Trip Report March 19-26 2005 Hedo II
This was our third trip to Hedo II, the first being exactly a year ago this same week - Spring Break. It's a matter of kids being with an ex. We had coordinated for this trip with Mikey/UPSMan for some activities, and also with one couple getting married there, who had contacted us earlier.
We've always flown AJ before from Atlanta, but with both the reports about problems with AJ, and an airfare for that almost twice what we'd paid last time, we found that US Air from right here in Knoxville was a much better deal. We arrived in MoBay at 12:30 on Saturday, along with a couple other flights. There were about 350 or so people waiting in the immigration room, but we were through the line in 20 minutes: every booth (ca. 12?) was open, and they were clearly working efficiently. Customs was a breeze, and then in the Superclubs lounge we met D&K, the folks getting married. We met others who became friends, on the bus there. We got in about 3:30, and found ourselves in Garden View Prude (1150), having gone Run Of The House this time. We threw some stuff in drawers and headed for Robert's and jerk chicken! Both Delroy and Scumba were working the nude pool bar. Still no fresh bananas, so Carol started with a Sunset and I had coconut rum and pineapple juice. It's all good.
We napped, having been up since 3:30 AM, and then discovered that it wasn't all so good: zero hot water, regardless of settings. In fact, straight ice water everywhere. We were told that they'd fixed the pipes the day before (confirmed later by others) and the hot water was working its way through the system. We did have reasonably hot/warm water the next day and the rest of the week. We also saw them all week putting insulation around roof-top pipes.
Dinner in the main dining room was good - the grilled red snapper was outstanding, and I think I had it all three times it showed up that week. After dinner and Roots Explosion's music, we found the piano bar almost dead. We availed ourselves of the joys of the nude hot tub at 10 PM... and were the only ones there. We crashed after that.
Sunday: This was our lazy acclimation day where we did almost nothing organized (beyond ring toss and bocce ball). We hung out at the nude pool, floated on the ocean on the double raft we'd brought, and made contact with people in the loosely organized group that Mikey had set up. I did try to chat with Agustus that morning, who did not seem happy about the changes going on at Hedo II. Not knowing him that well, I didn't press for more details.
After dinner, we held an erotic gift exchange among the folks from Mikey's group in the (way too hot) Game Room of the piano bar. Much fun with silly presents. This is a good activity for any group going, if there's time for folks to buy something before they go. We had about 16 gifts in the exchange, which was less than half what we'd had with the WWW group in summer 2004, and IMO 16 is below the really effective level for such an activity. We hung out afterwards at the piano bar listening to kareoke, and did not try the hot tub afterwards; just too tired.
Monday: we availed ourselves of the mirror in the room in the AM, and then of Charley's omlettes - one of the things I always go for at Hedo. I bought 30 minutes of email time for $9, and sent emails home to let folks know that we'd arrived.... but the emails never did so, and that was the last time I got any connectivity all week. The system was always down after that.
We took the shopping tour into town that AM, for coffee and T-shirts, and Carol spent serious bonus $$ on good jewelry. After lunch from Robert's, the ECs ran a "sexiest man" contest, the criterion for which was getting the male dressed in their spouse's swimsuit, and parading out at the nude pool. Silly, and there were about 12 of us up for it. "*Big* hedobucks for participation in this one, plus the attention of just about all at the nude pool. Somewhere out there on the net is a picture of me in Carol drag....
We also brought a present for Rae-Rae: we knew that he collected monkeys, so brought him a stuffed "hillbilly monkey" in raveled denim shorts and a straw hat. He carried it around for the rest of the afternoon.
Post-nap, we had the "naughty school girl night." The old perverted professor had his way with many of them, using Mr.Ruler; it's amazing how strong lamination can make a cheapo yardstick. Late night was hot tub time again, with a few watchers and many couples.
Tuesday: we took the AM cat cruise. The snorkeling was not good, in that we went far beyond the usual reef (full of family boats), it was overcast and extremely windy and choppy, and there wasn't much sealife on the bottom. Both of us acquired a minor jellyfish sting. At Pirate's Cave, another cat (the captain said it was from Grand Lido) anchored way too close to us, so we had to move - after the obligatory mooning of it. The water slide off the side of our cat was much fun, but if you don't take off just right, you really can get your butt smacked when you hit.
The rest of the day was extremely windy, so we stayed off the beach due to flying sand, rafts, and chair pads. We mostly hung out with friends in the pool all afternoon. Dinner was at the Scotch Bonnet, now on the patio by the prude beach grill (luckily the wind had died down by then). The jerk lamb special was outstanding! The lighting is somewhat better than when it was on the pool deck, but still could be brighter so as to be able to see what you're eating better. After dinner we watched a little of the battle of the sexes. At PJ night we kept up our string of wins for the bondage prize. I won't go into detail but it involved chainmail, a leash, and jewelry. There seemed to be lots of people (mostly young males) there on night passes.
Wednesday: our friends were married on the prude beach at noon, by a local minister. I used their camera to shoot the better part of 100 pictures. The reception in the Game Room of the Piano Bar afterwards was so hot that everyone cut it short and went down to the nude pool, where the bride stripped on the deck and hopped in the pool, followed by the groom.
