There’s A Chilling Reason No One Would Stay At This Abandoned Island Resort

This beachside resort in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands was supposed to offer guests a taste of the high life. Promising five-star luxury in a prime slice of paradise, the hotel should have been one of the leading holiday destinations in the area. But the guests never turned up, and today it’s a forgotten ghost town.

The Cook Islands comprise of 15 nuggets of land which are across 93 square miles in the South Pacific Ocean. Surrounded by crystal blue waters and boasting beautiful beaches, the collection of idyllic islands offer visitors a taste of tropical paradise that remains largely off the tourist track.

Whether you’re a beach bum or an adrenaline junkie, these beautiful isles claim to offer something for everyone. And they attracted 168,000 visitors in 2018, according to Cook Islands News. This makes tourism the nation’s leading industry, with offshore banking, fruit and marine exports and pearls also bringing in revenue.

Adding to the attraction of the Cook Islands is the location’s tropical climate. This ensures that the country remains sunny all year round, with the cooler months occurring between June and August. The warmer period runs from November to March, when it is more humid and occasional tropical rain flurries can occur.

One particularly interesting time to visit the Cook Islands is between July and October. It’s then when humpback whales seek out the warmer waters in the South Pacific to mate and give birth to their young. As a result, the Cook Islands Exclusive Zone (EEZ) is formally considered as a whale sanctuary.

And the Cook Islands do not disappoint in terms of scenery, either. The country is blessed with an array of natural beauty. On land, the vistas include beautiful beaches and abundant greenery. Meanwhile, the clear blue waters that surround the islands offer up incredible scuba opportunities.

What makes the idyll yet more appealing is the welcoming nature of Cook Islanders. Many of the natives in these parts have a mix of Polynesian and Māori heritage. As part of their culture, they are known for their outgoing natures and a knack for hospitality.

Cook Islanders are known for welcoming visitors with a smile. They also enjoy sharing their culture with others through impressive ceremonies and traditional customs. Not shy, they enjoy connecting with visitors to their homeland, and tourists often leave the islands with warm memories of its inhabitants.

But while their culture is important to many Cook Islanders, they’ve had to fight to keep it alive. Though the Cook Islands have been inhabited by Polynesian people since around 1000 A.D., they have also experienced some Western influence. This dates back to the 16th century when a Spanish sailor first spotted the country.

The first recorded European landing in the Cook Islands followed in 1606. It was then that the Portuguese captain Pedro Fernandes de Queirós – who was working on behalf of the Spanish crown – arrived on Rakahanga. He called the island “Gente Hermosa,” which translates as “Beautiful People.”

It was almost 170 years later, in 1773, that British Captain James Cook first arrived on the islands. He named the Manuae atoll Hervey Island and the name was eventually extended to apply to the entire southern group of landmasses that form the modern-day country. But it wasn’t until the 1820s that the “Cook Islands” emerged as a name, in a nod to the famous English navigator.

In 1814 the first European visit to Rarotonga – the main landmass of the Cook Islands – was recorded. However, the landing was met with resistance from locals and lives were lost on both sides. After that, there were no more European visitors to the islands until 1821 when Christian missionaries arrived.

The missionaries attempted to overhaul traditional Polynesian customs, which had existed on the Cook Islands for centuries. As a result, they banned dancing and drumming. The influence of the Christian preachers is still seen in the area today, with white churches, Sunday singing and modest muumuu clothing remaining important aspects of the culture there.

It’s safe to say that the country easily entices with its gorgeous vistas, friendly people, thriving culture and interesting history. So, it’s little wonder that many businesses have tried to cash in on the islands’ majesty by carving out their very own slice of this South Pacific paradise over the years.

Among the companies that have tried to establish a business on the Cook Islands is the Sheraton Hotels and Resorts chain. The company purchased a piece of land on Rarotonga in the late 1980s, where it intended to build the country’s first five-star resort. However, an alleged Mafia connection would ensure that no one ever stayed at the hotel – and there are even stories of a curse placed on the site.

Today, the Rarotonga Sheraton is merely a shell of a resort. Nevertheless, it still cuts a ghostly figure on the landscape of the island. Those who venture onto the site of the derelict hotel will be met with a series of unfinished buildings, which were meant to exude five-star luxury.

It’s fair to say that there’s nothing fancy about the Sheraton today. The hotel’s abandoned buildings have fallen victim to the wild nature that surrounds it, as jungle has moved in on the overgrown resort. Nevertheless, the dystopian structure has become a tourist attraction of sorts in recent years.

Day trips offer tourists the opportunity to see the crumbling Sheraton up close. The entrance to the resort is lined by timeworn cement columns, which guide the eye towards an eerie half-finished hotel. A lack of frontage means it’s possible to peer into a series of exposed bare rooms – adding to the creepy atmosphere.

Alongside the empty rooms, there are other clues to the building’s intended purpose as a hotel. For instance, there’s a semi-complete grand entrance that should have welcomed guests into the lap of luxury. Instead, it serves as the gates to a forgotten ghost town, where the only patrons are a rabble of goats, cows and chickens.

Elsewhere, a rubble road leads to some form of would-be car park. But rather than expensive wheels, the space is filled with tin drums instead. In many places there are signs that warn against trespassing. However, that hasn’t stopped the most intrepid explorers braving a tour of the spooky Sheraton.

