I Worked at a Resort Like White Lotus. Here Are Nine Secrets Only Staff Know
From influencers flipping golf carts for content to guests demanding refunds over rain, at Turtle Bay Hawaii, not every visitor to paradise is an angel.
Illustration: Mark Wang
In 1959, Hawaii became a state—just in time for the advent of mainstream commercial flying. Almost immediately, travel agents began to wallpaper their offices in tiki-themed posters, promising Polynesian breezes and peachy pink sand. And where did their clients go in droves? The original monolith to pleasure in paradise: Del Webb’s Kuilima Resort Hotel & Country Club, now known as Turtle Bay Resort.
To call Turtle Bay an icon would be an understatement—more than 150 movies and TV shows have been filmed on its 1,300 acres, including Lost, Pirates of the Caribbean, NCIS, The Hunger Games and cult comedy favorite Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Additionally, the hotel’s beaches boast one of the world’s best surf schools, the Jamie O’Brien Surf Experience. According to some accounts, the thumb-and-pinky shaka wave was invented in the area in the early 1900s when it was nothing but a sugar mill, by an employee waving in transport trains who was missing his middle three fingers.