Virgin Trip 2/29/08 - 3/8/08
Arrival.
The plane went up. The plane came down. The wheels on the bus went ‘round and ‘round. Two hours and forty-five minutes after touching down in Mo-Bay, we (R & K) pulled up to the front “door” of Hedo. Immigration and Customs at Sangster were a breeze and there was one beer stop on the trip from Mo-Bay to Negril. (BTW – the trip back to Mo-Bay after our eviction took an even hour and a half. Go figure.)
Check-in went quickly. We had booked ROH and I asked, as nicely as I could, if they had anything available on the nude side. We ended up prude side as close to Sandals as we could get so maybe my inquiry wasn’t interpreted as being as nice as I thought I was being or they just didn’t have anything available at the time. Michael assisted us to our room and was very welcoming.
Room
The room was clean and decent, but nothing fancy. The mirror on the ceiling was a nice touch, but a bit overrated in our opinion. The only complaints we had about the room was the king-size bed with the non-fitting bed linens. Also, the AC could have been a bit more enthusiastic although we were never truly uncomfortable. They did give us a notice one day that our AC would be temporarily interrupted the next day while they did some maintenance work on the chillers. So, apparently, they are working on the system. Friends of ours said that their AC was so efficient, their room quickly became an icebox if they didn’t keep it turned down.
Housekeeping was good and, yes, I tipped. When you take the time to line up all of my wife’s toiletries and our shoes in neat little rows and straighten up things in the room that I wouldn’t expect to be straightened, you’re going the extra mile in my opinion and deserve some consideration. But, I’m easy to please.
At the end of our stay, we were glad we had stayed on the prude side as it seemed quieter there than the nude side for sleeping. The dining room was only a two-minute walk and Delroy’s was maybe five minutes. No problem. The only downside to the location was road noise, but we were used to that halfway through the first night and it never bothered us after that.
After getting our luggage into the room, we stripped down and sunscreened up. I pulled on some shorts and a t-shirt, my wife wrapped herself in a sarong and we headed off to the nude beach to meet our friends from California (S & J) who had arrived the day before.
Beach
We soon found them and the ladies settled into the beach chairs to catch up while S and I headed to Delroy’s to get some drinks. The Fluffernutters were in the house and their activities were immediately apparent as well as interesting to observe, especially to Hedo Virgins.(“Well, Toto…I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore, eh?”). One nice-looking lady was standing behind a man at the bar in the pool and repeatedly rubbing her naked front up and down his naked back. When she saw me looking, she smiled and gave me a couple eyebrows up as if to say, “Isn’t this fun?” I smiled back.
The beach was beautiful and large with lots of palm trees so if you wanted shade it was available. Augustus was there and working as hard as we have heard. He was a joy and teased me with a rake from behind while I was talking to some people making me think I had to wave away a bug. Of course, the people to whom I was speaking knew what was going on before I did. Funny man, that. Later, he saw me picking up a table at my wife’s request while she moved her lounger and he “chewed” me out for letting her do the lounger instead of me doing it for her. He even swatted me with some of the plastic bags he carries with him. All in good fun and we really enjoyed watching him on the beach. (“Sir, SIR…get the hell off my beach!!”) He is one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever seen. What a treasure Hedo has in him.
The beach is big enough so that you don’t feel like you’re right on top of everyone although there are people close by. We set up on the jetty our second day there and adopted it as our home. It had a good mix of sun and shade as well as a view of the entire beach “theater” so we could watch the “show.”
Pool and Hottub
The nude pool was always clean and the hottub was the same. They shocked both of them hard with chemicals every morning and evening and no “orgoslag” was noted on the hottub, although there was a “sheen” on the surface of the water at times that was clearly from suntan oil. We spend most of our time at the beach but spent some time in the hottub when it rained in the afternoon and a few nights after the organized entertainment was done. We saw people having “fun” in the tub, but it was not everyone all the time – in fact, it was the minority of the people there at any one time and it was apparent that many couples were just enjoying each other. Conversations went on around them without anyone particularly noticing what was going on or caring. You could watch if you wanted, but staring was not cool.
