A blast from the past - The Royal Hawaiian

"The six-storey Moorish-cum-Mission-style building may be overshadowed by her high-rise neighbours, but her flamingo livery and cupola-capped architecture are unmistakably of an older and grander, age of travel. She is a gracious sprawl of a hotel, a low-level, spreading, painted lady, whose design would be financial suicide in today's Waikiki real estate." Betsy Walter, Australian Gourmet

One of the last magazines I was flicking through in my recent cleanup was a March 1987 copy of Australian Gourmet. This particular magazine used to have articles on legendary hotels, and this issue had one on the Pink Palace as it is generally known - the Royal Hawaiian. Nowadays when I look at hotels in glossy magazines I know I have no hope of staying in them (I saw one the other day that cost over $2,000 a night!), but I have stayed in the Royal Hawaiian, if only for one night, and I remember it well. Apologies for the picture by the way - it was spread over two pages, and I couldn't get rid of the fold in the middle. There were better ones on the net of course, but this one somehow caused that blast from the past feeling, so I kept it.

I think our visit must have been at the beginning of some business reward trip for I doubt that we would have picked it out for ourselves. I think the year was 1978 or 79, so almost ten years before the photograph. And in between there had been a major facelift (as probably there has been since), but this is how I remember it. Pink being the main feature. And when we visited Waikiki again in the 80s it still looked the same to me. It is a Waikiki icon and I doubt they are allowed to change it much.

I think we probably only stayed a night there. If it is the occasion I am thinking of, we would have flown into Honolulu prior to moving to our company event resort on one of the other islands the next day. We had been given permission to bring our two very small (3 and 5?) children with us and would not have wanted to fly all the way to the neighbouring island in one go. So we stopped off in Honolulu. I'm guessing that this particular hotel was booked for us by the company. I doubt we would have chosen it ourselves.

To be honest I only have a couple of memories about the place, and one of them is associated with food - which sort of justifies this post. I don't remember our room at all and I doubt we would have had much time to sit on the beach - just maybe after our arrival.

We must have arrived in the afternoon, and went down to the restaurant for an early dinner. They were very small children, and besides, as we later learnt, the Americans dine early. Our younger child was given a high chair. I don't think we ate in the restaurant below - I seem to remember being inside, but then it does seem to be an indoor/outdoor sort of place. And this photograph does tug at the memory somewhat - maybe we had breakfast there.

Anyway, we ordered our dinner, which included a salad as a side-dish (we thought) and so began the great American salad standoff. The salad came, and we waited for the accompanying main dishes. And we waited, and waited, and waited. So long in fact, that our poor young, almost baby, fell asleep. It then turned out that in America the salad is eaten first, then they bring the main dish. We did not know this. Hence the standoff. They were waiting for us to eat the salad, we were waiting for them to bring the meat. When I visited America all those years ago as a student, I was so poor that I would not have eaten in such places - hamburger joints and diners for me. So I did not know this either.

The other thing I remember is associated with the rather lovely foyer shown below (a rather deeper shade of pink).

My husband must have been doing the check-out I think and so I was left with the children and the luggage. Maybe he joined us as we waited for our taxi or whoever was transferring us to the airport. We were there for a while though. Anyway the children became bored and started making a cubby house out of the luggage which they then set up as the venue for rowdy games. Lots of American ladies went by and cooed over them saying they were so cute. But I do remember feeling somewhat embarrassed by my little sons romping around this grand space.

So that's all I can personally say about the Royal Hawaiian. But here is a little bit about it's history - gleaned from Australian Gourmet. It's called the Royal Hawaiian because (a) it recalled the name of a former hotel and (b) and probably more importantly, it commemorated the historical use of the site as a gathering place for Hawaiian royals. So nothing to do with British or European royalty. It grew from the need to build accommodation for the passengers of a luxury liner - the idea of two American businessmen who saw the possibilities of Hawaii as a tourist destination for Americans. Little did they know what they started because Waikiki today is a place entirely built around tourism and is full of high-rise hotels. Honolulu itself is not primarily a tourist town, but Waikiki is. There really isn't anything else there. Hotels, restaurants, boutiques and other tourist traps and attractions. But back then there was nothing there. Alas the site they chose was marshy and although the locals pointed this out they went ahead anyway. But near completion they discovered that the hotel was indeed sinking into the marsh. Happily an American engineer managed to save the day by putting in some very expensive bulwarks to the foundations. There was a period after the Great Depression when it became a white elephant, and then after a brief rise came WW2 during which it was used for troops. But the bulwarks must have worked, and the tourists came back because it's still there - and the hotel is now surrounded by high rise. It does have the prime beach spot though. And unlike in Italy - anyone can partake of the beach - if not the shaded lounges.