Tikis at Sea World San Diego?

Hello, I just discovered this wonderful website a few days ago.
I worked at SeaWorld San Diego's Japanese village from 1986 to 1991.
The A-Frame entrance was definitely there in 1986, that was still the main entrance then.
Shamu also still lived and performed at the current Dolphin Stadium (stadium on the northeast side of the park)
A year after I started (sometime around 1987) SeaWorld constructed the new main entrance (where is it now currently).
They also tore down the A-frame old entrance and started construction on the now current Shamu Stadium.
Summer 1988 the new Shamu Stadium opened. I remember it vividly because SeaWorld had a big Employee’s party in the spring to celebrate the opening of the new section of the park. It was during this party that they transported Shamu from the old stadium to the new Shamu stadium with a big crane and sling. HBJ also hired the Goodyear blimp for the party and it circled the park that evening.
During my time working there, the Underwater Theater Building was closed and boarded up.
The Sparkletts water show however was still open and in use. I had a co-worker who controlled the Sparkletts display during the evening shows. I sat in on a couple of the shows. By then, the music, lights, water jets/fountains and laser display controls were all recorded on 1” magnetic tape. He just monitored the control console and made sure everything was up and running and that the show started on time. He could still over-ride the control console, so he would add in extra lights or water displays to make it more interesting.
I worked at the oyster bar where customers would bring their oysters to be opened and pearls cleaned after they received it from the Pearl Divers. The Pearl Divers’ costumes were definitely see through (white cotton), but they would wear white swimsuits/shorty wetsuits underneath. Even though, the girls were gorgeous! Most were college-age and swam on swim teams in their high schools. The Japanese dancers, however, were much older women and were actually Japanese.
My last year working at Seaworld (1991), I helped clear out the the Japanese Village gift shop and Golden Pagoda to make way for construction of the Moray Eel exhibit. Now I see that even those buildings are gone to make way for a new roller-coaster :(
I hope this helps in establishing some timelines concerning San Diego Sea World.

A few new photos from flickr.

A nice Tiki in front of the Hawaiian Punch Pavilion.

And another view of the Tiki dolphin show, this one shows a large volcano on the left of the pool.

DC

A few more photos from the world wide web.

The entrance to the Hawaiian Punch Village.

The dolphin show and the Hawaiian Punch Village in the background.

DC

Now I understand. I went there as a kid in the 70's and have some really distinct memories of how great it was. I have been wondering if all these years my memory was betraying me because the current incarnation is crap compared to what I remember, and now I know why. I have always really dug the Hawaiian/Polynesian motif because I was born in Honolulu but was very young when we moved so I don't remember much about it. As a result as a kid I glommed onto anything that could hold that same feeling I felt in Hawaii. We moved to California right after (dad was in the Navy so we moved a lot) and would go to Disneyland, Knotts etc every month or so (especially on free armed forces nights, and I of course adored The Enchanted Tiki Room). We only went to Sea World a few times since it was farther away, but I have lasting impressions of the entrance, the water show, and the massive nautical/pirate themed playground with the swinging bridges and pirate ship (still can't find good photos of any of this online) and of course of Hawaiian punch and Shamu.

I absolutely am loving all the pics people are sharing it has brought a rush of memories back I had forgotten and I understand my love for the place now. I just wish the beginning several pages of this thread was not a broken picture wasteland I am dying to see the things people previously shared and talked about, so if anyone saved them please take the time to put them back up. :)

As usual I am late to everything around here, jaynh thanks so much for filling us in with all of your info but especially the A-Frame entry timeline; it’s nice to know my memory loss isn’t totally out of control yet. Looking back on it I recall taking my high school girlfriend there in the early 80’s so that must be what/when I remembered.
D.C. great research as always, it is driving me crazy how all the photos are nibbling around the edges of the interior. As far as my Sea World LP I dug it up last year planning to use it as an intro to my San Diego talk at Oasis, the cover was in great shape unfortunately the record inside had nothing to do with Sea World? No problem I thought we always run into them at the thrifts… haven’t seen one since. And are those Moai faces in the volcano or am I seeing things?

A few more nuggets from Sea World.

A photo of the Hawaiian Punch Village from the aerial tram

And a B & W of Punchy and his band.

DC

Hello everyone, I just picked up a 1986 Sea World brochure and sure enough the A-Frame is still pictured,

Enjoy

Bosko

Nice find Bosko. :D

And props to Dustycajon as well.
Excellent historical photo documentary.

