Tiki Central / Locating Tiki / Coco Palms Resort Hotel, Kauai, HI (Hotel)
Post #650931 by aquarj on Thu, Sep 6, 2012 12:42 AM
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aquarj
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Thu, Sep 6, 2012 12:42 AM
We got a chance to visit the Coco Palms in June, so I have a ton of photos to post. There'll be some unavoidable repeats from the great pictures posted earlier, but hopefully some new views. Also, some things have clearly changed since Primo Kimo's visit in 2008. Our visit started thanks to this thread, in fact the preceding post from 4WDtiki with the info about Larry Rivera. My parents went to Kauai for their 10th anniversary in 1972, and stayed at the Coco Palms. So this year the family gathered in Kauai for my parents' 50th anniversary, 40 years later. I wanted to see if it'd be possible to arrange an official visit. After contacting Larry Rivera (a living legend who's definitely worth another story), I learned that a guy named Bob Jasper conducts tours of the Coco Palms for a decent fee. We decided to take the whole family to that, and I have to say it was really outstanding. Naturally we couldn't explore on our own, but it was 2+ hours of pretty thorough walking around and tons of great stories about the land, the Guslanders, and a wealth of movie trivia. Here's a first batch of pics... The view just inside the gates, looking toward the lagoon. That's one of the King's Cottages (thatching long gone), and in fact it is THEE cottage where they filmed scenes with Elvis' character Chad Gates in Blue Hawaii. :down: Same little maintenance shack in the foreground :down: Looking back from the cottage :down: A little more of the lagoon :down: .jpg) Looking down along the lagoon, and the first glimpse of the great A-frame with the giant conch shell over the dining room and cocktail terrace :down: Now we're inside the cottage that had scenes in Blue Hawaii. This is the door that Elvis sends the girls out to hide. (Stay tuned for a later post with some movie screenshots for comparison) :down: Funny kind of lava rock bath / basin thing in the back of the cottage :down: Inside the cottage again, looking toward the front door :down: Inside another cottage :down: Inside Elvis' favorite cottage. This is the one that he always stayed in when he visited the Coco Palms. By an unbelievable coincidence, Elvis happened to be there when we visited. :down: The (former) bathroom sink in the Elvis cottage. The giant shell sink has been poached, along with many of the little gold tiles. :down: The sink area in another cottage - more gold tiles. :down: That's Bob the tour guide, and his gaze is roughly directed at two famous coconut palms. As Bob told us, there's considerable history in the coconut grove, both old and very recent. These two palms (the curved trunk next to the straight trunk) starred in the Pirates of the Caribbean Stranger Tides flick, in a scene where Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush are tied at their bases. :down: Telling the story of Kamalani (more on that later) :down: Storage shed :down: Inside the storage shed, this had been a poolside piano :down: Inside the chapel, which also starred in many movies, notably Miss Sadie Thompson :down: Another glimpse of the dining area A-frame :down: Looking through the overgrown area, across the lagoon, toward the dining area. Also you can see the toppling lobby roofline in the background. :down: Looking back after crossing the first small bridge on the path to the dining area :down: A couple views up the lagoon :down: .jpg) And the other way :down: Now straight ahead, toward that fantastic A-frame! :down: .jpg) Again looking along the lagoon. And supposedly that is THEE outrigger that appeared in many movies, like the Blue Hawaii wedding scene. Here's a story about the restoration of the outrigger. :down: Kamalani. This is the name of the boat, and the name of a song created by Larry Rivera for Grace Guslander, telling the legend of a frog (read about it here). :down: Lots more coming up. -Randy |