Castaway Cay, Bahamas
This private island in the Bahamas is a Disney Cruise Line port of call. In answer to the question: "When Is The Copy Better Than The Original?" This would be it.
I am not talking about staged authenticity, like my visit to Papette Tahiti. Most designers spend their time creating shopping malls. Re-creating the island paradise, however, is admirable.
Once used as a stop for drug smugglers. Think “Snow White” or “White Snow.” There is an airstrip on the island, but it is no longer in regular use nor maintained (I shot some video below). Its unusual isolation becomes, in its own way, a paradise—somewhere in the Bahamas.
It is not Gilligan's Island, but it has also been used for filming; the beach where Tom Hanks first encounters Daryl Hannah in Splash is on the island. If you want to read more about the island’s checkered and colorful past, here is the link.
Papeete - Polynesian Disneyland and The Audacity of Hype
Moorea in the distance
Reprint from World Cruise 2011.
With less than 24 hours in port, the locals and locale live up to their stereotypes—the Tiki-style roofs, tropical gardens, swaying palm trees... And more than that, the visual souvenir that always delivers: the beautiful, exotic Tahitian Princess with her long raven hair, weaving leis effortlessly while wrapping herself in water-colored sarongs in the post-colonial suburb of Paris known as modern-day Papeete.
As the ukulele soundtrack plays, I feel like I'm on safari. Polynesia cannot escape being a human zoo seeking to contain the lives of its native people.
It's A Small World After All
Marketing the definitive view of paradise
Playing the game of staged authenticity in Tahiti’s tourist-themed spaces—it's not McDonald-ization, but feels more like a Disney feature. I feel odd even participating in sightseeing rituals. Even at the Gauguin Museum, the paintings are replicas. I've seen most of the originals around the world—mostly in the Hermitage, Russia.
But anyway, sometimes the copies are better than the originals! The hyperreal world is one of ‘the Absolute Fake’—where imitations don’t just reproduce reality, they try to improve it. Gauguin’s obsession with Polynesia is still working!