We didn’t see any real Vinnies although I did occasionally see some single guys near and in the tub with their heads on swivels trying to see what they could see. Nobody invaded our space or bothered us at any time. It was apparent that many people were treating the hottub as a place to just meet and talk with friends. Lots of laughter and conversation…
We went there one night for some fun after the disco, but there were several single guys obviously looking to see what they could see and some groups of people talking. We left shortly after arriving and continued our private party on the then-deserted nude beach.
Entertainment
This was perhaps one of the most surprising parts of our Hedo “initiation”. We met the Entertainment Coordinators who were uniformly young and friendly. They were also incredibly talented, especially three who could really sing – Winston, Sunshine and Abraham. I was especially impressed with Abraham as he was the most natural singer in the group – it was as effortless to him as speaking – the sign of a natural talent. His voice was a clear as a bell and he had a great stage presence. He was able to sing many different types of music – I think he is very marketable outside of a place like Hedo.
The EC’s were there to have fun and engage the guests in games and activities. They did a great job and the shows they put on in the evening were nothing less than spectacular.
One evening was “Country and Western Night” and Hedo brought in a local to sing country songs. The skeptic in me wondered how good that could be. The answer turned out to be “amazingly good”. He was excellent – great voice and guitar skills.
We did the whole Toga Night “thing” and it was fun although I can see where doing it once or twice would be enough for serious Repeat Offenders. I tried to learn the line dance they were trying to teach, but I’m just too white and didn’t have enough to drink to get the rhythm. One of the EC’s tried her darndest to teach me and she was very sweet about it even when I obviously was too uncoordinated to learn. I thanked her and went to sit down and watch.
The disco was fun, although really loud. (I know, “Duh” but my hearing was damaged when I was younger by too much exposure to loud noises and I’m a bit sensitive to it) We heard the same songs in there all three nights and it seems they could vary it a bit, but that’s no big deal as far as I’m concerned as I don’t get all that excited about discos in the first place.
We spent a couple of evenings in the piano bar. It was fun to sing along with the old familiar songs, but sometimes the piano player was using rhythms different than the way we had learned the songs and it was hard to follow an unfamiliar rhythm.
No section on “Entertainment” would be complete without mentioning the Water Slide. The day we arrived, the EC’s had staged an “invasion” of the prude side by the Naked People. Unfortunately, we arrived about 2 hours after victory was declared by the Naked People. So, one evening after dinner, one member of our party convinced management to open the Slide. Giggling like school kids, we stripped down at the base of the slide and began our runs. Please allow me to suggest that, when you see the colored lights, you plug your nose, which is a lesson I learned the hard way on the first run. And, yes, it is amazing how fast you can get going on that thing when you’re bare-assed nekkid. And, yes, people who are clothed and heading down the stairs to the disco, especially women, can be really startled when you round the steps heading back up to the top of the slide, laughing your semi-drunken ass off. You’d think she’d never seen a naked man before given the way she gasped. Sheesh.
We also went on the clothing-optional catamaran cruise on Tues. Within 3 minutes of leaving the dock, 95% of the passengers were naked and the rest wandered off to the back of the boat. On the way to Pirates’ Cave, we passed a couple of boats from resorts like Sandals. Seeing the expressions on the faces of those aboard those boats when they realized we were almost all naked was, as they say, “priceless”. Of course, we all stood up and waved at them while yelling, “We’re having more fun than you are!!!”
While swimming near the Pirates’ Cave, I got stung on the back of my arm by a jellyfish. It wasn’t terribly painful – sort of like a bee-sting. When I got back on the boat, Rasta Ralphie gave me some white rum to put on it. After a few minutes of that treatment, the sting went away, never to return. Glad it was just my elbow considering all else that was exposed in the water. My wife and our friends went snorkeling and saw some beautiful coral and fish. I was expecting more PDA’s on the cruise, but the group we were with was fairly subdued. But, we had a good time anyway.
