New Mai-Kai Website

Aloha!

First off...sorry I have not been around or able to report more on this project, it was a bit all consuming and they wanted the "cat in the bag" until they had the opportunity to have a media event to maximize the marketing impact and make an impression on the local press. We are still working out little bugs and tweaking some things. I would like to share more about the "making of" but I have to get some sleep. The last few weeks have been insane preparing for the Press Party and finishing the site. It was a great party and I think the Mai-Kai will get some good press from it.
Here is the Wahine at the portrait station.

Each member of the press had one taken and we printed them on-site, put them in nice frames and Pia handed them out with their "Goodie bags".

Here is Pia presenting the website

Great to see TikiKiliki and Hurricane Hayward!

I am very proud of my team at go11media, they went above and beyond on this one, but they knew it was special to me.

More to come, Check It out!

http://www.maikai.com

[ Edited by: Bohemiann 2009-04-09 06:48 ]

Congrats! LONG LIVE THE MAI KAI !

I usually am not a fan of fish eye lenses, but having tried to photograph the Mai Kai's interiors (and not having the means to light the whole damn' place) myself, it seems like a good solution to represent the layers AND the space. It works well to draw you in!

I bet some Tikiphiles are gonna find the COCKTAIL aspect underrepresented, but that's probably part of "More to come", right?

This site really succeeds in making the Mai Kai into a DESTINATION restaurant worth traveling to!

The Molokai lounge needs to have it's own Micro-site within the website, this, and emphasis on the libation selection is certainly in the next build, We would also like to add a History section and an image gallery. We have some kinks to work out on the music player on some browsers.
If anyone notices any bugs feel free to PM me, I appreciate constructive input.

Wow! Looks great. Finally a website that can live up to the majesty of the Mai Kai.

I agree the drink section needs more work, but I get the impression that's coming...

Looks amazing. I always wondered why they didn't have a website as cool as this in the first place. Not only is it a great image campaign, it gives a whole new level of sophistication. Not that the Mai Kai needed that, but to the unexperienced this is a really great sell.

I already started emailing the link to my friends who've never been there.

WOW is right ! HOLY MOLEY that place looks like city block of heart attack!
Really great site too! it sold me on the place thats for sure...
gotta go there !

The site looks great. The ability to buy stuff from the gift shop would be a cool addition too.

On 2009-04-09 10:37, Mongoloid wrote:
The site looks great. The ability to buy stuff from the gift shop would be a cool addition too.

Soon..... very soon.

The videos were a lot of fun! We played name-that-person through both of them, I think Marina the Mermaid had the top count..... It was fun seeing Loki sans the serious handlebar mustache!

The drink section is my only complaint. You can't even read it because its so small. I like the way you can flip through the pages though.

Great job to everyone involved!!!!!!!!

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

The drink section/menu will be re-done I PROMISE! It has to wait for the second build as does the Molokai Lounge page and several other additions.

Patience Grasshoppers!

whats up with the interior of tiki bars not photographing well? i'm sure it must have been awesome though. thanks for the pics c and a!

Bill,

It was quite the party. The site looks great and I know personally all you and your team has put into it. I thank you for working so hard - the Mai-Kai has needed this for quite some time. It comes at such a great time with the renos and such.

It was great to spend some time with you and with everyone last week while in Lauderdale. Most of all it was great to be a part of the new beginning at the Mai-Kai!!

Site looks awesome!:) Love the music...another reason for me to visit FL.!

[ Edited by: Deckhand_Davy 2009-04-10 17:56 ]

You really did it justice! Pia has asked me from our first meeting if I could redo their site. 6 years later you did it for her! Great job! You have brought the Mai Kai's web presence into the present. It shines.

The new website is having an impact already! The following is from the Sun-Sentinel newspaper. It sounds like there is a lot more new besides the website.

*We visited the newly refurbished Mai Kai last night and I'm happy to report it's once again alive and swaying to the Polynesian drums. After suffering terribly from Hurricane Wilma, this island paradise is back in all its glory.

