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The Polynesian Village
opened with its iconic Grand Ceremonial House lobby building and 492 guest rooms
divided between eight guest "longhouses." These original buildings were named
Bali Hai, Bora Bora, Fiji, Hawaii, Maui, Samoa, Tahiti and Tonga. Rooms
ranged in price from $29 to $44 in 1972. Between the longhouses were
clusters of lush tropical vegetation and meandering pathways paved in what
seemed to be volcanic rock, and throughout the grounds could be heard the gentle lull
of romantic island music. White sandy beaches stretched along the north side of
the hotel along the lagoon between the Polynesian, the Transportation and Ticket
Center and the site of the future Grand Floridian Beach Resort (initially set
aside for the
Asian Resort). A marina was recessed
into the approximate center of the hotel, with a dock extending out into the
lagoon for guests wishing to access other parts of Walt Disney World via motor
launch.
A loud and colorful marriage of early 1970's designs
and traditional Hawaiian elements dictated the room furnishings, carpet patterns
and cast member costumes for the Polynesian's first decade of operation. This
was immediately evident upon entering the Great Ceremonial House, where the
green and turquoise tiles of the main lobby competed with the 2.5-story atrium
for one's attention. This atrium is home to a mini-island of rocks,
waterfalls and lush vegetation that generates enough atmosphere to hold most
guests spellbound for several minutes upon first contact. Adjoining the Great
Ceremonial House was the Outrigger Assembly House, previous home of the Papeete
Bay Verandah and several arrangements of shops that have been remodeled
consistently over the years.
The Polynesian's original restaurants were the Papeete
Bay Verandah and the Coral Isle Coffee Shop (later the Coral Isle Cafe),
supplemented by the Tambu Lounge, Captain Cook's Hideaway Lounge and the
Barefoot Snack Bar. The Papeete Bay Verandah was a French Colonial restaurant
that served breakfast, lunch and dinner with nightly floorshows. It and most of
these other locations survived into the early 1990s in one form or another, but
subsequent reinventions of the resort led to many new names and shifts in
decor with which to close out the 20th century.
Shopping options at the hotel during the earlier years
included The Polynesian Princess, Robinson Crusoe, Esq., Village Drugs &
Sundries, Trader Jack's Grog Shop (aka Trader Jack's Grog Hut) and News From
Civilization. None of these institutions exist in their original state, but some
remnants have carried on bravely. Among the services available at the resort
have been the Village Florist, the Pretty Wahine Beauty Shop, the Alii Nui
Barber Shop and the King Kamehameha Concierge.
In keeping with one of the very first concepts for the
hotel, the first (and for years the only) swimming pool was constructed as a
hidden grotto with waterfalls and a slide built into the surrounding
rockwork. While certainly not the first such pool in the world, it definitely
served as an inspiration for many more like it in the Central Florida area. It
was so appealing to kids that the slide into the unheated pool remains in use
even during the colder months of January and February. The original pool was
demolished and rebuilt for a reopening in 2000, with a larger body of water and
larger volcanic rock focal point.
The resort's first signature entertainment production,
the South Seas Luau, was initially presented on a small open-air stage right on
the beach. This left the affair subject to the unpredictable Central
Florida weather. In 1973, the fully sheltered Luau Cove opened with a
500-guest seating capacity and enabled the show to go on nightly year-round,
regardless of mild winds and rain (a hurricane still shuts it down). One
luau photo below shows King Leonidas from Bedknobs and Broomsticks sitting in an
elevated wicker chair. This was a one-time-only bit of weirdness from
WDW's opening and dedication ceremonies. On October 24, 1971, the King
rode in on a pontoon barge and presided over a mind-blowing, torch-lit orgy* that
led to the debut of the Electrical Water Pageant on the lagoon. The EWP is still going strong in 2007, as
are the nightly luaus, but King Leonidas is pretty scarce.
A more exotic water element never made it to a regular operational
state. The "wave machine," a subject of intense cast member interest in the
early seventies, was actually built off the southern shore of Beachcomber Isle
in the Seven Seas Lagoon. This mechanism, championed at length by then-WDW
Operations chief Dick Nunis, was intended to provide breakers capable of
sustaining surfers. And that's exactly what it did when completed after several
delays. Unfortunately, the waves eroded the shoreline near Luau Cove and the
machine was permanently shut down. It later became an artificial reef.
Another aspect of the resort
that has seen much change is the range of watercraft made available to guests
over the years. Gone are the days when as many as eight people piled into a
40-foot Polynesian War Canoe and took off across the Seven Seas Lagoon toward
real islands. And before those craft sailed into the sunset, the circular
Bob-A-Round boats (each with an independent stereo system!) had already long
since been retired.
Neither of those vessels
could hold a candle to the Eastern Winds, the Polynesian's very own floating
cocktail lounge that came in the form of a 65-foot long Chinese junk. While it
was normally tethered dockside at the hotel's marina, it was a real boat. It
included deck and cabin lounge areas, staterooms and "lovely serving
hostesses." If Jack Lord and Nancy Kwan had ever conceived a
love child, it would have been on this boat. Sadly, the Eastern Winds didn't manage to float its way into the 1980s.
The first encroachment on the resort's territorial boundaries - and hence its
intimacy - came in 1978, when 144 rooms opened in the new longhouse of
Oahu. The Tangaroa Terrace restaurant was also added, along with a snack bar,
Moana Mickey's Fun Hut (read: game room) and a second swimming pool. This
east-side expansion added a little more traffic to the hotel, but it was an
arguably pragmatic response to the growing demand for higher occupancy and a
greater range of services. And there was still a feeling of solitude - with long
unhampered (and mostly uneroded) stretches of white, sandy shoreline stretching
away from the hotel in two directions.
217 more rooms were added in
1985 in what was most likely the hotel's final growth spurt, with the longhouses
of Moorea and Pago Pago added east of all the existing structures. This
addition reduced the amount of beach space between the resort and the
Transportation and Ticket Center. A few years later the construction of the
Grand Floridian Beach Resort caused the Polynesian's territory to be more
clearly staked out. The more recent Wedding Pavilion, just past Luau Cove to the
northwest, set an even more tactile boundary.
Since the mid-1980s several
rehabs have served to update the hotel's general appearance, with new shops and
restaurants replacing many of the originals. The Neverland Club, a Peter
Pan-themed child care facility, was also added to the south end of the Tangaroa
Terrace building. The old tile and carpet designs have been removed, the rooms
remodeled, and cast member costumes are now a few shades less extravagant,
altogether more unisex and hence less wonderful. The lobby remains impressive,
but has a more busy feel to it than in the early years - with promotional setups
for things such as the Disney Vacation Club occupying previously open floor
space.
Today the Polynesian is less a remote hideout and more a connected part of
the growing WDW resort. It remains extremely popular and, no matter what has
changed, comparatively engaging. The warm breezes that flow through its palms now carry
echoes of earlier years off into the distance, where ghosts from luaus past
congregate regularly by torchlight and drink Mai Tais to the memories of old
outriggers and ankle-length flower print skirts.
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