Food
Before we left, I had read trip reports in which people complained quite bitterly about the food. I have to say that, while not everything was always perfect (as it never is anywhere you go), we were very pleased with the food. After having been at a couple of resorts in Mexico where the buffet quickly grew monotonous because the main courses never changed, the buffet at Hedo always had something different and interesting to try. We never went away hungry or dissatisfied. Some of the entrees were extremely good. No complaints here about the food.
We ate two nights at Munasan, the Japanese “restaurant”, and, while it was good, the menu was the same both nights. The young man doing the cooking was very friendly and it was apparent that he enjoyed his job. There was not as much of a “show” as you find at some place like the Kobe Steakhouse, but the food was good and it made for a couple of nice evenings.
We also ate two nights at Pastafari, our favorite. The first night we were there, they were out of the lamb chops we had heard about so I ordered the beef tenderloin, which was excellent. My wife found her chicken and pasta dish to be somewhat bland. The second night we were there, they had saved some lamb chops for us and most at the table had those. They were good but, although I like lamb, I must say that the beef tenderloin I had the previous night was better.
While Munasan is part of the main dining room, Pastafari is off in a separate room so it is a much quieter place to eat than the main dining room where the dinner show was often going on while we ate.
PDA’s
Yes, there were PDA’s. They were never “in your face” and you usually had to look for them, but they were definitely there. They lessened in number and frequency after the Fluffernutters left, but there was still plenty to see.
The rafts in the bay got some use and it paid to keep an eye on them as you never knew what you were going to see at any one time.
We saw. We contributed. Enough said.
Overall Impressions
Before we left home, I had read some alarming posts on various message boards in which people complained about food, room, AC, lack of hot water and towels, security, etc. The friends with whom we had planned the trip even contemplated cancelling over concerns about the condition of the resort. Going to Hedo was my idea so, if it was going to be as much of a train wreck as some of the board posters indicated, I was going to be “The Goat”. But, we had already paid our money and needed a vacation. Our friends decided to give it a shot but went there prepared to immediately go to Grand Lido Braco or Negril if Hedo was as bad as what a lot of people said.
In the end, we found a three-star resort in good condition. The food was good. The rooms, while nothing to marvel at, were clean, decent and comfortable. The pools were clean and there was an abundance of fresh towels. Hot water was, for the most part, plentiful in our room. It was a little cool at times but, if you kept the water running for a minute or two, it warmed up nicely. Our friends who stayed on the nude side said they had all the hot water they could ever want.
Management’s presence was obvious in the dining room and throughout the resort – checking to make sure all was being done to ensure that guests had a good experience. The staff at Hedo was great – wonderful, beautiful people in all respects. I never met a surly one and I exchanged smiles and “respect” fist-bumps with many. A simple “Thank You” went a long way toward opening doors and hearts. Our last night in the main dining room, one of our friends got up to go to the bar to both stretch his legs and get a drink. Our waitress saw him at the bar and, with a smile on her face, chased him back to the table telling him, “I am taking care of you tonight. You go sit down.”
We came away from Hedo having had a great time and a plan to return, probably next year. My wife, who I was afraid would be put off by the PDA’s as well as the negative things I had heard about the resort, has already told me she had the best time at Hedo she’s ever had at any resort and she hopes we can go back there next year for our annual mid-winter getaway.
The bottom line here is that, if you go someplace determined to find every little thing wrong you can find and then complain about it, you are going to find what you seek. If you go to Hedo with an open mind and an attitude of, “I’m not expecting perfection, I’m just here to have fun”, you will also find what you seek. Being able to overlook small things is part of relaxing on vacation. We spend 51 weeks a year worrying about the little things. Why take that with you on vacation?
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Originally Posted by advokaat
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