Disneyland's Tahitian Terrace to re-open for one night, Oct. 13, 2012

There is just over a week left to purchase tickets to "An Evening at the Tahitian Terrace" dinner event at Disneyland on Oct. 13, 2012. The event is open to anyone who would like to attend, so if you're thinking about joining us, now is the time to sign up, as ticket sales close on Oct. 3.

Disneyland is working hard with us to recreate the look and feel of the original Tahitian Terrace inside of Aladdin's Oasis in Adventureland, which was the original location of the Tahitian Terrace. Disneyland is also re-creating a Polynesian show that will duplicate the original dinner show as closely as possible, complete with dancers, musicians, and special surprises. The exquisite buffet dinner will include menu items specifically selected from three different menus from the Tahitian Terrace's history, and you'll get to take home your replica menu as a souvenir.

After dinner, tiki/Disney artists Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily will be hosting a conversation with WED Imagineer Rolly Crump, who worked directly with Walt Disney and was responsible for designing many elements of Adventureland and Disneyland park, including all of the tikis in the Tiki Garden outside of the Enchanted Tiki Room, and portions of the Haunted Mansion. Your ticket will also include a frameable letterpress print to take home as a memento of the evening, featuring a Rolly Crump concept design of one of the Disneyland tikis that he created.

Tickets are $259, and are available at http://www.mousetalgiastore.com . Park admission is required and not included, though attendees can purchase twilight tickets from us for admission after 4:00 pm for a reduced price. After well over a year of planning and negotiating, we're excited to present this evening to anyone who wishes to re-live the Tahitian Terrace experience, or enjoy it for the first time. Hope to see some of you there!

For those who may be interested, here is the menu for the evening's buffet dinner:

La’ko Lau
Chicken Salad
Sliced Oranges, Shredded Coconut
Grilled Pineapple & Almonds

Mizuna & Frisee Salad
Toasted Macadamia Nuts
Tahitian Vanilla Lime Vinaigrette

Shredded Green Papaya Salad
Coconut Ginger Dressing

Palai Moa Niu Wai-u
Fried Chicken with Coconut Sauce

Ko’aia Haia Kahiki
Pork Baby Back Ribs
Pineapple Barbecue Sauce

Haunaele Teriyaki l’o Koa
New York Sirloin
Teriyaki Sauce

Kuini O Na Kai Ehiku
Grilled Mahi Mahi
Sweet & Sour Sauce

Polynesian Vegetables
Cantonese Rice

Deserts

Okolehao Mea Ono
Rum Cake

Chef’s Selection of Polynesian Inspired Desserts

And, of course... Tahitian Terrace Punch!

Aloha!

Uh... Yeah... We've known about this for over a month.

The "Search" function works well on this forum.

My apologies. I don't frequent this forum, and today a Tiki Central user recommended that I post my event here. No one from my team is registered with Tiki Central, so I thought I'd better jump on it, and it didn't occur to me that maybe someone had done the dirty work for us. As the owner of a forum myself, I appreciate my error and apologize for the repeat post.

whoa. chefmayhem!

i can vouch! a heavy hitter indeed!

knowing you're involved in this event just knocked it up several notches!

welcome to tiki-land, spooky lord of New Orleans Square!

jordan

Thanks, Jordan. I hope we do the original Tahitian Terrace justice - though since we have Disneyland's full support, I expect it's going to be a home run.

Chef, has there ever been any discussion that you were privy to about just straight up re-opening the tahitian terrace on a perment basis?

For the life of me, I don't know why they ever got rid of it. The food and atmoshpere were great (best in the whole park) and this was the attraction I most looked forward to. Aladin just lies fallow....

any insights?

On 2012-09-21 20:24, Brudda Bear wrote:

Uh... Yeah... We've known about this for over a month.

The "Search" function works well on this forum.

and this is one of the reasons I don't come back to TC much anymore.... nice to see that somethings never change....

On 2012-09-22 12:56, lucas vigor wrote:
Chef, has there ever been any discussion that you were privy to about just straight up re-opening the tahitian terrace on a perment basis?

For the life of me, I don't know why they ever got rid of it. The food and atmoshpere were great (best in the whole park) and this was the attraction I most looked forward to. Aladin just lies fallow....

any insights?

I don't have any official insights, but I have heard that re-opening the Terrace for an event like ours has been attempted before, including internally by Disney itself for a possible Annual Passholder event. But it has proven prohibitive because the per person cost of paying for 10-to-12 performers to host a one-off dinner show when the venue only holds 100-120 attendees max is just too high for Disney to justify on its own - there'd be an uproar. But they'll let private parties pay however much it costs, of course, so we have a sponsor that helped us pay part of the cost, and went as low as we could. It's a total money losing venture for us, and for Disney to do it themselves, it would have to be a money earner. But our purpose isn't to make money, it's to celebrate what was.

Having said all that - I can't imagine that using the venue as the Tahitian Terrace permanently again would be anything but a success, but when they closed it, the reason must have been financial - i.e., it just must not drawn enough patrons. Times are different now, and today's dining costs and entertainment expectations might make the idea of the Terrace re-opening more palatable, but the infrastructure has been taken apart and would be costly to restore (i.e., the banyan tree and waterfall curtain.) I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Disney to reopen the Terrace as it existed before. But as a tropical-themed venue? Who knows? And there are a lot of Tahitian Terrace champions in Imagineering. I've learned to never say never.

Chef, thank you for your post. The menu looks great and I'm sure the event will be a huge success. I can't wait to see the pictures and the video.

Does anyone who went to this event have photos to share? Pretty Please!

Aloha,
I only took cell phone pics, which in the low light didn't come out great. But here are some to look at anyhow.

http://bit.ly/QqaseU

I have seen some professional level photos on Facebook from Carrie Vines Photography. Hopefully she will post more.

Rolly Crump interview with Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily at "An Evening at the Tahitian Terrace."

YouTube: An Evening at the Tahitian Terrace