We arrived via US Air on time at 12:00 PM Aug. 23. I gave the bus driver a
$10.00 tip to get us there in less than an hour and drop us off ahead of the
couples for Grand Lido. Front desk was empty except for a guard &
receptionist. We got upgraded to "H" block with no request. The only problem
was I had to keep restarting the air conditioner. I called engineering and
they say it was broke. It was 11:15 PM but Mr. Bourke was in the dining room
and he quickly upgraded us again to Ocean front. Richard is a real class act.
All problems were taken care of immediately.
The next morning I noticed the resort did look a
little empty. I was hoping that they were out on tours or something. WRONG. As
the days went by the resort got emptier. We had lunch with Lorna Clarke and
she confirmed that the occupancy was below 20%. We spent a lot of time with
the EC's since they had no one to entertain. Weather was good only one day of
rain in the afternoon. The food was good but there were some shortages at
times.
Delroy returned on Tuesday from a 3 week vacation which
was not related to his mom's passing. Our rather small group gave him a
condolence card signed by all of us.
Things are so slow in the Caribbean right now that
Sandals closed 4 resorts.
At Monday morning breakfast they announced that the dining room would be
closed until Friday. "So the guest could get better aquatinted with the our
restaurants at Hedo." Yeah right. Those who were not at breakfast learned of
this later via a notice under the door. There was a scramble to make
reservations. Lunch was served on the beach Monday afternoon on the prude
side. All other meals were served as normal including midnight snacks.
The Black Chippendale dancers spent the week at Hedo
much to the delight of the ladies. They put on one hell of a show one night
again to the ladies delight. The band, Roots Explosion was good. The piano bar
did not fair well since the piano player couldn't put two notes together. One
of the quests, who sings very well had a hard time changing pitches with him.
They definitely need a new piano player if they want to guests coming to the
Piano Bar.
While waiting in the departure lounge we heard several
delay announcements for Air Jamaica but US Air was again on time. All in all
it was a good trip but we will look at a different time of the year next time.