Robert & Vicky

This was trip number 4 for us, and as always we headed down the last part of May. One simple reason that we always go this time of year - fate picked it out for us on our first trip back in '98 and we met our wonderful friends, all (or most) of whom have been going back the same week every year since. This year we threw ourselves (and most of our friends who thought we were nuts) a little curveball and decided to go across the street to Grand Lido the last couple of nights just for the hell of it to see what the place was all about. We'll comment on both below.

Air Jamaica - As always we flew AJ out of Atlanta, and while we may be knocking on wood up here a lot, this wonderful little airline continues to impress us. They keep their equipment fairly new and believe it or not just about every flight we've ever had has left on time and arrived early, although we did sit our fat butts on the ramp at MoBay coming back for over an hour, which caused us to darn near lose our connection in Atlanta and the last flight home that night to Tennessee. Made our connection by about 45 seconds I think. Other than that, we'll continue to fly AJ as often as we can - we may be in the small minority here judging from some of the comments we've seen but what the hell. Another hiccup this year was advance check in at GLN - they were supposed to start at 10:30 a.m. and the lady finally showed up at 12:30. Two hours late and she had a room full of people that wanted to burn the place down. Next time be on time or at least call and let us know you're gonna be late so we can go back to the beach or eat lunch or whatever, you know?

"The Road" - Call us cheap, call us masochists, call us (or at least Vicky) wimps for not wanting to fly small aircraft, call us probably a combination of all three but we ALWAYS take the bus. That road is now, at least in our opinions, now REALLY the road from Hell. I've never seen anything that bad - parts of it were torn up to the point that a lot of people here in the states wouldn't consider driving on it without 4-wheel drive. On the trip back we had to detour around BOULDERS in the road - I'm not talking rocks here dude I'm talking boulders the size of basketballs that were sprinkled all over the damn place - never seen anything like it. Of course there's a silver lining to this cloud and that's because they're actually working on the thing this year - there was an incredible amount of work being done to that road. Every piece of equipment that we passed was moving and doing something - the backhoes were hoeing, the dump trucks dumping and the jackhammers jacking. Years past they were just sitting there in rusting piles. So maybe they're going to finish it by 2012 "soon come" you know? We can all but hope.

Rooms - Got 2132 this year which was in H-Block and it was the first year that we got where we wanted on the first request. That's the good news. The bad news is that that room was MAJOR rough when we first checked in. No iron, no towels, and the safe door wouldn't work (they've got new safe things by the way - instead of just giving you the key they give you the key AND the lock mechanism itself - then you gotta twist and turn the lock into the hole in the door. Don't forget to take not only the key but ALSO the lock mechanism back up front when you check out - they'll just send you back to get it if you forget). Also, the cold water handle on the sink faucet was so worn out that it twisted off in my hand when I first used it. To management's credit, though, all of this stuff was fixed within an hour after I reported it which was no big deal - we just headed for the beach and all was done when we returned. Overall we'd say the rooms are still the same - they've got undeniable age on them but they're doing the best they can to maintain them we think and they're without a doubt kept clean all the time.

Vinnies - Damn they were all over the place this year, along with the Prudes. Our bus ride over had 12 people on it and we were the only couple - rest were all single guys and I'm talking the DEFINITION of the word Vinnie, with the Yankees ballcaps and everything. Major amount of Prudes this year for some reason too.

Food - Breakfast and lunch at the main buffet continue to be very good - good selection of salads, fruit, eggs, and the best french toast in the world. Would like to see some better salad fixings though - didn't even have croutons this year. Dinner? It continues to decline in our opinion, and the midnight snack is downright embarrassing - its basically just a collection of whatever leftovers they scrape together from dinner, which is nothing in itself to be proud of. Don't get me wrong, we certainly didn't starve, but we also certainly ate at Pastafari's a LOT more this year then we usually do. It was great as always. Service at both was good as always, maybe even better this year than last.

Entertainment Coordinators - they've had some MAJOR turnover here in the last couple of years, to the point that the only guys we remembered from last year were Mark the Razor and Chubby. Otherwise I think every one of them that we talked to had been there less than a year. It shows. They're certainly trying, but with that many rookies you can only have so much energy. They're all good people though so hopefully a few of them will stick around and things will improve.

