The Imagineer Who Built Disney’s Most Unlikely Theme Park and Resort

One of the most prolific Imagineers of the modern era is Disney Legend Joe Rohde. Rohde retired from Disney in 2021 as a portfolio creative executive after 40 years at Walt Disney Imagineering and was inducted as a Disney Legend in 2024.

During his career, he was the overall creative executive and supervising designer for Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Rohde also worked on the former Adventurers Club at Disney World, Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa, and Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! at Disney California Adventure.

Previously, Mickey Visit founder Gavin Doyle sat down with Joe Rohde while he was still the Creative Director of Animal Kingdom for a rare podcast interview. He talked about how the creation of the Animal Kingdom was really a first for the Disney company and inspired future projects, and discussed how Disney designed Aulani to be unique as a Hawaiian vacation destination. Today, we wanted to look back at this interview with this iconic Imagineer who helped to define the future of Disney Parks.

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Joe Rohde's Start With Imagineering

Rohde talked about his start with Imagineering and the interesting path that led him from his job as a high school set design teacher to becoming the Creative Director of Animal Kingdom.

He reflected, “My early career is completely disorganized and accidental.  So, I was recruited to be just a worker when we were building up Epcot.  I had been teaching set design and doing set design at a high school in the San Fernando Valley. One of the executive’s kids went to that school; he kind of recruited me.”

His new role was a “very, very basic entry-level job” in the model shop, and it would take about eight years until he would become in charge of the Adventurers Club, the former themed nightclub at the Pleasure Island area of what was then Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs). From there, his next major project was Animal Kingdom, which was a big jump.

Rohde described that he had been working with a designer who was very hardworking and knowledgeable, but did not excel in public speaking. He said, “This is a common problem with artists. They could be very good artist and not very good at speaking or talking.” Rohde, on the other hand, was a good speaker and ended up becoming “the guy doing the talking.” Eventually, as he started answering questions and becoming part of the conversation, people asked for his ideas. 

He reflected, “And so, I become the guy that people are asking the opinion of, because I’m the guy doing the talking.  And that gives me a chance to demonstrate that I have an opinion and that my opinion is worth listening to.  And that begins to get me into other meetings that aren’t related to the work that I’m doing.  And I become a person who can be in a brainstorm.  I become a person who can be involved in creating ideas.  Once you’re a person who’s creating ideas, someone has to take responsibility for getting the ideas done.  And so slowly, I can become the guy who takes responsibility for getting the ideas done.”

“And that gets me to the point where someone says, ‘Well, why don’t you take that idea–that’s your idea–and do it.'” Rohde said that “not very many people were interested in the animal-related project when I first showed up.  I was particularly interested.  And so, there wasn’t a lot of competition. Otherwise, I can’t imagine that a person with my background would have been given the assignment.”

Creating Disney's Animal Kingdom

The development process for Animal Kingdom stretched on for a long time, with eight years between the time that Rhode was offered the opportunity to work on the project in 1990 and when it was opened in 1998.

He mentioned that it was “five years of work before it got a capital authorization to begin construction. That actually was good for us, because we had a very small team. We didn’t really cost the company very much money, because our team was small.  And that allowed us to go for a long time before we had to make a decision. That allowed us to learn a lot about animals, about conservation, about all these new rules that we would have to invent in order to be able to do a park that was about a subject so different from any subject that had led to a park before.  And the look and the feel of Animal Kingdom is very much determined by the idea that this subject of live animals is more realistic, more political, more real world, more involved with negotiation, more involved with outside people from outside of the theme park business than what we had done before.”

He talked about how, since the moment he started working on Animal Kingdom, everything he had done had revolved around it. Rohde said, “Animal Kingdom has gone forever.  So really, from the very first morning that anybody sat in a room to talk about Animal Kingdom until this morning–the meeting I just came from– I’ve been working on Animal Kingdom. Partly because the skills necessary to do Animal Kingdom become very specific, because of all those other things, all the design rules that are related to the animals. And that sort of bleeds into the whole park: the realism of the park, the research of the park, the way in which the stories in the park are a little bit more unresolved, the behaviors a little bit unscripted.  That all becomes this sort of learned pattern of design, a pattern of design that we Animal Kingdom people are particularly trained in.”

From Designing to Directing

A big shift in Rohde's career path was when he went from design to creative direction. It was a significant and challenging transition, going from mastering the art of design to the art of directing others in their design.

