24 July – 10 August
(Sorry for the length of this post – how Canadian is that???)
We are a mid-40’s couple married for 20 years. Been to both Hedo 2 and Desire Pearl before. When we looked around for a place to celebrate our 20th anniversary we looked at a number of factors including price, travel time to get there (we’re from Alberta, Canada where everywhere is a one or two-connection trip), amenities, included activities, etc. We decided to return to Hedo as they offered some free nights (we got 3 free nights for staying 14 nights in one calendar year) and also had water sports included as well – Sam is a diver and wanted to get back into it. So after a 3-day journey to get to Hedo (another story for another post) we arrived on Thursday the 24th and settled in for our 17-night stay.
We chose garden prude as a room category as we wanted to save some $$ and stay for more days then have a closer room to the nude side. And Hedo accommodated us – room 1259, 2nd furthest room from the nude pool. But it had everything we needed – hot water and cold AC. Imagine our fear when we had to move rooms one night 3 days in after some “critter” got into our room and proceeded to call out to its mate in the garden outside. It was loud, and kept us awake for all of the wrong reasons. But the front desk was fantastic and moved us to room 1250 for the remainder of our stay. Still had hot water, but the AC wasn't as cold as we would have liked it. But we never complained because it did keep the room cool, if not cold.
We tried to book in with AWOL but were told we couldn't get in, so we booked with another agent. However, upon meeting TJ and Chris and Jamie and Leslie and everyone else, we were welcomed with open arms into the group – we even got some AWOL dog tags that we proudly wore for the rest of our stay. I can’t say enough good things about AWOL – if you are looking for a great group in late July, I highly recommend them.
Food was good – we always found something that we liked. We ate mostly at the buffet as they had a great selection of fresh fruit and veggies – I cut back on about 95% of the carbs I normally eat and actually ended up losing 5 pounds on the trip. Now to keep it going back home. Did Japanese once and Italian about 4-5 times. Both were good, but due to high humidity and hot weather, the Japanese grill got extra hot.
The EC’s work really hard but when it is low occupancy or a non-group week, their job is hard. But kudos to them for putting on great shows and activities. Winston was gone for most of our trip – doing some ‘promotional tours in the US’ – so we only saw him for 5 or 6 days. Had a few new ones show up during our stay.
Spent most mornings on the nude beach (Rose) and SCUBA (Sam). The Water Sports guys are top notch – I got in many dives and had a blast. Rose got a fantastic all-over tan that I got to enjoy every evening. Late afternoons were spent either resting in the room (wink wink) or in the nude pool. We didn't spend a lot of time in the nude pool our first trip but this time we were in there most afternoons. Saw couples getting friendly, we got friendly with others and ourselves. The AWOL group again showed us that the place is so much better with a group there. So many fun people there!
The 2nd week we were there was the most disappointing part of our trip. Low occupancy was fine with us – lots of floaties and never a fight for beach chairs. However, most people there were locals for Emancipation Day/Independence Day celebrations. This became a week of clothed people on the nude side, no enforcement of the locals being nude or using their cell phones/cameras – they were everywhere. Rose stopped walking nude on the beach to go get a drink or go to the bathroom when she heard one single male say to another single male that he spent a lot of extra money to get a nude side ocean-front room to seek naked people and was upset Rose wore a towel to cover up. Security would get mad at me for wearing a suit to my beach chair when I went there in between dives, (by then we had been there 10 days) but the locals walked around fully clothed and nothing was done to them. Another guest (new friends of ours from Europe) went to complain to a security guard about this and the guard pointed at his cigarette ( which was a joint) and said that what he was smoking was illegal and if he wanted to not get kicked out he better stop complaining! The entire vibe of the place changed – little interaction between guests – you could see the separation between locals and us foreigners. By the end of the week after Independence Day and the locals were leaving and the new group (CHAR Travel? They looked like fun too) was arriving things started to get back to ‘normal’. But we had a week where we didn’t dress up for theme nights, didn’t go to the hot tub at night because of the singles and gawkers, and we stayed to the outside tables for the shows because of the cameras and the general rudeness of the locals.
Piano bar was hit or miss. Deon and Stephanie are great singers and he is a great musician but he talks waaaayyyyy too much between songs. I timed it one night and he was spending up to 5 minutes between songs passing the mic to get someone to sing when they didn't want to. Pick a loose set list, play some upbeat music for goodness sake and get the party going!!! I didn’t come all this way to listen to some drunk 20-something (or 30- or 40-something) choose a song, then change her mind and then sing something (way off key) and giggle the entire time. I don’t go to karaoke for this reason.
Disco was also hit or miss. When the locals were there it became a place where they would stand along the walls and watch others dance and text on their phones. Rose didn’t feel comfortable in there most nights either. Maybe we would get there too early in the evening, but a lot of nights we were the only ones in there (this is between 11:30 and midnight). So off to the hot tub to cool off and enjoy ourselves before retiring to the room to enjoy ourselves some more.
So while this report appears to focus on the negatives, we still did enjoy ourselves – we just changed our plans and expectations and made some stuff up as we went along. We want to come back, and we met some fantastic couples (and singles) that we would love to meet up with and party with again. While we can’t ever recommend the 1st week of August for anyone, if we come back during the summer months it will be the last half of July to party with AWOL.
"Sam" and "Rose" (some may know us by our real names as the Water Sports guys used it due to me registering for SCUBA)
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Originally Posted by rickndeb
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