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We made our first trip to Hedo II this October. We were a lot like most of the other reports I have read. I wanted to come to Hedo badly, my wife was much more reluctant. I had first heard of Hedo at a travel fair about 6 years ago. Hedo definitely caught my attention. I have been visiting web sites dedicated to Hedo off and on for years. We had the typical concerns..can we get nekkid in public? Only after Dianna read numerous trip reports herself did she realize this wasn't such a big deal.
We started our trip from Washington State, so it took 17 hours from our front door to the resort. We could not sleep the night before the trip and the seating on Air Jamaica is such that a short guy hits his knees on the back of the seat. When we arrived at Hedo we were exhausted! We were instructed to have breakfast and within an hour we had our room. After a short nap we were ready to attempt the nude beach. We found a couple of beach chairs and by the time I could put my towel down Di was naked! We got settled and headed for the water. We met a very nice couple who had been to Hedo about a million times. they made us feel very comfortable.
We had corresponded with several people through the web sites before leaving and over the next couple of days they all arrived. We ended up with the greatest bunch of friends! We hung out with married couples and single men. Everyone was friendly and no one pressured us to do anything we didn't want to. Some people would sit totally quiet and not really go out of their way to start a conversation, but all of them responded well when we started talking to them. Some people were less likely to start a conversation, but were very talkative once the ball got rolling. So even if there are people around who are not active in the conversations make sure you ask them where they are from or something very simple. They are waiting for some one else to be the brave one and initiate.
We met a lot of people who had been to Hedo numerous times and had never left the resort. We took a taxi (Raga) to the roaring river (see picture) caves and had a guided (Leroy) tour of the caves and a small village. We stopped briefly for a Red Stripe in the village. The guide was very informative and took very good care of us. One thing I noticed is none of the Jamaicans begged for money. They did try to sell you items everywhere, but no begging. I have been to Mexico and everyone begged for money. I would recommend Raga to anyone. He is usually around the resort. If you ask for him they will find him. He only works with guides he has known for a long time and knows they are honest people. If he takes you shopping down town he checks on you periodically to make sure you are still comfortable and everything is all right.
The week we were there was a slow week. We had just missed the lifestyle crowd and the Halloween group was just starting to arrive when we left. I think that may have worked to our advantage as we had no problems getting our room. We had heard they were already starting to bump people arriving for Halloween and they were over booked.
One of the single men we met had brought some old clothing to give to the staff and got his room upgraded from sharing with a roommate on the prude side to a room to himself on the nude side.
The entertainment staff is very energetic and worked very hard to keep people motivated. I was especially fond of "The Marvelous Marie". We have heard that the entertainment staff works six days a week and lives on the property. They get to see their family one day a week. They don't let that get in the way of their job. They always wore a smile.
The catamaran cruise was great. Rasta Ralphie(see picture) is awesome, I have never seen anyone pull off the physical feats this old guy can. You better practice your limbo if your going to challenge him.
Rick's cafe was also great. We took a bus from the resort. We would have liked to have taken a taxi so we could have stayed longer after the sunset (see picture) they had just started the band and they sounded pretty good
We did see quite a bit of action on the rafts in the bay and in the hot tub. The sex police were active, but you never really knew when they were going to allow the activity or stop it. Some activity was allowed in the middle of the afternoon and they stopped some later in the evening.
Toga night was fun. PJ night would have been a lot better if it had been held in the dinning hall rather than the Disco. It was very loud, crowded and hot. I would have hated to see it on a busy week!
We will defiantly return. When we were getting ready to leave we were glad to be going home, but when we got home we started to miss Hedo and have already started to talk about our next trip. So watch out, dreaded island fever is real and will get you!