He described how “a director has to learn how to make use of other people: of their decisions, of their vision, of their creative preferences; how to coordinate all that towards a common vision.  But a director is not any longer really a designer. You have to kind of step away from design a little bit and be able to articulate a vision in a way that other people can share it.”

He talked a bit about the interesting tension in transitioning from a designer role. “There’s a certain level of frustration in that you’re the designer and you are constantly being told what to do by other people.  So you’re waiting for this day when you get to be the director, then you get to tell other people what to do.  But that’s not what happens, right.  When you get to be the director, you actually have to learn how to let other people do what they want to do, but describe the work in such a way that it’s consistent with an overall direction.”

His role as creative director was “setting vision, making sure that that vision is understood by the team who’s going to do the work, making sure that that vision is understood by the executives and outside people who are going to reveal it,” and then “guiding the people towards the most effective way of expressing these ideas.”

At the time of the interview, we mused that this sounded a bit like what Walt Disney had to do back in his day, balancing everything and making people produce their best work. Rhode commented, “Yeah, Disney didn’t spend a lot of time drawing, right? He spent a lot of time talking, and that is kind of the director’s job.  If you find yourself drawing too much, you’re a designer, which is fine.  You could be a great designer, but you’re unlikely to be directing if you’re spending a whole lot of time drawing.  So, you really have to find a way–everyone’s method is different–to push off from that and be able to let people do their work.” 

Aulani Was A Similar Type of Project to Animal Kingdom in Concept

Rohde was also one of the lead designers for Aulani, the Disney resort at Ko Olina on O'ahu, Hawaii. He talked a bit about how Animal Kingdom, though very different than Aulani, was a similar type of project in concept. Both projects required a great amount of research and negotiation, as a lot of their elements were outside of company-owned intellectual property.

“Animal Kingdom becomes kind of the epicenter of other ideas that are kind of like it somehow. Like Aulani is not an animal park. But it is involved in very high levels of research into a subject that is not one of our intellectual properties or creative properties; and involves negotiation with people who are not only not part of Disney but not even part of our industry–that being indigenous Hawaiians; and involves a level of texture and design that is more real than the typical, idealized situations you see at the theme park, and on and on and on.  And therefore, falls inside of a kind of an Animal Kingdom portfolio type of work, and therefore, comes to myself and my portfolio.  It happens like that.”

Why Disney Decided to Build Aulani

Rohde talked a bit about how Aulani came to be. Even though there was a lot of guest interest in a Hawaii property, it was difficult for Disney to get land there, especially a beachfront property. “And when you invest in beach front property, there’s a whole trigger mechanism of the scale of what you have to build to make your investment back, because the property’s expensive. You end up knowing that you’re going to build something pretty big–15 stories–just by buying the property that just comes with the territory.”

Then, the challenge became how to distinguish Aulani from all of the other beachfront properties on Oahu, which all shared several commonalities—from the type of restaurants to the spa, bars, pool, etc. The question became, how were they going to make this property something unique?

“The culture of Hawaii is the way in which Hawaii distinguishes itself from other beachy tropical destinations,” Rohde said. “So once you make the decision that Hawaiians are what makes Hawaii Hawaii, now we can have a thematic idea that we can begin to work on and set up a design pattern, a design method that involves Hawaiians.” 

So then, Rohde described, everything from carpet and drapery patterns to doorknobs, etc., in Aulani “would be based entirely on Hawaiian points of view about what makes Hawaii Hawaii.”

Hawaiian Cultural Attitudes in Aulani's Design

Disney embraced Hawaiian cultural attitudes and ideas when designing the concept of Aulani. Rohde talked about how there are two different thought patterns that make up the Hawaiian idea of land, and both of these are reflected in the design of the resort. 

“One is that time is organized according to the flow of water.  So that which is traditional, old, based on the ancestors, antique, that is up in the mountains where fresh waters begins and that which represents the future is down in the ocean where life comes out of the ocean.  The Hawaiians came to Hawaii from the ocean.  And so, if you look carefully at Aulani, it is more traditional, more rooted in the past in those areas that are away from the beach.  As you go down towards the beach, it becomes more modernistic, more contemporary, you know.  The ‘AMA ‘AMA restaurant’s quite contemporary.  That’s very deliberate and very Hawaiian in terms of how you think about space.”

And the other division is, if you are facing into the future, meaning with your back to the mountains and you’re faced to the ocean, then the more feminine side of your body is to the left, the more masculine to the right.  And that’s another division that we made at Aulani, through the art program, to the landscape program.  So when you get to Aulani, you’re actually standing in a Hawaiian space.  You’re not just at a place about Hawaii.  You’re at a place that has been designed and thought of as Hawaii.

