Trip Report
Nov 14 to Nov
26, 2001
After an uneventful flight, I
boarded the bus and left Montego Bay for Hedo II at about 1pm.
The bus ride was long. It took a half hour just to clear Montego Bay
and another 2 hours to get to Hedo II.
The road construction was continuing at a good pace (for Jamaica).
Believe it or not, I can see progress since I last traveled the road in May.
After a three hour ride through the dust and noise, I arrived at Hedo
II to the sound of a jack hammer as the Hedo construction was also well
underway. At first, I thought Oh
No! However, although the detours were a pain in the butt, the noise was not
as bad as one would think. The
construction noise was not even noticeable on the nude beach. In fact,
everyone seemed to take the construction in stride.
A good thing, because the construction is going about 16 hours a day, 7
days a week (Except when a lady is laying out topless at the Prude Pool).
Super Clubs provided a letter for two free nights for the inconvenience
(as long as you knew to ask for it.) I
must say that there was noticeable progress.
Although they expect to finish construction by mid December, my guess
is the work will probably finish by around the 1st of the year.
For anyone that does not know, Hedo II is in the midst of a major
construction project in which they have already finished rebuilding the prude
pool and are rebuilding the Disco. In addition, they are building a water
slide that empties into a cascading pool with a swim-up bar, a see through hot
tub over the disco, a miniature golf course, a climbing wall, a Japanese
restaurant, and an ice skating rink. (This is not a misprint)
The November crowd was strong, most of the repeat offenders made it.
As always, it was great to see everyone and the party seems to get
better every year. We had 117
people participate in the annual Spankgiving Day Parade to the dismay of
Sandals Security. The Security
Offier took our banner and would not give it up until a persistent coordinator
promised that she would not give it back to us until we were back on Hedo
Property.
With the disco closed for
construction, the main dance floor in the dining room served as the Disco and
the venue for the PJ Party. Most
people were very pleased with the PJ Party in the dining room. It was much
more comfortable being able to sit at the tables.
Furthermore, one could see who was dancing and get a better look at all
the costumes. Hopefully, they
will keep the PJ Party in the dining room.
Overall, I thought the quality
of the food was better than it was in May, although the variety of food was
off. I was impressed with the
level of service at the front desk and the timeliness of response to problems
in the rooms when they did occur. This
area was much improved. However,
for other departments, service
was down.
This was primarily because the hotel has cut back drastically on staff.
One of the staff told me that except for the big repeater
weeks during anniversary and in November,
the crowd has averaged 25 to 30 percent of capacity since the September 11th
tragedy.
Although the house was actually full for a couple of nights before Thanksgiving, it was noted that they did not get into the overbooked situation that normally characterizes Thanksgiving. Further, there were noticeably very few Hedo virgins. The repeat offenders are definitely carrying Hedo II through the current slowdown in travel. On weeks with smaller repeat crowds occupancy is way down. I noticed this myself when occupancy went from near full on Thanksgiving to around 130 guests (about 25% of capacity) on the following Sunday night. When I left on Monday, the crowd appeared to be getting even smaller.
When the crowd thinned, the
hotel not only cut staff, but they also cut service. This drew a protest from
the guests. On the Sunday night after Thanksgiving, in response to the
drop in occupancy, management closed the nude beach grill at 6pm and cancelled
jerk chicken. Six people marched
up to the front desk nude and complained.
They threatened management that if they did not reopen the grill and
provide Jerk Chicken there would be a large group of nude people ready to join
them in the lobby. The person
making the threat was bluffing and did not know that while they were in route
to the lobby, management closed Delroys Bar.
This being serious stuff, most
of the remaining 20 or so people
in the hot tub marched nude up to the prude bar chanting We will come all
over. After a few drinks, the
group of now about 30 people marched into the lobby and conducted a 20 minute
nude sit in, chanting until management promised to reopen the nude beach bar
and grill. On that promise, the
group retreated to the prude pool and Jacuzzi where they remained until
management delivered.
I heard from a reliable source on Monday afternoon that this little demonstration drew the attention of Super Clubs top management who met at Hedo II on Monday to rethink how they will react to low occupancy.