Trip Report 9/6/02 to 9/13/02
Let me preface this report by saying that before we left on our virgin trip to Hedo II, we read nearly every trip report posted and scoured the web for information. Im a natural skeptic and yes I kept reading about peoples life altering experiences, the trip of a lifetime, that Hedo magic, friendships made that last a lifetime, and I took it all with a grain of salt. We went on this trip with much anticipation, hoping to meet some new people and have a great week partying and having fun, maybe experiencing some new situations. What we got was more than we ever would have imagined.
Im not going to do a day by day report of our week, neither am I going to go into great detail about our travel arrangements, suffice to say that the bus ride from hell was a very pleasant air conditioned 1 hrs that gave us the opportunity to see some of the countryside and the towns and gave us a very little taste of Jamaica (we actually never left the resort once we got there so this was a good thing!). On the way back the bus ride gave us extra time to laugh and party with some good friends.
Once at the resort we were upgraded to nude oceanview ( the resort was not very full this week) and nervously realized that room 2179 was right by the pool opened the drapes and there were all these nekkid people. This wasnt in the plan, the plan was prude gardenview as far away as possible so that if we couldnt do the nekkid thing we could escape! Well, to make a long story short, it took us about hr of wandering around the prude side to finally lose the suits and jump into the nude pool. We never looked back and yes, we kept the room.
There have been so many negative things being said on the boards lately, that we wanted to stress all the great things about Hedo. The fact is this was the best vacation we ever had.
Food Breakfast buffet was the best, eggs cooked anyway you like, coffee was hot, no complaints mon. Lunch, definitely Delroys everyday, dont think we made it to the lunch buffet until the last day waiting for the bus. Jerk chicken at 6pm was a must. We swear that they put something in that jerk sauce that just keeps you coming back for more. We tried every restaurant for dinner the week we were there. Pasterfaris is nice for a change as its airconditioned and you get waited on, but dinner can be long and being tied to a reservation time bothered us by the end of the week. The Japanese restaurant was okay, but then were used to really good sushi and Japanese restaurants, so the food did not impress. Also, it gets really really HOT sitting around the hibachi tables.
Scotch Bonnet was also okay, dinner buffet was always good, plenty of fresh fruit and veggies and choices. You know what, we didnt go expecting gourmet dining, but we found the food to be perfectly acceptable. I dont think I would have wanted rich heavy food every night. Oh, one morning we bought lobsters from the guy at the beach and had Michael prepare them for us, ate them in the pool, yum!
Staff We found the staff to be friendly and polite and overall we had no complaints, although towels were very hard to find, definitely bring your own beach towels! Ray Ray was a hoot, I think he ended up in the pool at least once everyday we were there, we need to buy him a pair of Tevas coz I dont think his sneakers are going to survive!
Activities We went on both Catamaran trips, one to the pickled parrot and the other to Ricks. Highlights included snorkeling nekkid, my foot massage,,,,should be renamed total leg massage, it was wonderful. The trip to Ricks was a riot and the cliff jumping spectacular. John, you truly looked awesome swan diving off the cliff, my pictures do not do it justice. I smile when I think of the send off we gave all the folks lined up at Ricks and all those on the other Sandals catamaran. Wonder how many photo albums we ended up in?!
The water slide was a daily must. Picture 50 nekkid people all lining up to go down the slide, look on peoples faces priceless. By the way, Im still trying to get the water out of my ears from the plunge pool. Considered climbing the turd wall everytime we were over that way, but it was never open, oh well.
Also went waterskiing one morning, well Josh skied, I just rolled around in the water trying to untangle my skis from the rope, enough said and still have all the bruises to remember it by.
People Youve heard it before, well say it again, its the people that make Hedo what it is. We met so many truly wonderful open, honest, friendly people. We laughed so hard our sides hurt, we made friendships that will last a lifetime and met friends that we will always be excited to share our time with, we miss everyone so bad and smile everytime we think about all the wonderful wild and wicked things we did that week. For us Hedo was truly magical, and for all its faults (nothings perfect, and yes we did do the shower jive and the bathrooms could do with some major overhauling), but at the end of the day, none of that mattered. We cant wait to get back home next September.
