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Turtle Bay Resort in Hawaii is iconic and full of crazy rich-people stories.

With more than 150 movies and TV shows having been filmed in this lux vacation getaway – including Lost, Pirates of the Caribbean, NCIS, The Hunger Games and cult comedy favourite Forgetting Sarah Marshall – as well as celebrating its 50th anniversary and an ambitious $250 million renovation, this Oahu spot is well cemented as the ultimate haven for honeymooners, influencers, and celebs.

Well, someone from Bloomberg had a little peep in to witness first-hand how the “property’s elite team manages the volcanic demands from its thousands of guests, all wanting their own specific version of island idyll”.

If that sounds like the plot of The White Lotus, you’re not far off, with one staffer saying that Turtle Bay is “the same thing, but without the murders”.

 

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Besides teenagers throwing tantrums in the lobby, hustlers on Zoom calls acting all important and avoiding taxes, and honeymooners already showing signs of marital trouble, the resort is filled to the brim with other epic tales of misbehaviours and overindulgences.

Speaking of overdoing it, guests with all-you-can-eat access at the Ocean Club Lounge consume an estimated 5 000 to 6 000 calories a day and still have the gall to Tupperware some extra food for later.

There are also sex workers who make regular appearances:

“They are always fun,” says another steward. One repeat visitor is “a high-class call girl from Waikiki, always with a different 65-year-old guy who is out here on business—maybe married or maybe not. In the morning she comes down in her full-blown [evening] costume. She’s here enough that you’d think she’d wear something more discreet.”

That’s how she advertises, dah.

 

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While honeymooners are like vegans and Cross-Fit fanatics in that they have to tell anyone with ears what they’re all about, the staff members reckon that doesn’t make them special:

“In 10 check-ins, three or four are honeymoons, three or four are birthdays, around two are anniversaries, and one is a babymoon,” says Wilkins. They all want a room upgrade, and 1 in 5 will try to haggle on the price of an oceanfront bungalow. Instead, many of them get personalized welcome amenities, like green juices or charcuterie boards, along with handwritten notes from Maryam Zakeri, Turtle Bay’s VIP manager. On a single shift, I delivered 25 of them—all to guests celebrating an anniversary.

God forbid it rains on your paid vacation! All hell is let loose when the heavens open up, with some guests demanding a refund for nature’s audacity:

The most dramatic rain-related complaint on record, remembers resort manager Joey Woofter, was when a couple demanded that Turtle Bay shell out for their stay at a nearby resort with reportedly less cloud cover (not true—it was raining everywhere). Another couple wanted a full refund, plus a five-night credit for a honeymoon redo.

Funny enough, in the resort’s purchasing manager Sarah Sundby’s office is a mountain of returned nature mementoes which guests claimed cursed them when they left:

The repentant patrons usually include a detailed apology spelling out the bad luck that’s followed them home. (One two-pager I saw read like the Book of Job, with fits of illness and a real-life dark cloud that wouldn’t go away.)

Hah! Don’t mess with the Tiki Gods, especially if you’re a white American who stole the lands of Hawaiian natives so that you can lame out once a year by the beach:

 

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Otherwise, the resort spends $72 000 on replacement beach towels a year as guests shamelessly steal them, deals with annoying and defiant influencers who roll golf carts for the likes and views, and occasionally replaces every last square foot of carpeting and upholstery after a guest loses control of their bowels.

Hye, that’s what you get in ‘paradise’, I guess.

[source:bloomberg]