And there are millions of these.  There are millions of these little details like that.  The mural that surrounds the top of the lobby is divided in the same way.  It treats more with the past and with ancestors in the inland phase and more with the ocean and contemporary Hawaiians, that down towards the ocean.  It has more masculine examples on one side and feminine on the other, and it represents this idea that Hawaiian culture is alive.  It is not something from the past.  It’s not a once upon a time thing.  Hawaiians are alive.  They’re all around you.  They’re working in this hotel.  They have a culture and that culture is alive today.” 

The Story of the Menehune

One prominent motif at Aulani is the Menehune hidden around the resort. These are mythical beings from Hawaiian folklore, “responsible for mysterious happenings on the islands,” according to Disney. The Menhune are master builders, and the story is that they constructed the Menehune Bridge, a special water play area just for younger children at Aulani's pool area.

Rohde talked a little bit about how the Menehune is targeted towards younger visitors. “We took the Menehune which is a local legend about a kind of people, mystical or mythological, who live in the forest, who come out usually at night, who do work–helpful little things–and who hide.  And we created this whole, almost like Easter egg, program of hidden Menehune who are very often placed in places only kids would look, where it would be hard for a parent to even see them. 

And then of course, they inform the interactive game that you play through the entire resort, and you just see the peeking out on the bushes and they’re inside the elevators and they’re under the furniture and they’re hidden in corners all through the resort.  You could spend a day just hunting for Menehune through the resort.”

Aulani's Unique Pool Area

Rohde also talked more broadly about the Waikolohe Valley pool area and how it reflects Hawaiian ways of thinking.

They designed it as if Waikolohe Valley was a real valley, with “weather, more tropical; more forested; in the inland area, drier; and you know, more palms as you move out towards the ocean. We took the design right to the sand, so there isn’t this kind of barrier wall between the public beach and our private resort. All of that is very Hawaiian way of thinking about the land. 

The other thing is all through the Waikolohe Valley are these images of animals that are important to Hawaiians in one way or another, but much more hidden, let’s say, on the tree of life. And that’s another Hawaiian idea that the land is speaking to you, that every place you look has a message, every place you look has meaning. Every place. That’s a hard idea to convey. We sort of turned that into this symbolic use of little animal messages in the lava rock of the place.  So that symbolically, if you look hard enough, you’re going to start to see things you didn’t see before. And that is a very Hawaiian idea.”

Departing From Expectations

It's interesting to see how all of these intentional choices to highlight Hawaiian culture in the resort's design and offerings distinguish this property from other Hawaiian resorts. Rohde mentioned how it's easy to get caught in “a market research-based loop of like, ‘This is what people expect, so this is what we’re going to do.'” 

The process of getting to Hawaii is a big journey for anyone who doesn't live there, so it's important that the payoff is really rewarding. Rohde explained, “You’re going to cross the ocean, either on a boat or an airplane.  It takes time, it’s a big deal, you have to prepare for it.  It’s not a casual decision. When you get to the other side of that journey, you want to feel like you’ve got somewhere.  Like when you walk through the door, it’s like we’re not in Kansas anymore.  This is a different place from where I came from.  In order for it to be different, it can’t be based on what you already expect, or by definition it won’t be different.”

“You’re traveling to be somewhere else, and in order for that place to be somewhere else, it has to have an opportunity to be itself.  And that’s what we’re trying to do with Aulani.  So, when you get to Aulani, you really have arrived some place that is not like home.” 

Joe Rohde's Famous Earring Collection

Rohde also talked about his famous earring collection that has earned him the reputation of the “Imagineer with the Earring.” In his travels, he has collected earrings from all around the world.

He reflected, “Oh, you know I started this a long time ago; right about the time I started the Adventurers Club, as a matter of fact.  And I started actually wearing my Disney five-year pin through my ear.  Now I had a hole in my ear.  I didn’t push my lapel pin through my ear.  I already have a little earring hole, but just a normal little 1980s earring hole like anybody would have.  And I started wearing my five-year pin through my ear, because it was a really cool little pin.  And that made the hole bigger.  And so then I thought, oh I’m going to wear like two gold hoops like a pirate. So then, I started wearing two gold hoops and that made the hole bigger.” 

He also went on to tell some interesting stories about his favorite earrings from the collection, including some from Rajasthan, Nepal, and more. Keep an eye out for those stories he shared in an upcoming article! 

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