Hedo 2 Trip Review 7/3 to 7/7/01 Ron & Pam
We are just back from a combined Hedo 2 / Grand Lido vacation. I have broken
things down by pros and cons. Just so you know where we are coming from we are
not lifestylers but enjoy a c/o or nude beach. This is our first time at Hedo so
we are not committed to the resort. As described later we ended up spending most
of our daylight hours at the Grand Lido clothing optional beach so that puts
some slant on our views.
PROs: For the most part the guests at Hedo are some of the most wonderful people you could want to meet at any resort. One of the best parts of the trip.
The entertainment staff was energetic and active although they seemed to be mostly found on the nude side and at the evening shows. Without exception they all deserve the highest praise, I don't know how they do it. The desk staff was great and very helpful, they really had a "can do" attitude. Dining room staff again has to be rated as excellent--- no -- better than excellent. Housekeeping seemed to be on the ball. One day they were kind of late getting to us but mostly our room was done by noon
As far as the facilities, the prude pool is nice, not exceptional, but certainly nice. The rooms are really OK no matter what you read on the boards. The bathrooms are small but everything else was fine. These are a "Club Med" type of room which means that the rooms are not the reason you go to the resort but they are serviceable places to live and sleep. They have an added "bonus" of mirrored ceilings. The dining room does leak in a few places but we were always able to find a dry spot to eat and the few leaks didn't really matter to us. The food ranged from great (lobster night) to passable but was never bad. The Specialty Italian restaurant is very nice. A lot of the food at the specialty restaurant is recycled dining hall food with a nicer presentation but the main course seems to actually be prepared on site The Jamaican restaurant is set up outside on the pool deck. We did not try it at Hedo.
The activities at Hedo are sophomoric, but once you get over that they are definitely fun. If you do not participate many activities can seem pretty pointless, and indeed they are, so you must participate to enjoy them. Many of the activities involve some degree of voluntary nudity which is great for those who like to strut their stuff or those who like to watch as others do it, but there are plenty of totally prude activities too. Night time shows were for the most part a lot of fun. The staff and the guest professional performers were far better than anyone has a right to expect -really good. As far as activities involving the audience -anyone who has been to a Club Med over the years will recognize the format used at Hedo which has been taken entirely from Club Med and made a bit more raunchy. The Club Med "silly signs"sing along hand motions have been transformed into only a very slightly different set of hand motions that the audience makes as they sing along with the staff on Toga night and other large group gatherings. The songs that go with the hand motions are almost identical to those at a Club Med except at Hedo a lot of totally gratuitous "motherf..." this and "f..." that have been added to the songs. Still if you get over that issue the group singing stuff is fun. The Wet t-shirt contests, Ms Hedo contests and their male counterparts are really a lot of fun for participants and audience alike and occur in the dining hall after lunch or after dinner so you don't have to watch if you are bored by such things. The male auction held late one night is actually a great way to introduce guys, especially shy guys, to interested women who bid on them with "man auction bucks." The men are sold as slaves to the high bidder for a night. There were actually some very choice specimens but Pam spent all of her man auction bucks ransoming me out from some other eager bidders.
For those who like sports there seemed to be a lot of opportunity to snorkel, water ski, wind surf etc. and the circus stuff seems like it could be fun. Indeed the prude beach seemed to be overrun by all the sailing and circus equipment as I mention in the "cons" section. The Island Picnic is back, although we did not go because we wanted to be in the Hedo July 4th parade
CONs: The prude beach facilities are passable but are marred by windsurfing shacks, lines of sail boats, lines of kayaks, a whole collection of circus equipment and then lines of vendors, another water sports and diving shack, a bar and then a fast food shack, etc. None of this is concentrated into one area but is strewn all over so that there is not much uncluttered beach to enjoy. Towels are gone by 8:30 am and that is flat out unacceptable.
