Can prudes have fun at Hedo, too? Hell yeah, mon!
Just returned from my first, fabulous week at Hedo II, and I must say that my
friend Diana and I had a blast! We avoided the nude activities completely, took
advantage of the watersports and activities on the prude beach, did lots of pool
and ocean swimming, got a healthy tan, heard some great reggae, stopped to take
in the beautiful resort gardens, and stuffed our faces 5 times a day. We
absolutely loved it and plan to go back in the not-so-distant future.
We settled into a routine where we would wake up naturally around 8:30am, go to
breakfast and try to eat light - fruit and mini-muffins, then go to the gym to
work out, then off to the prude pool to swim 20 laps and play pool volleyball -
we got quite good at it by the end of the week. After our morning pool session,
we'd have lunch, usually a quite big lunch, the food was so good we could not
resist going back for seconds. Our afternoons were spent on the prude beach, we
swam around, floated about on rafts, I tried the kayak, failed miserably at
waterskiing, but I must say the deserted beach where they take you for the
waterskiing lesson is the most beautiful beach I've ever seen - perfect,
crystal-clear, aqua-green water, and white sand with no rocks, no pebbles, no
sea grass in the warm water. It was truly breathtaking.
We did the trampoline lesson and loved it, and I did the trapeze - it was
totally exhilarating to be hanging upside down from my knees so high above the
beach. It made me feel strong. Definitely a rush. Another day on the beach, Rudy
was playing reggae and dancehall over a good sound system, and we got up to
dance with Lucky for awhile, she taught us some reggae moves. Later that
afternoon, a group of Hedo bus drivers were playing a heated soccer match on the
prude beach, we watched intently since Diana is a big soccer fan, then went
swimming in the ocean with a bunch of them after the game.
We returned to the prude pool in the early evening for some more laps and
volleyball before dinner. We tried both restaurants in addition to the main
dining room. It was nice to get dressed up a couple of nights. Pastafari was
good, but the service was very slow. We really loved the Scotch Bonnet Jamaican
restaurant. The food was out of this world - and it was lovely to sit outside by
the pool at night. And our waiter, Albert I think his name was, was a
sweetheart. Meals in the dining room were excellent, too. We were really
impressed with the food, we tasted so many new flavors - curried goat, steamed
callalloo, fried bammy. We can't wait to go out to a Caribbean restaurant here
in NY now that we are back in town. And the dining room staff were so friendly.
Entertainment in the dining room was varied. We enjoyed the lunchtime fashion
show, the name-that-tune trivia contest, the bands in the dining room - one
night there was a bossanova band playing "The Girl from Ipanema" - one
of my favorite songs, and another night a good reggae band played, and watching
the reggae dance contest was a riot.
I must say that the wet t-shirt contest which included simulated oral sex on a
banana, as well as some of the sexually-charged activites at the Battle of the
Sexes were a bit much for us. We kept saying to ourselves - "Hey, they're
not hurting anyone, sure, it's not our thing, but let them have their fun."
And we were among the horrified at the PJ party. We stayed for all of 5
minutes, then hit the midnight buffet. And the "Ultimate Men of Hedo
Contest" was downright cheesy, but amusing. We watched for the first half
hour, then went to Pastafari for dinner. Most nights we went off the resort.
Bird the taxi driver took us out to the Jungle one night, we wanted to go
dancing to some good music, and didn't love the music at the Hedo disco, so we
went out on the town in Negril. The DJ at the Jungle played good hip hop,
including some old-school, and excellent reggae, the crowd was mostly locals, we
met some interesting people, and I danced with a Jamaican guy who knew all the
words to the reggae songs.
The next night, we went out to Alfred's on the beach for some live reggae. The
band was not great, they played a lot of reggae versions of American pop songs,
which was kind of disappointing. I asked one of the Jamaicans at our table why
they did this, and he said it was to please the American tourists, but it would
get good later on. Sure enough, after most of the Americans left, the band
played some better reggae, and we got up and danced for awhile.
We also hit DeBuss on a Monday night, and the band there was out of this world.
There was a big mural of Bob Marley as a backdrop to the stage, and the singers
had the most beautiful voices. The band played some Bob Marley, and lots more,
we met some interesting people including a self-proclaimed Rastafarian prophet.
Getting off the resort at night was important to us, we really wanted to party
with the locals, and hear the music in the proper environment. Plus, we felt
perfectly safe going out in Negril late at night. Bird would drop us off and
pick us up at a specified time, all the men we met were friendly and respectful,
sure they'd hit on us, but if we said we weren't interested, they were cool with
that and just hung out with us.
We met a few other guests at Hedo, not too many, though. We made more friends
with the staff. Everyone we met was very nice, most had been there before. The
prude beach and pool were not crowded at all, it was nice to have so much space
to ourselves. We did walk over to the nude side once for a burger, and to see
what all the fuss was about. We didn't feel comfortable there, and hurried back
to the prude side with our snacks. At the end of the week, we felt so relaxed,
refreshed, and tan, we decided that we want to go back for more sometime soon.
We had a lot of fun. Even though we weren't into the nude stuff, there was so
much to do, so much that we didn't even get around to doing, that we want to go
back and experience some more Hedo magic. We are hooked on Hedo II!
-Marci & Diana