Josh Hendy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2007
- Messages
- 1,294
The beach is public land because hotels cannot own sections of the beach in Hawaii.
Look at the satellite photos, you can see that this isn't a natural beach. It's on a rocky, exposed shoreline with no natural reef. They bulldozed an artificial lagoon out of the land and blasted an artificial inlet from the ocean, with an artificial reef or breakwater to protect the trucked-in sand.
I was going to say, I would be very surprised if the public right-of-way laws of Hawaii extend to the Aulani beach, any more than Florida's public access to beaches extends to the ones at Polynesian Resort or Typhoon Lagoon.
And then ... I checked and sure enough, you're right! From the Disney site:
Q:Is the beach exclusive to Resort Guests?
A: No. There are no private beaches in Hawai‘i. All beach areas have public access. Fortunately, O‘ahu has beautiful sandy beaches at every turn.
The last sentence is kind of humorous ... "don't worry probably nobody will bother you on the beach 'cause there's so many other places they can bother people."
And I imagine they have ways of making interlopers feel ... uncomfortable. I have an old guidebook to Hawaii, and a good portion of the book is about how to deal with landowners who try to prevent you from accessing public beaches that adjoin their land.
EDIT ... and there's more about this on the Disboards. I urge you to read the entire thread, but here is (I think) the money quote:
We own a condo in Ko Olina (not a TS) and Ko Olina is an 'odd duck'. Yes, all 'regular' beaches in Hawaii are public, but the Ko Olina lagoons weren't originally 'beaches' and so don't fall under those guidelines. The 'public' area is just the area up to the 'historical high water mark' which in this case is way way out on the rocky coastline. All of the sand, the lagoons themselves and the walkways/areas around them are private and owned by the Ko Olina Resort. The public has a 'right of way' to get to the 'public' shoreline (again, way out on the rocky coast, NOT the sandy beach). Because of that the lagoons have all sorts of restrictions that regular public beaches don't. You can't use an umbrella or shade structure (unless you rent one from an authorized vendor on the Dis beach). You can't setup a tent or tables or have amplified music, etc etc.
http://www.disboards.com/threads/the-future-of-beach-crowds-at-aulani.2727470/
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