Even less acceptable are the nude beach and pool. I have lived in New York City for a number of years and can honestly say that the City's public beaches and pools are less crowded and, in the case of the pool, much cleaner in New York City than at Hedo 2. Chairs at the nude beach are lined along the water, side- by- side and three-deep, then there is a path and two more rows of chairs. I don't know how anyone gets to their chairs without stepping on other people. About 75% of the people in the resort are crammed into about 25% of the beach area of the resort. Much of the "beach" is really just grassy ground elevated from the water with a sheer drop of about 3 to 4 feet to the water so you have to jump or slide down a hill to get to the water. There are far too many trees and very little sun reaches most of this beach.
But if the nude beach is bad the nude pool is much worse. There is just no excuse for this mess. I tried to convince my wife to stay at the pool for a while on the first afternoon we arrived but the pool is so small and crowded that we were elbow to elbow with everyone else and there was absolutely no room even to stand. You can forget about ever getting a chair. We tried to do the nude pool again a few days later about 9:30 am, but when there are fewer people in the pool you can see how filthy and disgusting the water is. We stood on the deck as I tried to convince my wife to stay but I had to laugh as two couples came by and the husbands' excuses were sounding just as lame as I must have sounded. The first husband said to his wife "Well in the ocean you have all kinds of fish and animals peeing and crapping in the water so the ocean isn't all that clean either." But his wife wasn't buying it and off they went. Then the next couple walked by us and the husband says to his reluctant wife, "Well if you swallow ocean water by mistake it can make you sick but at least in the pool if you swallow water by accident it won't hurt you." The wife says "No, if you swallowed that water it would KILL you!" and off they went. I realized then and there how pathetic my excuses were for trying to stay at what can only be described as a totally unacceptable facility and as much as I'd have liked to hang around and meet people, I simply could not justify forcing my wife to endure that pool.
Fortunately we had day passes at Grand Lido and so we spent most of our time at the C/O beach and pool there and came back to Hedo for specific activities and for the fun at night which in the end is what I'd recommend, namely to get the cheapest garden view prude room at Hedo 2 and get a day pass to Lido for most of the days of your stay. Use the gym, beaches, c/o hot tub and pool at Lido and eat lunch there or at Hedo 2 if the after lunch event is a good one at Hedo. Come back to Hedo for any activities during the day that sound like fun and of course stay there for dinner and night activities after.
Grand Lido Negril Trip report 6/29 to 7/3/01 Ron & Pam
We are just back from a combined Hedo 2 / Grand Lido vacation. I have broken
things down by pros and cons. Just so you know where we are coming from we are
not lifestylers but enjoy a c/o or nude beach. This is our first time at Lido so
we are not committed to the resort. As described in our Hedo 2 report we ended
up spending most of our days at the Grand Lido c/o beach even after we switched
to Hedo 2 so that puts some slant on our views. We stayed on the C/O side.
BUT FIRST the NEWS: First development. The president of Super Clubs was at the Piano Bar and French restaurant the same night as us. They are talking about adding on a Japanese restaurant by building up the Timber House snack building, and adding one more restaurant as well. Second Development. We overheard one of the bartenders on the phone at the prude beach bar saying to someone that she refused to put another brand of vodka in the Absolut bottle as it would be fraud. We don't know who was asking her to do that or anything more about it
PRO's: Now on to the pro's and cons. First pro's. Beautiful grounds. 24 hour room service which responds well. Large luxurious but aging rooms, still elegant but after 20 years it will soon be time to renovate.
There is a relatively small clothing optional ("C/O") beach but with a lot of character-great setting -and not crowded -probably bigger than Hedo's but with fewer people. Main beach is very nice too, but a lot longer, wider and more open. There are three little snack restaurants with secluded hot tubs scattered around the property that few people use. This is in addition to the two beach bars, main dining room and two other restaurants. We liked the idea of C/O beach which means nudity is not required to stay there. Many couples had one mate that wanted nude and the other that did not so it was perfect for them. Pam got her front burned after the second day and had to switch to her one piece suit to cover up the burn, so that was no problem at the C/O beach. C/O is not really an issue as most people are nude. No one who stayed and was clothed was a gawker as they were all there with a spouse. C/O is really the way to go. Many people start out clothed and end up nude but never would have started out nude so for them it was great. I think all this stuff about forced nudity at other resorts is just too much and is often mean spirited for no reason.
