It's Tiki Oasis Time!!!

This past weekend, Jim and I attended our first Tiki Oasis in San Diego, CA.  We are officially no longer TikiO virgins!

This event takes place at the Crown Plaza on Hotel Circle every August.  It is a four day event full of bands, symposiums, pool time, and, of course, room parties!

Thursday night starts out at the Bali Hai on Shutter Island.  Though a bit of a cue to get in, the festivities started out with the very strong Bali Hai Mai Tai and a couple of fantastic bands.  Project Pimento had us grooving to some James Bond style tunes followed by the fabulous Tikiyaki Orchestra!

We kicked Day 2 off with the Atomic Bartending symposium, hosted by Ram Udwin of Boy Drinks World.  I've learned of a new favorite...Rose Syrup!  This mixed with a bit of habanero extract and your hard liquor of choice is quite tasty!

Pool time included a fashion show from The Oblong Box Shop, one of my favorite online stores, as well as the Miss Tiki Oasis finalists swimsuit parade.

In the afternoon we enjoyed the Sip 'n' Shop where we picked up a couple of items to take home with us.

After the bands wrapped up on the main stage, the first round of room parties began!

One of my favorite rooms included the sound stylings of The Hula Girls.  Each room had their own drink concoctions with lovely people happy to share one with you! 

One good tip: bring a bunch of small bills to tip your bartender at the room parties.  These drinks are free after all!

When the clock struck midnight...we headed on over to the Lagoon Room for Midnight Burlesque.

Here is one of my favorites, Dolores Daiquiri from Australia.  What she does with a foam watermelon!

After some much needed sleep, we were up and ready for Day 3!

We started off with a symposium by one of our favorite You Tube stars, The Velveteen Lounge Kitcsh-en! Kelly and Paul shared a fun video on space party travel and shared a special cocktail and cosmic food snack.  If you haven't seen their videos, check their YouTube channel out.  

The day continued with a Space Aged Costume Contest, a bit of music by The Neptunas, and a few drinks by the pool.  

 

That night, Man or Astroman were the headliners.  Their music wasn't our taste, so we meandered into the hotel lobby for a few more cocktails.  While we were there, we had a nice chat with Claire from Glory Days Magazine.  She and I had met a couple of weeks earlier at the Enchanted Tiki Room in Disneyland.  There are so many great people at TikiO!

Saturday night we met up with Missy, the Technicolor Cutie.  We had a lot of fun going from room party to room party.  It is always fun to get to know your Instagram friends a bit more! 

One of our favorite parties was the Lost In Space room.  The decorations were amazing and the Tikiyaki Orchestra was in full swing!  We were having so much fun, we were out until 2:30 a.m.! 

To wrap up our weekend, we spent Sunday morning with the incredible Charles Phoenix!  His Vintage Slide Show covered Americas obsession with the Space Age.  As always, he was hilarious.  

As we had a few final hours to relax by the pool, we realized how awesome the entire event had been. We made new friends and can't wait to come back next year!