Tony and Carol's First Hedo Trip

It's been my dream for some time now to go to Hedonism with my wife. I had heard so much about the place since the mid-80's and it wasn't until recently that I seriously researched the resort, put my foot down, told my wife that I was tired of the 16 hour a day grind and that we were going come hell or high water. That was it....go see the travel agent, book the trip, come home with the airline tickets and related paperwork, and go.....End of story,right?.....Wrong! Firstoff, my wife was taking a lot of guff at work from her supposedly more Carribean-savvi co-workers....She came home one night from work with tales of orgies, swapping, etc.....She was absolutely panic stricken. Time for a little damage control. I immediately began digging up every website my nimble little fingers could get their hands on starting with Biff's Bunch, Castaways Travel, Bare Neccessities Tours, Harve's Hedonism Site, and of course, numero uno Denny Pasternak. It was a two week crash course, if you will, or maybe I should call it "Hedonism Boot Camp For Wifey". In a little while, everything was OK, although she was still a little apprehensive. We took care of all the arrangements that middle aged couples who haven't had a serious vacation in fifteen years had to do....Child sitting arrangements with parents, dogsitter, etc., and next thing you know it's the day BEFORE the day of reckoning, and we're down at the Days Inn at the Philadelphia Airport preparing for our Air Jamaica flight which left early the next morning. A word about Air Jamaica.....I believe at this point I can safely say that unless someone gives me a serious arm twisting, or unless AJ decides to start flying from the states to the island for FREE, I do not see me traveling with them again in this lifetime......Now don't get me wrong, they're a nice little airline, and they try real hard....The service was good, the flight people were real nice, the food was good, but man!...Those A310 Airbuses that they fly.....They are very cramped. You're lucky if you have fourteen inches of room between you and the next upright.....and for a three hour flight, you definately feel parts of your body falling asleep that you DON'T want to fall asleep. Next time, US-Air......Hindsight is 20/20! Anyway, cut to the chase, right? We arrived on Friday October 24th around ll:30 AM hookup with the proper bus shuttle service and begin the, yup, you guessed it, RIDE FROM HELL!........AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!........Actually it wasn't that bad, just a little tedious, and nothing that a few Red Stribe beers along the way couldn't solve. For anyone going for the first time I STRONGLY suggest taking one of the air shuttles offered, although there is one school of thought proposed by many that EVERYONE should make the bus ride to the resort at least once, not just because of getting a feel for the culture you are about to enter, but also, viewing the poverty is definately a sobering experience and makes you realize just how good we have it here in the states. We arrived at the resort amidst our own cheers, and Diva, the house chantuse/consigiour/show MC/body painting artist extrordinaire and all around resort mentor was there to greet us with champagne and OJ. This girl has without a doubt the greatest job in the universe...I mean if you said to me, would I rather be Bill Gates, or have this job, I'd take the job....honest! Checkin was relatively painless and quick and much to my surprise we were upgraded without asking, to the nude garden side. This turned out to be a real windfall, as I will explain a little later on. The weather was beautiful and we were shown to our room where we were soon hurriedly unpacking and getting ready to hit the beach/pool. We spent the first day on the prude side, simply because my wife had a terrible migrane from the trip down, the heat, and the bus ride, and just wasn't in the mood for the nude beach/pool right off the bat. I understood. I did wander up there myself though for about a half an hour just to get a feel for the place and report back to her, just so we knew what to expect for the next day, pending her feeling better, she would be up there with me too. About 5 PM we went back to the room, which by the way was beautiful, took a nap, showered, and got ready for the supper buffet in the open air dining pavillion. The food was absolutely awsome!! Anything you want and as much as you want, nonstop!....Duck, chicken, lamb, seafood, zillions of hot and cold items, all exquisitely done.....And the drinks!...Words simply cannot describe...It was to me a true culinary experience....everything was just so superbly done!!! Anyway, we retired early that night because we were just plain exhausted. The next morning we got up to a sunny hot day again...my wife's headache was gone, and we headed out early to the nude beach/pool to stake our claim of Jamaican sand. By the way, while we're on the subject of the nude beach....There was NO ONE and I mean NO ONE at the prude beach....I'd say maybe a half dozen people.....When you hear people talking about Hedo and you hear the expression that the nude beach/pool is THE place to be, they're not kidding. I would venture to say that at any given time three quarters of the entire resort population was up at that end. It was great. We met people from all across the USA and elsewhere and the truly beautiful part about the whole thing is that for those who are body concious.....NOW LISTEN CLOSELY......Don't Be!!!!. We were amidst fat people, skinny people, old people, young people, gorgeous people, NOT SO GORGEOUS people, you name it....no one gawked, no one cared. You went. You got your drinks and chairs. You talked. You socialized in a very normal way.....conversasion about kids, job, money, car, travel, blah, blah, blah.......Being naked just doesn't enter into it......Everyone's just there to tan and to relax. We had some great conversasions with some great people, met two couples from our home area, The Poconos, and "bought" each other drinks (NOT!). There were one or two "groups" there. One nudist group and one swingers' group. They had their banners strung up on the beach, which apparently all the visiting groups do, and kind of treated those areas as if they were their own little parcel of real estate, but did not bother anyone and kept to themselves. I spoke with a few of them and they appeared to be pleasant (but somewhat outgoing) people. Our greatest joy was the swim-up bar at the nude pool adjoining the nude beach. About every forty five minutes or so, when we felt that the scorching Jamaican sun had done us in on the beach, we would retreat to the pool, find a shady pool stool up at the bar, and enjoy one of the MANY fantastic drinks while lounging in the cool water.....It truly does not get much better than that. On the beach there were numerous inflatable rafts left around which you could use at your own discression to float out to the warning markers with. You don't know what pure bliss is until you're naked and bobbing in the water soaking up the sun. Let me address a couple of things by catagory now if I may:

RESERVATIONS/ROOM SIDE: A lot of people give credence to the type of accomodations that they book at the resort: nude garden side, nude pool side, regular beach side, nude beach side......I think that unless a person is on the prudish side and only wants to be exposed to a minimal amount of nudity or toplessness while they are there, it really doesn't matter. The only advantage that the clothing optional sides have is that when coming from or going to the nude beach/pool/hot-tub, you don't have to go through the trouble of getting dressed, or redressed, as the case may be.

THE ROOMS: The rooms are not real spacious and storage is minimal, but, they were very nice indeed.....No tv, which could be a good or bad thing, each room had a cd player and a clock radio as well as a telephone. We had no problem calling the states to check on the kids, etc., ....I would strongly suggest that you have a calling card or credit card, vs. going through the front desk, just to expedite things. The air conditioning and plumbing left a little to be desired, but they DID work well enough to get the job done, and all in all we were very comfortable.

SERVICE: Although there is no room service, it didn't seem to matter, you didn't want to eat by yourself anyway. The maid service was absolutely outstanding. We would get back to our room every day about three or four PM and as soon as you open the door, the smell of pine cleaner just hit you in the face.....Everything was spotless, and they even lined up your shoes and toiletries...AND angled the hangers in the closet for neatness of appearance!!! Wow!!. I can't praise the housekeeping people enough....and NONE of them had an attitude! They were constantly smiling and very eager to engage in pleasant conversasion.

FOOD AND DRINK: Remember at the beginning of my report, I told you about the possibility of ORGIES? Well there was ONE orgy going on all the time, and simply put it was an endless orgy of food and drink. The buffets are something to be seen, and the bar tenders are among the best I've ever seen......AND, they're VERY generous with the manner in which they mix the drinks. At the nude beach and pool during the afternoon, we would hit McMons Grill and treat ourselves to his monster hamburgs and fries.....and let me tell you, this guy MUST have a Phd in hamburger making, if that's possible because they were DABEST,MON!

SECURITY: Contrary to what some websites may say about security being either too over zealeous, or, too complacent, I found them to be just right.....They maintained a low key presence, yet you could see them doing their job whenever they had too, in particular when it came to people who thought they were going to visit the nude area and not partake......even then, they were mannerly and cordial in doing what they had to do. At night their presence was visible on the gounds as well, but again in a low key manner. It was a comforting feeling.

THE GROUNDS: The grounds were immaculately clean....not so much as one ciggarette butt.....The crew is constantly at work trimming and cleaning and I was shocked, one morning at 3 AM when I went out on our little "deck" to have a smoke and cool off in the breeze, to see a grounds crew right outside our room quitely working.

ENTERTAINMENT: There is constantly something to do and look forward to. Every day at breakfast, we would check one of the big chalk boards placed around the pavillion and see what the daily activities were. I was sorry that because of the window of time that we had, we missed both the Toga Party and the PJ party.....The wet T-shirt contest was an absolute blast.....we went back to our rooms with our sides hurting, it was so much fun and all done in good nature......Lots of fun abd games on the beach at night too. ALL IN ALL????? Let me tell you this....my wife and I weren't back home more than five minutes, when I whipped out a blank envelope and slipped in a hundred dollars towards our next trip in May.....and the trip after that.....and the trip after that......and the trip after that.....and... .....well, you get the idea! Ciou, Tony and Carol