Aloha Friday

My lil desk

Instead of TGIF (thank god it's Friday), in the islands you call it aloha Friday. Of course to keep up with the true spirit of aloha, everyone throws on their aloha shirts or dresses on Fridays. Today was also a goodbye party for one of the office's secretary's. It was kind of potluck promotion celebration and a lot of people chipped in with dishes from home. My contribution was a couple liters of Coke from Foodland, especially since I can't cook anything in my room. This is the second promotion I've seen that has taken a Princeville employee to another property and both goodbyes were so heartfelt. At each goodbye, there was always someone crying or tearing up and I was surprised how emotional I was getting as well. I'm not sure how it is at other offices or properties, but it sure feels like a surge of true feelings in wishing them well on their journey into their new promotions.

Also some exciting news for the hotel, we just received news of a $36 million (the low estimate) renovation next year and the designer and his team are flying out next week. His name is David Easton and he is a certified St.Regis designer, which suggests that corporate could be possibly interested in turning the hotel into a St.Regis property. The St.Regis brand is very selective in its hotels and currently only has about 10-12 properties in the world, so this would be a huge advantage/honor for Princeville. Kelly Hoen, the GM, is really excited about it but she's worried about the designer. One of our values at the hotel is to stay indigenous to the surrounding area and this designer does not have a lot of experience designing for the islands (he's worked mostly in Aspen). It all be very interesting to see how it pans out.

Tomorrow I'm so stoked because I'm going on a long hike up into Waimea canyon or as some call it the "grand canyon of the pacific." The GM's secretary Kelly Kaona invited be today so I'm pretty excited to finally make it over to the west side, which is supposedly very different than the east. She's picking me up at 6:30 and it should be pretty spectacular!