Well, what can we say? Another classic Hedo trip in the books., but with a couple minor complications along the way…
Day 1 travel day: the usual pain in the ass at the airports etc. MBJ was actually easy, we were through immigration, customs and on the van in about a half hour from the time we hit the gate. There were only a few people in the bus, all going to Hedo, so it was a straight trip without the usual bar stops on the way over. We booked with Dream Pleasure Tours this trip. As we entered the lobby, Gary from DPT was there to greet us and get us set up and checked in. He even offered to get us drinks from the bar while we were checking in. Service gets an A from us, we would use them again.
Got out to the nude side as soon as we got our room and luggage set up. Immediately started conversations with the nearest people to us at Delroy’s and sure enough, just like any other trip, we found everyone to be perfectly friendly. Gotta love this place! We managed to get a last minute spot for two at Martino’s, so we enjoyed fine dining on our first night. Crashed early after dinner because we’d been up since about 2:30 am. Woke up around 12:30am or so and said, “hmm, let’s go grab our towels and head to the nude side”. Once there we got some food at the grill, a couple drinks and spent more time in the pool than the hot tub.
Note: this was repeated often… We found that the temperature difference between going during December and July were such that we found the hot tub to be uncomfortable to be in for long periods of time on this trip. It’s just about a necessity late night in December, but it’s more comfortable in the pool in July. The pool in December is all but deserted at night, but we had plenty of company on this trip.
Day 2, first full day at home: We were up too damn early, but we went with it anyhow. Breakfast at the dining room was the usual assortment of food. Egg station was rolling, lots of fresh fruit, probably a better supply than I’ve seen in the past. Never was there a banana shortage (oh so critical for that first dirty banana!) like we’ve seen on some past trips. The ham at the carving station in the mornings was consistently good.
Headed out to the nude side, stopped to have our air mattress blown up at the dive shack. FYI, this is probably the last time we bring a mattress with us. For one, there were always plenty of free blue foam floats to go around. For two, there is now a new raft/float anchored on the nude side. It’s made of molded plastic, very solid and probably 10’x10”. There are grab rails to get onto it, but not a full ladder. At any rate, this was a big improvement over past versions. Another note: there appears to have been some fairly extensive weed control measures that have been taken. There are much larger sections of the nude side waterfront that are sand, rather than seaweed and urchins… Floated around for a while, met a few people on the beach and in the water and generally settled into our first full day.
Headed to the pool a little while after the bar opened up. There were two main groups on this trip. One group was from Tom’s Trips, one was from Dream Pleasure Tours (primarily from the Texas Players Club on the latter). We met people from both and found some really wonderful people to hang around with in both groups. Laughter flowed, alcohol flowed, and everyone was having a good time. In the earlier part of the afternoon, A DJ brought along by one of the groups took over the sound system. DJ Mark Maze played one of the best sets of music I’ve ever heard at Hedo! He absolutely nailed the vibe of both the resort, and the demographic there. Country, classic rock, reggae, hip hop, he covered it all along with sound effects, occasional commentary (that never took away from the vibe!) and requests along the way. I hope to be there another time with him “spinning” tracks because he had a really good feel for it. BTW, a genuinely nice guy too…
Dinner was at the main dining room tonight, and the food was generally pretty good and offered enough choices to keep everyone happy. We didn’t stay for the show. We were up early, so we decided that a nap and a late night pool/hot tub thing was better for us.
Insert comment here: we stayed Garden view regular (prude for the veterans) and the room had been nicely cleaned and updated, but was not anything special. Comfortable enough though. We had two complaints about the room. A) The air conditioning worked fine, however every time it kicked off or on, the unit went “bang”. Nothing we couldn’t live with, but a little annoying anyhow. B) The water temperature was nearly impossible to regulate. Not just in the shower either, the faucet was always on the hotter side of warm, unless you were running the shower, then it would cool down. It got to the point where we would run the shower while brushing our teeth, just so that we weren’t brushing with hot water… Again, nothing we couldn’t live with, but as much as Marshmallow LTD are updating the place, there is still room for improvement…
Day 3: I’m not going to write much here, day 3 was pretty much a carbon copy of day 2. I will note a couple of things about weather here though. We’ve never been during July before. In past trips we would normally walk along the beach from Hedo toward Sandals, Beaches and so on… every morning after breakfast. We would often go kayaking, sailing etc. afterward, before heading over to the nude side and hanging out for the day in the pool or in the ocean. We found that on this trip, by the time we were done with breakfast, we were already so hot (despite the fact that the new ceiling fans in the dining room were pretty much all working well) that all we wanted to do was go and get into the water and cool off. Note: your results may vary – we’re New Englanders and aren’t used to hot weather all the time. Floridians and other southern U.S. folks may have a better tolerance for heat than we do. Also similar to Florida weather, pretty much every afternoon a short but drenching T-shower blew through.