[ Edited by: christiki295 2013-06-19 20:58 ]

Hello again here's a photo from Sea World with a Tiki in the background, it looks to me like it could be at the Hawaiian Punch Village, the railing behind her seems to look like other pictures I've seen of it. The glass contains something vaguely tropical looking, unfortunately the drink doesn't resemble anything I have in my archives and it seems strange (to me) that they would use actual glassware, or maybe it's plastic and I'm not seeing that? Aside from all that it is painfully lacking in any other kind of detail except the bag which has their colors and the Shamu logo.

Enjoy

Bosko

Cool photo Bosko.

Here is a anther shot of the Big Ass A-Frame out front.

Pretty easy to figure out where to enter!

DC

Hey DC great photo as always, funny how they had to make things so obvious back then.

Rare video footage inside the hut with the luau show. !980 commercial.

Starts at !:05 timing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lBsvNqnrMA8#t=64s

Wow Unga thanks that was painfully short what a bunch of teases, did they have the Luau show in San Diego or was this video from the Florida location? The 86 brochure makes no mention of it but who knows, I also just noticed that by 1986 the Hawaiian Punch Village had been cleverly renamed AL E. GATOR'S RESTAURANT AND COCKTAIL LOUNGE (so that may explain my drink question) obviously the devolution of Tiki was right on track at Sea World.

On 2013-07-01 15:32, TIKIBOSKO wrote:
Wow Unga thanks that was painfully short what a bunch of teases, did they have the Luau show in San Diego or was this video from the Florida location? The 86 brochure makes no mention of it but who knows, I also just noticed that by 1986 the Hawaiian Punch Village had been cleverly renamed AL E. GATOR'S RESTAURANT AND COCKTAIL LOUNGE (so that may explain my drink question) obviously the devolution of Tiki was right on track at Sea World.

It was just a link.

Great Sea World memories!

On 2010-11-08 16:34, Dustycajun wrote:
I recently picked up some new materials from Sea World in San Diego.

A postcard view of the dolphin show and the Hawaiian Punch Village in the background.

DC

Sea World has a large reproduction of that Tiki posted on its historical walkway.

On 2005-05-18 03:23, Sabina wrote:
This thread brought back a lot of memories- of the Sea World at Geauga Lake/Aurora in Ohio. I believe they also had an Hawai'ian themed area with Tikis and a Hula show- my visits would have been back in the early 70's.

We also had the Pearl divers, a japanese pavillion of some kind, and an outstanding waterski show- but hey, I was small back then...maybe it wasn't as amazing as I remember.

In any case- this may also be another root of Ohio Tiki heritage. After all- Hula and Cleveland- two words you cewrtainly don't automaticly associate.

Sabina, they did have a Tiki area, a Hawaiian Punch Village just like the San Diego location -- and it was an OA install!

We'd love to see photos of this and the Tiki Gift Shop. Both of us went here as kids, and we recently found our family's Super8 footage of Sea Worlds visits. We got them scanned and only hope our parents had tiki radar, too ... I guess we'll find out as soon as we watch them!

We recently picked up these large benches and giant clam shells from Sea World:

M & M, nice clamshells!!

Here's an old photo of the Hawaiian Punch Village entrance from ebay.

DC

On 2012-03-15 21:43, Dustycajun wrote:
A few new photos from flickr.

And another view of the Tiki dolphin show, this one shows a large volcano on the left of the pool.

Thank you so much for posting this! It was this EXACT dolphin show, and seeing the floating open mouthed Tiki God island thing (lower left) when I was 6 years-old that started this whole Tiki thing for me! We went to the Bali Hai afterwords and I was hooked!

On 2017-03-20 15:29, progrocktv wrote:
Thank you so much for posting this! It was this EXACT dolphin show, and seeing the floating open mouthed Tiki God island thing (lower left) when I was 6 years-old that started this whole Tiki thing for me! We went to the Bali Hai afterwords and I was hooked!

Cool! And the Bali Hai too? Hope you had a rockin' good cocktail - at 6 years old!

I grew up visiting Sea World once in a while with my family. That photo reminded me of the Hawaiian Punch village and related stuff, plus the whole mystique of Mission Bay and the ocean so near the park. Many years later I wound up sailing those waters, snorkeling around the tops of the kelp beds offshore, and fishing for tuna. Fun times in So Cal! Too bad my family's photos from those days have been lost. I know we had some great slides at one time...