American Cruises Hawaii mugs

I heard something interesting about those American Cruise Hawaii mugs that were sold on ebay a while back. This story was on "The Fleecing of America". It had something to do with 2 Congressmen, one from Louisiana and one from Hawaii. They were able to pork barrel a large amount of money for a (or a couple) of cruise ship(s) to be built in Louisiana (if I remember correctly)which would cruise to Hawaii. The ships were built along with all the accoutrements, namely freaking ugly tiki mugs! But the Hawaii side of American Cruises went belly up (pork belly that is) and the ship(s) set idle. Subsequently, someone bought all the mugs and turned them on ebay or other places. I did buy 2: a hideous tiki and a volcano. I think their significance isn't associated with any tiki bar/restaurant but rather with their history. This is just one example on why the Federal Gov't should stay out of the tiki business.

[ Edited by: Tiki_Bong on 2002-06-10 08:51 ]

I bought a Tiki and volcano too.... nice to have a story about them to defend their spots in my collection! That volcano is pretty damn ugly! Worse than the Trader Vic's mug I have that I call the "fetus in a jar" mug....

:tiki:

"fetus in a jar" mug...
Ha! That is just too sick man!

Is that guy still selling those on ebay? If so, I may have to jump on there and pick one up for the hell of it.

Thanks for the info - I had always wondered why no one had ever heard of this cruise line.
:sheckymug:

they are all over hawaii too- I bought about 5 in the box- the tiki is pretty nice

I was given a really nice mug from the defunct cruise line for my birthday. It's a tall mug and one side is the front of a hula girl while the reverse features her back side. Both sides are in raised relief so one can see and feel all her curves(if one were into fondling mugs!). The words "American Hawaii Cruises" are stamped under the lovely lady.

[ Edited by: weirduncletiki on 2002-06-19 17:17 ]

Ha ha...I too bought one of those volcano mugs off eBay, 'Limited edition 00195'(!) Does that mean it was limited to the 10's of thousands? While of little real value, it's the only volcano mug I've got and serves well as an 'everyday use' mug.

Cool to hear the story of the American Hawaii Cruise line, as I was pretty mystified by the origin of all those weird unused mugs for sale.

Trader Woody

On 2002-06-03 11:35, Tiki_Bong wrote:
I heard something interesting about those American Cruise Hawaii mugs that were sold on ebay a while back. This story was on "The Fleecing of America". It had something to do with 2 Congressmen, one from Louisiana and one from Hawaii. They were able to pork barrel a large amount of money for a (or a couple) of cruise ship(s) to be built in Louisiana (if I remember correctly)which would cruise to Hawaii.
[end quote]

If I remember correctly, American Hawaii Cruises owned two ships, which were somewhat old (1930s-40s) and were used for some other purpose before they became cruise ships. One of them, the Independence, is now part of the Mothball Fleet near Benicia, CA. I don't know what happened to the other one.

My parents went to Hawaii with this cruise line last year, and they brought back two mugs from the ship. My brother got the volcano and I got the Humuhumu fish. A couple of weeks later American Hawaii Cruises went out of business.

--cindy

I was at the Long Beach swap-meet on sunday and a vender there was selling 5 of the mugs. The volcano, Huma fish, hula girl, tiki and a surfer on a wave. She was selling them for 25 bucks each. I thought the Huma fish was the best, and that volcano. . .