A report on our stay during the period Dec 26th 2005, Jan 6th 2006.
1 – THE RESORT
An introductory premise is necessary. We are a very experienced couple of travelers. We have traveled all over the world both for tourism and business, from North to South and East to West. We know all the “Tropical Paradises” and all the best hotels in the world.
ROOMS. Large, old furnishing, acceptable. No minibar, no ice in the rooms, no drinking water.
ROOM SERVICE. We asked substitution of a broken lamp and it was made three days later, the air-con was losing a lot of water and is has been arranged one week later. We asked to check out 1,30 hours after the official time (12,00) on the day of departure, and this was denied.
RESTAURANTS. We have had some of the worse food in our life. Breakfast was sufficient, although the tropical fruit offer might have been much larger.
The main restaurant at lunch and dinner was a complete disaster. Hot food (potatoes, vegetables, pasta, meat and fish) were, almost without exceptions too cooked, impregnated of oily sauces. We tried to eat only boiled rice and grilled items, and even so it was hard founding something eatable. Salads were OK. There was no fresh fruit at lunch and dinner (why?) except some melon or watermelon; cakes were a kind of greasy industrial cakes, all tasting the same.
The Japanese restaurant was better, and we had dinner there two times. First time OK, second time there was strong air stream from the cooking hotplate to our seats. We could not breath for the smoke and smell (why the extractor hood did not work?) and we had to leave the table.
The Italian restaurant is better than the main restaurant (we had a good fillet), but quality is still insufficient.
Usually we drink only a little bit of wine: impossible here, quality too low.
The grills at the nude beach offers only simple sandwiches, hamburgers, chips. After two days of this diet and had to make the walk to the main restaurant for having at least a salad.
No coffee available at any place at the resort, except the main restaurant. Again one has to make a (long) walk for a cup of coffee.
BEACHES. The nude beach is crowded with about 90% of the resort guests, plus some visitors from outside. Difficult finding a deckchair, unless one goes there early in the morning.
Chairs are on 4/5 rows very very close to each other. Quite horrible. It can be difficult reaching the chair, since the other ones are too close. Access to the sea is easy only from the end of the beach (nude beach), while form other places it is full of seaweed, coral stones and sea urchins.
The prude beach is much better, longer, deeper and allows easier access to the sea: it is always desert.
Other resorts in the same area offer much better beaches, with finer vegetation, easier access to the sea.
This is an old resort, and it shows all signs of deterioration.
HAVING FUN. We have found that almost all guests of the resort have a very clear idea of their way to having fun: drinking and assuming drugs. At any time from 8,00 in the morning we saw people with big glasses of cocktails and other strong alcoholic drinks. I could not believe how much alcohol can people drink.
We were surrounded by marijuana smoke all day long, MANY people were all the day under the effects of alcohol and marijuana. We have heard, although not seen, than a lot of cocaine is also consumed at the resort.
THE PLACE. Negril is in no way a romantic tropical paradise. The coastline is built with continuous hotels (many of them are old and ugly) and continuous constructions (including small factories) for more than 7 miles. The road from Montego to Negril, about 50 miles, passes continuously among houses and villages. In the evening one can see lights all along the coast, like in Miami Beach. The interior is much finer, vegetation is varied, but we were told not to travel out of the resort alone, since it can be dangerous.
CONCLUSIONS. Why to go to a place which can be considered, as a maximum, an obsolete 3 star hotel, in a relatively unattractive place, when there are so many wonderful places in the world offering real tropical paradise?
The cost we paid for 11 days at the resort was about US$ 5000 for two people, that is about $ 450 per night. At this cost we could have found MUCH BETTER options in dozen other places.
Then why going there?
The reply is in the next point.
2 – NUDISM, LIFESTYLING, NIGHT ACTIVITIES
The only reason for going to such a place, offering much less than other resorts, is that it offers a quite unique “service”: the possibility of being naked all day long and having a lifestyling holiday.
Another premise: since many years we are an experienced couple practising both nudism and lifestyling, therefore none of these experiences is new to us.
NUDISM. People are generally nude on the beach (usually not out of the beach). This is a good point. Women dress their very amusing slut wear the evenings (this is a great part of the charm of living in a nude/lifestyle place), and this is again a good point. We were not deceived.
We do not understand why at Hedo is there a minority of people going there, like going to a zoo, just to watch nude people while wearing a swimming suit. I do not mind about them. This is THEIR problem, not mine. This must be a marketing option of the resort.
LIFESTILING. We have been very disappointed. We have been in Hedo 11 nights. As said before we are an experienced couple. We are not young but we are quite good looking and we never have problems “meeting” other couples.
Most sexual activity was at the hot tub (dirty water covered of bubbles, roast chicken, etc.).
Some evenings (6/7 pm) there were 10/15 couples in the hot tub (same number after midnight), but with VERY LITTLE sexual activity. A few blow jobs, some touching, almost always within the couple, very little or no swinging. Some evenings the hot tub was desert.
We have seen swinging really few groups of several people. People in the hot tub talked talked talked, drank drank drand and smoked smoked smoked.
I do not know if people, after having talked, drank and smoked were going to their rooms for continuing something more exciting: frankly I doubt that this was the rule, although it surely happened (as it happened to us).
We have been told by people which had done other trips to Hedo, that this was a “very quiet week” (actually we spent two weeks), and that in other periods there is much more movement. This is perhaps true. But we have been to Hedo during these 2 weeks. We have had “close relationships” with other couples, but it was so complicated with so much alcohol and marijuana in between, in the dirty water, that in one normal evening in a European club we would have had many many more “close relationships” than in 11 days at Hedo.
DANCING and other night life. The Disco is a place where people ought to meet and create a sensual approach with other couples.
There was every evening music and shows at the main restaurant until 10/10,30 pm. Little contact with other people. Everything was quite traditional, some games with the public tried to be “sexy” with poor results.
At 10/10,30, when the main restaurant and its show were closing down, what to do: few options: the piano bar or play table tennis or billiard. At the piano bar some bad music and karaoke. Shall we cross the ocean and spend 450 $ per nigh for singing karaoke until midnight?
The disco opens at 11,00, but there was nobody until midnight or 1,00 am. The temperature (air-con) was so cold in the disco that many ladies, including mine, caught colds, it was possible going there only when the number of people was large enough to make the temperature a bit warmer. In the disco we have repeatedly seen some prostitutes, in the good nights there was some dancing and the temperature became acceptable, but in the bad ones (7 nights out of 11) there was very little action and dancing couples remained very few.
What can I add?
Perhaps I see only the empty part of the bottle and not the full part.
I frankly say that we have been very deceived.
We have crossed the world for finding something, which we did not find.
My partner and myself had a wonderful time. We have been very close to each other all the time and this fills the empty part of the bottle. We met some fine people, and this also contributes to filling the empty part.
Our point is: the relationship within our couple would have been wonderful also in other much better (or much cheaper) resorts.
We would also have met there fine people.
Then why going to Hedo?
I have no answer to this question other than saying that I will NOT go there again.
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