It’s probably

Elvis Presley’s fault that Hawaii is thought of as ‘Blue Hawaii,’ after his popular 1961 movie of the same name. Yes, the skies are consistently blue in the 50^th State of the USA. But stay in the classic Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki Beach and you’ll be dazzled by pink, from the candy-striped bathrobes in your room, to the phalanx of pink umbrellas that line the hotel’s strip of white sand.  Say yes to pink, we think!

The Royal Hawaiian, now part of Starwood’s Luxury Collection, has long been known as the Pink Palace of the Pacific, a cute alliteration that it earned for its salmon pink Spanish Moorish stucco walls.  Simply say you’re staying at the Pink Palace, and everyone knows where you mean. The hotel is the second-oldest surviving on Waikiki (the Moana Surfrider next door is the oldest) and when it opened in 1927 with a gala for 1200 guests, it was considered ‘the finest resort hostelry in America’ and ‘the playground of the Pacific.’

The hotel was built to house wealthy tourists sailing to Honolulu on the Matson line. (It was a five-day voyage from California in those days.) The Royal Hawaiian Orchestra played each evening at dinner in grand dining hall. Presidents and movie actors stayed there, including a ten year-old Shirley Temple, who played ukulele with children on the beach. Guests played archery, lawn bowling, tennis, badminton, waterpolo or rode an outrigger canoe and learned to surf.

Following the Pearl Harbour attack in 1941, the Navy requisitioned the hotel as a rest and recreation facility for navy personnel, but it reopened in 1947 as a luxury resort once more. Later, the whole property underwent a major renovation, reopening in 2009. The 17-storey Royal Tower Wing, built in 1967 had a complete refresh in 2010. The hotel now totals 528 rooms and 34 suites (18 of which are oceanfront.) It’s like a city on the sea.

We usually shy away from huge hotel complexes, but The Royal Hawaiian is by no means the largest on Waikiki. And it does feel considerably smaller, mostly because the old hotel is arranged around quiet gardens, such as the 56,000 square-feet Coconut Grove and the Ocean Lawn, where weddings are conducted. There’s a wonderful, cool lanai overlooking the Coconut Grove, where you can meditate on rocking chairs, and the high ceilings in the historic building give the hotel an air of spaciousness. The Royal Pool has private cabanas (albeit at $100 per day) or lounges on the lawn. For a charge, you can claim a lounge under a pink umbrella on the sand. The expansive Surf Lanai restaurant and bar on the oceanfront also has private dining cabanas if you want intimacy.

The new tower has terraces with ocean views, but we liked soaking up the atmosphere of the older rooms. These have been extensively renovated, picking up the pink theme in bold foil wallpaper and details like the candy-striped bathrobes. It’s a relatively subdued décor, not overwhelmingly pink, in case that frightens you. We didn’t have much of a view of the sea, unless we stood at the very corner of the window, but we looked over the lawn, which was fairly quiet. The downside of an historic building is that its bones can’t be changed, so windows are small. If you want a balcony, we suggest you book a room in the tower.

Presidents and movie actors stayed there, including a ten year-old Shirley Temple, who played ukulele with children on the beach.

The hotel’s oceanfront restaurant, Azure, in keeping with Hawaii’s place at the forefront of the farm-to-table movement, collaborates with local farmers to highlight Hawaiian seafood and produce. One of the problems with Waikiki, we found, is the poor quality of casual food in the streets behind the beach, which is odd, given that Honolulu has a brilliant Saturday farmer’s market at the Kapi ‘olani Community College (highly recommended  – but go earlier than everyone tells you, even if that means dawn.) A good hotel restaurant is handy, because you’re probably going to be eating there more often than you intend. In any case, sitting on the lanai, sipping a signature Mai Tai, and having the silky trade winds ruffle your hair, is a charming way to end the day, away from the Waikiki hordes, but close enough to watch the passing parade. In a nice touch, the hotel supplies the guestrooms with homemade banana bread. It’s pretty delicious. (Recipe below.)

The Royal Hawaiian has a spa, but the hot tip is to go next door to the beautiful Moana Lani Spa at the Moana Surfrider, where you are massaged in a room with shuttered windows open to the ocean, listening to the surf and to the sounds of happy children squealing. The third glamour hotel on the strip, The Halekulani, serves classic afternoon tea and dinner in Orchids restaurant by the sea, if you want a change of scene.

Much of what the hotel does is geared towards honeymoon couples, many Japanese. We thought the Japanese weddings in the garden were really sweet and enjoyed being interlopers. It’s not exactly a secret hideaway for a honeymooner, or the place for a romantic getaway, but the hotel does have a great retro feel back to the days when you went to a resort to be seen rather than secluded. When Mad Men’s Don Draper and his wife Megan escaped to Honolulu in Season 6, they stayed at the Royal Hawaiian. Megan danced at the luau on the Ocean Lawn – the hotel still does the traditional BBQ every Monday night.

If you’re in Honolulu, we suggest you hire a car and take a couple of day trips, especially to the North Shore beaches and Kailua, a gorgeous coastal village where Buzz’s Original Steakhouse makes the world’s best Mai Tai. There’s a limit of two, but Mrs Amos had three. Enough said. Don’t forget to visit Muumuu Heaven when you’re there.

The Royal Hawaiian offers free valet parking, unlimited local calls, 60 free minutes of long distance calls a day, free wifi and more as part of daily resort charges.

2259 Kalakaua Avenue, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96815; tel: 808 923 7311. www.royal-hawaiian.com 

Mr and Mrs Amos were guests of The Royal Hawaiian and Hawaiian Airlines. 

Royal Hawaiian Banana Bread

4-5 mashed bananas (use ripe ones)

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 cup shortening or vegetable oil

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

cinnamon to taste

1/2 cup Macadamia nuts as an option

Preheat oven to 180˚ C (350˚F) and grease your 2” x 4” x 8” size loaf pan. Take a large bowl and add sugar, shortening (or oil) and eggs. Mix for a while. Add mashed bananas and mix some more. Add all the dry ingredients into the bowl with the vanilla and mix. You will have a very thick batter. As an option, mix in nuts. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for approximately one hour. Stick a toothpick in to see if it comes out clean. Leave for a few minutes to cool.  If you would like to make this recipe even moister, add more bananas.

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