kid, sue me) because I'm a bit surprised nobody's said it: I was inspired by the Polynesian Resort at Walt Disney World. Growing up in FL we had (have?) the 2nd largest concentration of tikiana (izzat a word?) although it sometimes competes and it sometimes morphs with the whole Caribbean/Key West thing.

But I remember being a little kid in early 1972 marveling at the Polynesian Village, as it was called back then, and the sheer overwhelming immersion of it all. All I could think was "Me want."

A couple of years later, as a special occasion, we visited the Mai-Kai for my dad's 40th birthday. Big group of us. I was at the kids' table, enjoying some sort of fruity-juice thing in a funky vessel when I look up and there is this...THING being presented to my dad, who was blushing furiously as some really pretty girl presented him with a drink. (Turns out the drink was meant to be shared, but nobody told my dad. Shortly afterwards he was up on stage doing what he thought was a passable version of the hula. Thank G-d nobody handed him the fireswords.)

Not that I've gotten very far with this in our fixer-upper house, but I will.