We met a lot of wonderful people on the C/O beach, pool and hot tub from every part of the country and the world. Really a plus for this resort!!
The yacht is a nice touch but not a real big deal. We did a C/O cruise and a sunset cruise. The Captain is a riot. He looks like a character out of a Gilbert and Sullivan play and turns up everywhere including at Hedo. He lives on the yacht with his wife and mistress but you rarely see them even though you will frequently encounter the ubiquitous captain in the oddest places.
The gym is quite nice with plenty of machines and free weights and then a separate room for bikes, stair steppers and running machines.-all with A/C. Just great equipment with a great trainer-Patrick- who really knows the machines and free weights and is a big help getting to know the Cybex machines.
The buffet food is good at the main dining hall. The Manager's party on Friday nights is very good but no lobster. The Lido Caf is very nice with no reservation required. A lot of the food is recycled buffet food but some of it is made portion by portion and the service is nice anyway. The Pasta restaurant is open 11am to 6pm and is great for a change of pace lunch. In fact with A/C and individually prepared meals it is really a "best deal" for lunch. A lot of people just ate lunch at the C/O beach bar. Fried chicken and hamburgers and some Jamaican fried food-that kind of stuff. The Scotch Bonnet Jamaican restaurant was OK but mostly recycled Jamaican food from the buffet except for the Fish Soup which was unbelievably good. Otherwise it is no big deal. The French restaurant is top notch, no buffet food (except the wine) and service is top notch. Waiters in all the dining rooms were very good.
Water sports look like fun and don't clutter the beach at all. Scuba is I
believe included in the price as is everything else. There is a party Catamaran
cruise Wednesday to Friday morning but of course we were there Friday afternoon
through Tuesday. Hoby cats are included, as is snorkeling etc.
CONS: The place is DEAD. No activity directors were visible except at the gym. No "fun activities" except for a Thursday night PJ party which actually looked fairly wild by Lido standards from the pictures we saw the next day... but we missed it because we were at Toga night at Hedo. Body painting is totally gone from the activity list. No contests. After lunch activities include Bingo.. I mean just bingo. In fact all of the activities are just gym things or indoor games that you could do yourself. After dinner it is just time to go to bed. The disco is a non-event.
At night there was quite a bit of noise outside of our room almost every night. The room service trays are collected with a lot of banging and smashing at about 1 am and then apparently all brought to the beach bar which was near to our room with a lot of loud crashing. Security keeps their radios up full blast so you hear at 3 am things like ".. Squuuelllch... SCREECH .....Er... Hey dere ...Unid 3.. unid 3... standby.....squelch squeal .....errr ...roger that ....dis is unid 3 here standing by.....Squellchhh ...repeat .....unid 3 here standing by ......squeal SCREECH ." I never heard anyone do more than "stand by" nor did I understand why they needed to make all that noise to say and do nothing. One night we had a few drunk people in the C/O hot tub at about 2 am but no security there to remove them and a neighbor playing Bob Marley until 3 am with his doors open.-Again no security "standing by" or otherwise. In comparison Hedo prude side rooms were quiet except for a little bass from the disco which was really drowned out by the A/C.
Service is in a state of flux here, but they are working on it. Housekeeping is very late (about 4 to 5 pm each day) and one day just skipped us altogether. Our laundry was never picked up (its supposed to be free) and when we called the front desk they told us to call housekeeping which never answers the phone... ever. The Concierge mostly responded to our requests or concerns by just telling us to call housekeeping for this or that - which is a black hole-not a useful response. But much to Lido's credit they were anxious to make up for these shortcomings. No entertainment people were visible except for a nice gal on the cruises. After a while all of the non-activity gets to you. You start crawling up the walls.
So the best idea is to get the cheapest possible room at Hedo and a day pass at Lido. Come over to Lido for the beaches, modern A/C gyms, romantic snack bar hot tubs, clean nude pool (Hedo's nude "cesspool" really bites), and occasionally the Pasta Lunch restaurant, and use Hedo for any activities you like during the day and for all nighttime activities and shows and to dance or sleep at night.