3 attractions go beyond pineapples at Dole Plantation

Dole Plantation started in 1950 as a roadside fruit stand on 60 Wahiawa acres where its namesake, entrepreneur James Dole, had started growing pineapple in 1901. Opened as a visitor attraction in 1989, it spotlights the history of local agriculture, including the golden fruit that brought Dole fame and fortune.

The plantation’s Pineapple Garden Tour and Pineapple Express Train Tour provide up-close looks and insights into the diverse crops — including banana, papaya, coffee and cacao — that have been on the rise since the demise of Hawaii’s sugar industry and substantial decline in pineapple production.

Family Fun Day, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, will offer reduced admission for these activities in addition to games, live music, hula performances, arts and crafts, prize giveaways and ono food.

Here are the stories behind three other draws at Dole Plantation. Owned by Castle & Cooke, it is a sister company of Dole Food Company, the world’s largest producer of fresh fruit and vegetables, which still grows pineapple on 3,000 acres surrounding the plantation.

Pineapple Garden Maze

The year: 1992. Lucien Wong, then-president of the commercial division of Castle & Cooke Hawaii, was vacationing in Colorado with his family. While driving in a scenic mountain area, they came across a small town with a plywood maze that his three daughters wanted to try.

“My youngest daughter, Michelle, who was just 8 years old at the time, said the maze was a lot of fun and I should build one at Dole Plantation,” Wong recalled. “I thought that was an interesting idea. The land is zoned for agriculture, but if we could build the maze completely from plants, it would be a good fit.”

Back then, Dole Plantation was not an attraction; in fact, for most visitors it was little more than a pit stop on their way to the North Shore. Castle & Cooke had been looking at developing an agricultural attraction, and Wong was convinced a maze would test the idea — but it would have to be the world’s biggest maze.

According to Guinness World Records, the record holder back then was a 90,000-square-foot maze in Belgium. Beating that seemed easy since Dole Plantation, in the midst of thousands of acres of pineapple, had the space to make whatever expansions were necessary.

When the Pineapple Garden Maze debuted in 1998, it measured 100,000 square feet with 1.7 miles of paths. Three years later, Guinness World Records recognized it as the world’s largest maze, a title it held for several years.

In 2007, the maze was enlarged to 3.14 acres and a length of 2.46 miles. A year later, Guinness World Records certified it as the world’s largest permanent hedge maze, which the plantation again touted for several years.

The 7-foot-tall maze is made of about 14,000 tropical plants, including hibiscus, heliconia and panax. In the center are duranta, eldorado and agapanthus in the shape of a giant pineapple. It takes most people an hour to find their way out of the maze; the fastest time is eight minutes.

“The maze continues to be a huge success,” Wong said. “It proved that Dole Plantation could be a major attraction, and that growth has created a lot of jobs and small-business opportunities in an area where there had been few.”

Pineapple Display Garden

The Pineapple Display Garden was always part of the concept for Dole Plantation; it is included in the original drawings by local architect Philip “Pip” White, which date back to 1987. The garden was unveiled in the early 1990s, albeit just a quarter of its current size (224 feet long and 40 feet wide).

Flourishing in the garden are 10 varieties of pineapple that are native to countries all over the world, including Mexico, Paraguay, the Philippines and South Africa. According to Mike Moon, the plantation’s director of operations, no one knows for sure where the progenitors of those plants came from, but it’s believed they were sourced by Dole Food Company.

Representing Hawaii is Dole-30, which, thanks to crossbreeding, has a much lower acidic level than pineapples that were grown commercially 20 years ago.

“Dole Plantation has pineapple species that were never grown in Hawaii, and we exhibit them for educational purposes,” Moon said. “Remember, even though the pineapple has become synonymous with Hawaii, it is not a native plant. Also, because of hybridization, there are now many varieties of pineapple, and our Display Garden keeps evolving, just like the fruit.”

Dole Whip

Who would’ve thought this dairy-free soft-serve would interest gourmets? But there it is — the subject of an Aug. 10, 2017, Bon Appetit article entitled “Why Everybody Loooves Dole Whip.”

As the story goes, in 1976, Castle & Cooke Foods (its name was changed to Dole Food Company in 1991) began sponsoring the Enchanted Tiki Room, a hut in Disneyland’s Adventureland, and added its fresh pineapple juice and spears to the menu there. Over the years, the company extended its sponsorship to other Disney parks, and in 1984 it began selling Dole Whip at Disney World. Two years later, the sweet indulgence debuted at Disneyland.

It’s unclear who came up with the idea and the recipe for Dole Whip, but it has since amassed such an enthusiastic following it’s now sold at restaurants, stadiums, zoos, universities and amusement parks nationwide. Basically, the treat is a combination of sugar, water, a powdered nondairy creamer and natural flavoring and coloring.

In addition to the original pineapple, it’s now available in mango, lemon, orange, raspberry, strawberry and lime. Unsurprisingly, pineapple is the only flavor sold at Dole Plantation.

“Dole Whip has become one of our signatures over the past 30 years,” Moon said. “Once Dole Plantation was considered only the ‘pineapple destination,’ but now we are also considered Hawaii’s Dole Whip destination!”

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.