Day 4: The morning started off pretty much the same, and we ended up in the pool at Delroy’s as usual by late morning, early afternoon. Well, sometime in the later afternoon, we noticed a shift in overall demographic and dynamic. A large group of predominantly African Americans came in (Erotic Explosion I think was the group name?). This group was here to party! We had a blast hanging around with them! Once again, my theories of Hedo’s cross cultural appeal and attitude were affirmed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Black, white or any other color of the rainbow, tall, short, heavy, skinny, pierced, tattooed, shaved or natural – once you’re all nekkid and hanging at Delroy’s, all perceived “real world” differences mean absolutely nothing! As one of our new friends pointed out, maybe congress should spend some time at Hedo and we can see how Obama and Boehner can work things out over shots in the nude pool… We also got the chance to meet a couple of board members. Spidercat & Dee and Bruce were all great people.
Okay, done with the individual day by day breakdown. We were there for a few more days, and much of it followed the same pattern except…
Friday night was lobster night (yay!) but my lovely wife often feels the lobster and butter are too heavy for her, so she got a Caesar salad at one of the stations instead. Later that evening she started to feel a little queasy. The following morning she was in rough shape all morning. I let her sleep until noon and went back to check on her. She had been in and out of the bathroom all morning and still having a rough time. She tried to hang out for a while at the pool, but it was a catch 22. Every time she started to feel a little bit better, but weak, she’d try eating something light, and would go right back through the same thing. By Saturday evening she was laying in the bed shivering in between bouts of vomiting. Classic symptoms of food poisoning. She really wasn’t feeling well enough to eat anything solid until a good 24-36 hours later. She was able to keep drinking water, so she managed to stay hydrated at least, but really not a good time! We ended up speaking to another woman that Saturday who had experienced many of the same symptoms that day, also after eating the Caesar salad Friday night. If anyone from the management at Hedo reads this trip report, I hope they try to make sure that they are regularly inspecting and monitoring their kitchens for “best practices”, especially in hot weather when it comes to things like dressings that contain things like, egg, cream and anchovies…
We also observed something that left us a little disturbed… We saw two members of the watersports staff looking a little bit suspicious. One of them passed a wallet and cell phone to the other, who quickly palmed it. The two looked right at us as they saw us looking at them and quickly walked out into the woods behind the pool bathrooms. Not knowing what else to do we caught Kayan’s attention and let him know what we saw. He went back to find them. He reported back to us that they claimed that the items belonged to them, but at least he knew who they were in case something turned up missing… Bear in mind, we don’t know if anything ever turned up missing and all are innocent until proven guilty.
In other regards, the staff were all top notch. Winston is a busy man these days, God love him. He seems to be doing virtually all of the set up and choreography for the shows now, along with his usual outstanding (and sometimes outrageous) performances. We never saw either Delroy or Scumba (vacations? Health concerns?) but the bar staff was always on top of things. Another positive, while we did have a negative food experience during the vacation, most of what we saw was really positive. The perishables were always on ice, there was netting placed over the fruits etc. to keep bugs out. The entertainment staff was as good as always.
Bottom line, other than a few hiccups along the way, we’ll be back, when we get the chance next. Trip #6 is in the books and trip #7 has not been scheduled yet, but, it will happen!
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Sorry you had to experience a few blips.
s
Originally Posted by TnTTx
We had a group member get really sick this year right before they came but they still came since they figured it would only last a short time. Well it lasted most of the week and we only saw him occasionally as he was usually in his room for the whole time sleeping.
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