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Instead of rehashing the dozens of press articles on the new Waikiki Edition or regaling you with tales of celebrity sightings at the launch last Friday (which can all be found with a quick Google search), I’m going to keep this short and simple.
Although these pictures speak for themselves, if they could really talk, they’d be saying that you want to be at this hotel. You need to experience a sunny afternoon with drinks by the pool, the slight clinking of ice cubes in pool-friendly plastic faintly heard over laughs with good friends, although little do you realize your friends are chuckling at the foamy deconstructed Mai Tai mustache across your lip, which you really don’t care about at this moment because the drink is so darn delicious – and strong.
The Lobby Bar is something out of Harry Potter (but without the wizardy kitsch), a secret passageway of sorts hidden behind a massive bookcase. Try the Shirley Temple, made with real grenadine and garnished with black cherries. It’s non-alcoholic, but so worth it. And as a guest of the hotel, if you need anything at all, be sure to inquire with the concierge (somewhat of a non-existent art form in Waikiki) who facilitate the needs of the hotel’s guests.
There are so many other great things about this hotel that even the sterile, concrete coldness of the hotel’s nightclub, Crazybox, isn’t enough to keep me away. The service is impeccable (while still, understandably, a little slow at some of the bars), the design is unlike anything you’ve ever seen, and the scent – oh what I would give to have that black tea, woody scent created exclusively for the hotel waft over me right now (Oh wait, you can buy the hotel’s signature scent in candle or shampoo form in the hotel’s gift shop!). It’s hard to say yet if guests will be willing to pay for hotel’s laid-back chic over the $99 deal, or if they’ll be so offended at being turned away at Crazybox that they’ll never come back. But one thing I know for sure: The beauty of the Waikiki Edition can be summed up in what GM Michael Rock told me of the hotel’s philosophy, “Slow and steady wins the race.”