Greetings everyone, this is David Parkett, Senior Correspondent for the Diz on Plugged.

At the end of August, Disney opened its first hotel outside of theme park.

Disney's Alonnie resort in Spa is a standalone Disney vacation club property in Hawaii.

Joining me today is one of the lead designers of the new resort, Walt Disney Imagineer Joe Rody.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us Joe.

Sure!

Joe Rody is the Senior Vice President and Creative Executive for Walt Disney Imagineering,

and was lead designer for Disney's Animal Kingdom, as well as the Expedition Everest attraction,

just to give a sampling of his work.

Joe, I understand you grew up in Hawaii.

What was your reaction when you heard Disney wanted to build their first resort,

not connected with a theme park there?

Well, I suppose the advantage one has growing up in Hawaii is knowing how much more there is to Hawaii

than most people think, and so hearing that the company intended to build something in Hawaii,

my first response was, oh, you guys have no idea how much there is.

Can you tell us a little bit about your experience growing up and how that influenced you and your team during the design process?

Yeah, I grew up just above Waikiki in what was then a very, very old neighborhood called Makiki,

and we talked up against the mountains that dropped down into the city from beyond Waikiki,

and that relative is all over the island.

It's an old, old family that's been there for a long time,

and you know, we grew up with a lot of natural respect for the traditions of the island.

There's a whole bunch of stuff, sort of things you did do and didn't do,

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