Clearly, the rundown resort was not what hotel developers had in mind for this serene spot in Rarotonga. Even today, the draw of the location is clear to see. Its prime water-front position is just a stone’s throw from the beach, while its proximity to the main road would give guests easy access to the rest of the island.

It’s little wonder, then, that the land the Sheraton sits on was snapped up to make way for a hotel. The origins of the resort go back to 1987, when the government of the Cook Islands made an ill-fated $52 million deal with an Italian bank. But was the project doomed from the very beginning?

Workers downed tools on the resort in 1993 when it was alleged that the Mafia had helped fund the project and that money laundering had taken place. At that point, the hotel was 80 percent complete, and it would remain in a state of disarray until the present day.

In the early stages of the development, Sheraton had been interested in managing the resort. However, the company pulled out before the project collapsed. Hilton Hotels & Resorts was also briefly tipped to take over, but that deal never came into fruition. Consequently, it seemed that both chains had a narrow escape with the seemingly doomed development.

With no one coming forward to take over the half-completed hotel, responsibility for the development fell to the Cook Islands government. According to The Guardian, it was consequently left $120m in debt – a sum that almost left the country bankrupt. And with government funds decimated, the failed project had wide-reaching consequences across the nation.

With little work at home, skilled laborers fled the Cook Islands in search of employment. Many of them ventured to New Zealand, with which the country shares a free association. As part of this formal relationship, Cook Islanders have New Zealand citizenship, making it easy for them to work and live there.

In the meantime, there were numerous attempts to get the resort on Rarotonga up and running. All of them subsequently failed, thanks in part to the complicated laws regarding land ownership in the Cook Islands. There were also rumors of a curse that affects Vaimaanga – the site on which the hotel sits.

Whisperings of supernatural forces operating in Vaimaanga have their roots in pre-colonial times. Back then, the location hosted bloody clashes between rival tribes. With this in mind, ancient spirits are believed to guard the area. However, in more recent times, the scrap of land has been embroiled in a hard-fought fight over ownership, and this is where the rumored curse stems from.

In the early 1900s leading Rarotonga chief Pa Ariki took the land as his own. However, this was disputed by an opposing clan, who had wanted the land for themselves. With both sides tussling over the site, things soon escalated, until Ariki’s rival – More Uriatua – was shot dead by European settler William Wigmore in 1911.

Wigmore didn’t go to jail for his deed, and he claimed the disputed piece of land for himself. However, following Uriatua’s death, his daughter Metua reportedly placed a curse on Vaimaanga. This is said to afflict any business on the site and will only be lifted when the land’s rightful owner can claim it once more.

In the years that followed the curse, Wigmore’s plantation business there floundered. And his plantation eventually failed, as did subsequent attempts to grow fruit on the plot. In the 1950s and ‘60s plans for a commercial citrus orchard on Vaimaanga came to nothing. Furthermore, a similar fate befell other proposed business ideas on the piece of land: including a pineapple farm and a herb plantation.

The next business to set its sights on Vaimaanga was the Sheraton hotel. And for a little while, it seemed like the Italian-backed project might actually make it to opening. However, that’s when the curse received a resurgence, thanks to More Rua – a grandson of the individual who originally cursed the land.

Rua made his presence known at a so-called groundbreaking ceremony for the resort in 1990. It was then that he turned up wearing the traditional dress of a Cook Islands high priest and wielding a spear. And as an audience looked on, he reinstated Metua’s curse with renewed enthusiasm.

According to legend, as Rua spoke at the ceremony, he struck a commemorative plaque to mark the start of the Sheraton project with the bottom of his spear. As he did so, it’s said that the rock shattered, causing cracks to extend deep into the earth below the construction site.

Just three years later, the building of the hotel ground to a stop. The resort was almost complete when funding from Italy was cut off and the building constructor went bust. As a result, the Cook Islands government was forced to cough up $120 million. This then led to a wave of redundancies and a mass exodus to New Zealand.

Subsequent attempts to salvage the half-finished hotel have all fallen through. One Japanese-Hawaiian effort to take the resort apparently using the Hilton brand over failed after the lead investor was accused of tax fraud. Meanwhile, the deal was scuppered by local opposition to the addition of a casino on the resort.

Nevertheless, the so-called Sheraton resort has remained an attractive opportunity for the bravest of investors. And in 2017 The Guardian reported on one such individual who fancied his chances. That man was Tim Tepaki – a native of the Cook Islands who has developed property in New Zealand. Using Chinese money, he hoped to transform the wasteland into the holiday destination it was always planned to be.

Tepaki had tried to reinvigorate the Sheraton site previously, before 2008’s financial downturn halted his plans. However, with Chinese backing, he hoped that his latest attempt would be more successful, especially since the Cook Islands have become an apparent area of interest to the Asian country in recent years.

However, anyone who wants to take over the plot should do so with caution. That’s because the More family’s curse is still in place, and in 2017 the acting head of the clan – Amoa Amoa – said that he had no plans of lifting it. He did, however, reassure visitors that the hex only applied to businesses and not individuals.

In 2017 Amoa told The Guardian, “There is no reason for any business to fail apart from the curse.” Referring to the most recent vision set forward by Tepaki, he added, “We are not opposed to the plans, but they cannot happen until the land is back with the More family.”