Disco - how many times have we and others bitched about the music? Hundreds, maybe THOUSANDS of times? How many times has management done anything? Once, maybe twice? I still don't understand it - you've got a resort full of repeater 30 and 40-somethings that want to hear the disco and dance music that we all grew up with and they INSIST on playing this reggae and techno rap shit that drives us out of the disco, and deserts the place, in 15 minutes? I don't get it - only one night out of 7 did they play anything that was worth a damn, and that was for about an hour one night starting at 11, and it WAS NOT a coincidence that the dance floor was packed for that hour when it had otherwise been pretty lame all week. But then sure as hell on comes the crap music and all it did was irritate everyone. I give up.

Security - we have noticed over the last couple of years that the sex police were getting a lot less aggressive - well as of this year they have officially disappeared. Just about anything and everything, at any time, and at any place, was going on and no one said a thing. Now we realize that there's two schools of thought on this but in our mind the place is better off for it. That's how management markets it, of course, and if people really want to let their hair down then more power to em. If I don't like it I can walk down to the beach and hang with the Prudes for awhile.

Weather - it was REAL quirky this year. It rained like hell all day our first full day and then the next two we had wind like we've never seen before. I mean it was kicking up some MAJOR sand at times. Otherwise we lucked out and had great weather the rest of the time.

All in all though, we had a wonderful time, and each trip continues to get better than the last. Our friendships continue to grow and improve and each year we meet more and more great people. As always the week went way too fast and we're already counting the days until next year.

Trying to compare these two resorts is like trying to compare an Indy car (Hedo) to a stretch limousine (GLN). There aren't any similiarities really and if you go to one expecting to have the same atmosphere or food or whatever as you did at the other, you're going to be sorely disappointed. They're two totally different resorts for two totally different crowds is about all we can say although we certainly enjoyed our stay at GLN.

Rooms - absolutely first class. We got beachfront on the lower level, which meant that when we opened our french doors we were about 10 steps from the pool and about 20 from the beach. Awesome furnishings, great satellite TV, and NO water pressure problems.

Service - how does tuxedoed waiters with white gloves sound? That's what they wear at Piacere, the top notch French restaurant. At the beach they've got these cute little ladies that run all around with water bottles and first they spray you down to cool you off and then they take your drink order and run and get it. You don't even have to get up from your wooden beach chair with the color coordinated thick and soft mat to do anything really. The towels match the mats by the way. 24 hour room service anywhere you want - we had a bottle of champagne delivered to the hot tub one night. Really.

Food - Incredible. Our first day there they were serving jerk lamb chops at the main buffet for lunch. Gimme a break. A lamb chop has never darkened the door at Hedo, much less has it ever been jerked. We ate at Piacere our second night and I had the best piece of fish I've ever had in my life.

Partying - almost laughable. Let's all be honest with ourselves here - how many nights at Hedo have you been dead dog tired and ready to go to bed at 10, but you stayed up until 2 a.m. just basically because you thought you had to or you'd miss something? More than a few I bet. Well at GLN if you're tired at 10 then go to bed at 10 because you ain't gonna miss a damn thing my friend. They basically roll up the sidewalks right after dinner. We stayed around for the entertainment at the main hall one night (The Managers Grand Gala) and the singer was jumping all over the place exhorting people to "party, party, party!!!" But let's face it how much partying can you do when the entertainment is a 50 year old woman in a full length sequined ball gown singing the lounge lizard version of "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire? Still the crowd tried to get into it and I'm sure in their little GLN minds they were in fact partying their asses off - I didn't have the heart to tell them, of course, that they are all rank amateurs in that department.

Cost - here's where all of this great stuff kicks you in the groin. This place COSTS mon. Two nights there were darn near the same price as SEVEN at Hedo - no kidding. I can't imagine how people afford to go there for more than a week or so.

All the above being said, did we enjoy ourselves at GLN? Darn right we did and we will go back there. It was really a pleasant way to end a vacation - we'd been going Mach 3 for a week over at Hedo and it was really pleasant to be able just to lay back and REST for a couple of days before we came home - it was the first year for us that we didn't go back to work feeling like we needed a vacation to recuperate from our vacation. Hedo will always be first in our hearts, though -we're thinking maybe 7 nights there next year and 3 at GLN to detox a little.

To all of our wonderful friends old and new (and you know who you are) - you continue to enrich our lives and we cherish the time that we get to spend with you each year at this magical place. May God save you and keep you until we meet again next year. To Denny - as always we appreciate your efforts on this site more than you realize and maybe soon, one of these years, we'll be able to meet you in person. And last, to those of you who may be reading this report and trying to decide whether to take the plunge and actually go, we'll say the same thing now that we did 4 years ago - take the next flight down there mon - you won't regret it!!!!

Robert & Vicky - 05/01