New bridges into the parking lot; new thatch on the portcochere (6500 palm fronds), in the Molakai lounge and entrance way; redone bamboo on walls, 600 new chairs and stools, replaced doors, new wood on the front of the building distressed to look island-old, a new web site, new light fixtures, new landscaping and more has turned was was a tired tourist spot into a place the locals will want to visit once again. *

Uggggh!

I get no respect. lol!

Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

Apache/2.0.63 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.0.63 OpenSSL/0.9.8b DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_python/3.3.1 Python/2.4.3 Server at http://www.maikai.com Port 80

p.s. I'm guessing it's being hit on more that they expected??

p.s.s.

well.... it IS "Mecca'!!!"

go figure...

Yeah, it has been cranking....we are checking with host provider to keep that from happening again, they are supposed to warn us first. It has exceeded hit expectations by a very large amount....VERY!

It's back up BTW.

KreepyTiki had the idea and request that I post some screen shots and some of the images we shot for the website.

As I may have mentioned before, the front page may look familiar to some as the same concept was used for the Hukilau 2005 website. I believe it was Dave Levy and TikiKiliki that came up with the idea to base that years site on a picture that is hanging up in the Mai-kai's back office. Seth, from Troika Studios, then created the Hukilau site around that image. We were asked by Dave to do the same with the new MK sites homepage. I went down and took some pictures of the painting and the go11 graphics team went at it.

I will post some more pictures and tell you some more details about the site and what is planned for future expansions over the next few days. I am trying to get caught up at work.

[ Edited by: Bohemiann 2009-04-12 05:51 ]

[ Edited by: bohemiann 2009-04-13 08:11 ]

Bill, WOW! :o I'm a little late to the party, but just got a look at the new website. I couldn't imagine it being done any better. It really captures what we love about the place. It's like a dream come true to watch the Mai-Kai go from threat of extinction to being restored back to its former glory. And the website does it all justice. Kudos to all involved!!

Suggestion: If the gift shop is going online at some point, they should really sell a "Songs of the Mai-Kai" CD or "Evening at the Mai-Kai" video in the shop and online as a souvenir for guests to take home. Once it's produced, it seems like easy money. And bring back the desk calendars!!!

Looks tight.
Works decently if a little clunky currently from the hits I guess.

Where's Louise?

The history section will seal the deal.

Nice job.

Before, I just wanted to go to Fort Lauderdale to party like Elvis in "Girl Happy", but now I just want to hang at the Mai-Kai! Now if you could only arrange Elvis to play there...

The website looks great, I'll have to slide in there for happy hour after work next week, maybe check out the buffet on Wednesday.

Our latest analytics has shown about a thousand hits a day for the past three days, we increased it's available bandwidth and sized down the music player as it was sucking it up. Clunky? Clunky! Watchu talkin' bout clunky? :wink:

Your just sore cuz Monica backed out and I did not visit you at the Uke fest! Love ya Man!

The ukefest was fun. Good thing I brought Rum Barrels or there would have been absolutely nothing to drink there. Water? Bleagh!

Anyway - the site is sweet, man.
The "clunky" is only the bandwidth issues which are temporary.

It makes me want to go there and that's what a website is supposed to do.

Of course, almost everything makes me want to go there so maybe the site isn't so great after all. :wink:

Looks awesome. I'm stoked, man... I know it's been an uphill battle and I give props to everybody in the Mai Kai family. So happy...

On 2009-04-19 17:49, Basement Kahuna wrote:
Looks awesome. I'm stoked, man... I know it's been an uphill battle and I give props to everybody in the Mai Kai family. So happy...

Basement who?

On 2009-04-09 19:02, Jeff Central wrote:
The drink section is my only complaint. You can't even read it because its so small. I like the way you can flip through the pages though.

I registered so I could post that I love everything about the new website, but the drink and food menus are hard to read.

The Mai Kai website is really nice now, it is really nice but the website is too heavy to load with my browser. It's loaded with a bit of flash movie files so I've got a little delay on loading it to my browser. Anyway, I really love the website, it was perfectly designed.

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