A couple of hours later, they consummated their marriage in the grotto, and emerged to a round of applause by all.
We made the Repeaters party for the first time, at 6 in the Disco. Good nibblies, introduction for many staff we'd never really met before (though the acoustics were so bad, we could barely understand the names)... but no Richard Bourke. I did see him around the property twice during the week, but both times he was busy escorting what looked like VIPs around. The good news is that Mikey/UPSMan won 5 free days, with 17 trips!
After dinner at Pastafari with the newlyweds and others, we visited the piano bar. Danny is improving, compared to last summer, in that he can work the crowd better (yes, someone did "Piece by Piece"). The piano, however, is in such poor tune that it is still painful for me to listen to. We followed up with nude waterslide and hot tub fun.
Thursday: Another day of "what did we do today?" We shopped with the on-site craft vendors, and tried sailing for the first time. The watersports person gave us a three minute lesson in sailing and sent us out. Luckily, if you have any idea at all how a sailboat works, the small cats are easy to sail. We went to Munasan for dinner. The food was okay, but it's still the least of the 3 restaurants to my taste. No sake was offered. At the talent show, I tried out my "Dread Island Fever." The monitor speakers worked fine, but no one in the audience could hear me. Oh well. I'm working on another song for next year, "Slutwear."
Do Not Miss Lennie's (new EC) act in the talent show. He was Mr. Jamaica Lightweight bodybuilder, and did his posing routine. There were women in the audience ready to rush the stage.
Friday: This was our last full day, and the Day of the Invasion of the Spring Breakers. Apparently as a marketing ploy, the resort issued free day and night passes to Spring Break folks. The Grand Buffet that night (no lobster!) was the first time I've seen every table in the Main Dining hall set, and almost all of them were used. Lots of young folks around, from afternoon on. There was also a "Ms. Spring Break 2005" contest at 3 PM.
This was also the first day that the bars had some fresh bananas, so it definitely was the Day of the Dirty Banana.
So we painted our rock. This was a scheduled activity at 11 AM, and because usually the only available paints are water soluble ones in 4 or 5 colors (the same stuff as is used for body painting), we brought our own paints, brushes and polyurethane sealer, and made them available to all. This activity was still going strong on the picnic tables near Delroy's two hours later! I admit to telling several folks, when they asked where we got our rocks, that rocks could be purchased in the Boutique.
The afternoon nude waterslide invasion took place right next to where dozens of Spring Breakers were watching the Ms Spring Break contest, on the main pool deck. Interestingly, as we waited for our turns in line in the water slide tower, almost none of the SB folks would look at us, even though we'd converted several young females of the SB persuasion to join us; they seemed to prefer to watch a couple baggy-shorted guys trying to dance on stage. I suspect that they just really didn't want to see people their parents' ages naked.
At dinner, the Caribbean Regal Steel Drum Band, a high school group out of Kingston that we saw at Hedo last July, entertained. Much fun, and I bought their CD (US$20). Unfortunately the sound quality is poor, though I suspect that steel drums are among the most difficult instruments to record well. We passed on watching most of the circus show inside, because it appeared to be pretty much the same as the one last July. We did go watch the outdoor trapeze. By beach party time, we were tired, and went back to the room to pack.
Travel home Saturday was uneventful.
Some general observations:
- Compared to pre-Ivan visits, there's lots of tall vegetation missing, especially inland towards the roads. The upper level of Pointe Village has a good view of the nude pool complex. The whole resort has been extensively replanted at the low level (up to 1 foot) and is immaculate. The aviary area is scraped to bare dirt obviously ready to be replanted.
- You may have seen the Ivan pictures of one tree leaning up against the roof of a Hedo building. The stump, outside 2170, is now about 7-8 feet tall, and already more than 2/3 covered with name carvings. A carver was actively working on these all week.
- Paulette and Scumba worked each others bars at times.
- People have asked on the Board for some measurements: the safes have an opening of 8-3/4" x 4-3/4" (22x12 cm); ID 6-1/4" hi x 10-3/4" wide x 8-3/4" deep (16x27x22 cm). The room is roughly 11' x 21'.
- There's a list of current entertainment coordinators ("ENT CRU") now kept on a blackboard by the dive shack. The week we were there, they were: Amanda, Alecia, Dee, Foxy, Rae-Rae, Koro, Conroy, Bradley, Winston, Lawrence, and Lennie. Lennie was new that week; Bradley had been there one week. We were told that they are actively looking for two more females.
- The duty free shop is open afternoon/evenings. It's appreciably more expensive than the jewelry shops in Times Square that we visited on our shopping trip to Negril.
- Food: they have theme nights in the Main Dining Room. Monday was Jamaican, Tuesday Mexican, and Wednesday Cajun.
- Showers and floods: the sliding stall doors can be closed two ways. Be sure that the inner door is toward the shower head (and all the way forward), and the outer door toward the toilet. There's a tendency to place these in the opposite fashion, causing leaks, due to it being difficult to enter the shower in the rear, because of the toilet blocking that area.
- This was the first time that we have been actively solicited for a tip by a Hedo worker... repeatedly (this was not someone on the entertainment staff).
John & Carol maybe Summer WWW?