John - June, 2007

Trip report June 8-16, 2007

Annual trip with Dean’s Beach Rangers

 

Travel

US Air took off and landed on time going in both directions.  Upon arrival in MoBay, I was through immigration and customs, had my bag, and was in the Super Clubs waiting room in 12 minutes – record time!  Returning, I took off from the new terminal.  The air conditioning makes the wait tolerable.

 

Weather

The week started out rough with periods of rain.  The rain was so hard on one afternoon that everyone was chased off of the beach and away from the pool.  Mid-week conditions I can’t describe, for reasons I’ll explain later.  Thursday and Friday it was so windy during the day that sitting on the beach was painful.  Water temps were right about 80F.

 

The resort

The buffet area has a new color theme (yellow and green) with new matching tables and new patterned seat cushions.

 

Early in the week, ten truckloads of sand were taken from the pier area and moved down the beach.  Agustus, the water sports crew, and the grounds crew did a good job spreading the sand around.

 

For some reason, the ocean level was very low (lunar cycles or something…).  You could walk all the way out to the float and the water didn’t get much deeper than knee-deep.  It seemed very strange to see people standing around the end of the hook in ankle-deep water.

 

The music in the disco was better than that on my last several trips, but still spotty.  They need to swap the DJs that they have at Hedo 3 to inject some life into the Hedo 2 disco.  That said, however, there was one DJ who made good use of the lights one night.  I was impressed.

 

I really liked the new electronic card keys (even though my card got deactivated once right before dinner and I had to make two trips to the lobby).  They made me feel a bit less likely that something would get stolen from my room.  I also liked the new, big, in-room safes that you can set your own combination to.  They were big enough for a good-sized laptop computer (if one is so inclined).

 

The food

We had dinner in Munasan and Pastafari.  It was nice being waited on during vacation and Pastafari was nicely air-conditioned.  The tenderloin served in Pastafari was tender enough to cut with a butter knife and very tasty.  I also heard raves about the ravioli and shrimp.

 

The meals in the buffet were passable.  I had two lunches from the CO beach grill.  Either my breakfast from the buffet, or my lunch from the grill Tuesday, had something toxic in it.  I spent all of Tuesday afternoon, all day and night Wednesday, all day and night Thursday, and Friday morning in bed sick.  The latest version of The Hedo Crud caused severe NVD, fever, shakes, dizziness, disorientation, and resulted in dehydration.  I was one of at least six people that caught it.  I didn’t eat anything from lunchtime Tuesday till Thursday night when I had some soup and a roll.  If friends did not have lomotil and Gatorade I would have been in a hospital.  I actually lost eight pounds this vacation.

 

The people

With nearly all of the Beach Rangers in attendance including a few surprise, unexpected guests, the week got off to a great start.  There was a lot of catching up to be done.  We met several new people and some joined the poolside and evening activities.

 

I had a roommate for a few nights.  He was very polite and social.  He offered his help and support on the days I was sick in bed.

 

This was my first trip where I saw an openly gay single male at the resort.  I had seen a gay male couple previously.  I got an invitation to join him on his lounger one night.  A polite “No thanks” ended the discussion.

 

The diving

I did manage to get in four dives on the days that I was healthy.  These included three shallow dives and one deep dive to Ballard’s Reef, which I had never been to before.  At Ballard’s Reef I saw the largest ray I have ever seen, including on television.  It was quite impressive.

 

I have sung their praises in other trip reports, but Derrick and Anthony of the dive crew are absolutely the best!  These two are patient with new divers and are great at reading and working with others.  I have gotten to know them quite well over the years.  I have no issues with them splitting me up from my dive buddy and having them match us with less experienced divers in order to build the skills and confidence of the less experienced.  ONeal was his usual slacker self.  He let a last minute arrival, who was not certified and had only done one previous dive, come out on a dive even though he had not signed in and the proper equipment was not readily available.  Once while leading a dive he simply took off not looking back to see if anyone was following.  While serving as boat captain he was unusually late in coming over to pick up surfaced divers.

 

The activities

The Ultimate Men of Hedonism contest had a James Bond theme this year.  It was entertaining to see them do routines to James Bond songs.  This also gave the contest a bit more class than previous years (one man’s opinion).

 

Because of The Hedo Crud I only participated in one organized activity – volleyball.  I won 40,000 Hedo bucks – not nearly enough for any prizes.  I understand that a bottle of rum is now going for $200,000.

 

Agustus got me really good one afternoon.  A bunch of us were sitting around talking and he snuck up behind me and got the bottom of my foot with his rake.  I screamed because I thought I was being attacked by a crab.

 

Early in the week (my first weekend there) occupancy was very high.  As a result there was a lot of activity around the pool and at the hot tub at night.  As the week went on, occupancy got lower and lower.  A lot of people were leaving mid-week.  Supposedly the entire resort was booked beginning Saturday June 16, for Michael Beisden’s Caribbean Jam.  People who booked overlapping that weekend were told prior to their arrival that they would be relocated to either Grand Lido or Hedo 3.  I was scheduled to leave the day that most of them were coming in.  Those in his group that did come in early were polite and mostly kept to themselves in the dining area.  I saw none of them in the disco, piano bar, or on the CO side.

 

I got a good crew into the disco on a few nights.  We had a great time and there was considerable silliness, with topless and pole dancing.

 

Overall, I would rate the sexual atmosphere for the week a 6 out of 10.  The week started out well but my bout with The Hedo Crud and the low occupancy late in the week slowed things down considerably.

 

Overheard at Hedo:

”Stay in the spectrum.”

“Let’s go ‘moke.”

“Summer camp!  Summer camp!”

“Over at Sandals all of the beach chairs are 2, and 2, and 2 (motioning with 2 fingers of the right hand), and all of the women sit right next to their husbands.

Well, what fun is that?”

“Wanna go in the grotto?”

“It’s a shame that you have to use a condom because you don’t know where your own love doll has been.”

“Is that what they look like with clothes on?”

 

Things I liked:

Absolutely no problems with the air conditioner or hot water.

 

Two groups of two pelicans were very active off the beach early in the week.  On several occasions they crash landed in the water within feet of bathers/floaters.  They were not shy.  Later in the week an entire flock of them flew by repeatedly.

 

Random thoughts:

Share your Astroglide with a friend!

 

I have great memories of sitting outside of the piano bar with the group of people getting larger and larger until we ran out of chairs.

 

The selection of premium liquors was good although my good friend Jack Daniels was not in attendance.  Champagne was available and plentiful.  A decent merlot was served in Pastafari.  The red and white wines served in the buffet area were better than the old Oakville swill and quite passable.

 

Purple strap-ons make for good afternoon entertainment.

 

The winners of the free nights awarded at the Repeater’s Party had more than 25 visits without previously winning.

 

Beware this Hedo Scam – they no longer send around eviction notices.  Instead, they send you a phone message asking you to call back to get your departure information.  In doing so, they can then charge you $2 for using the phone.  I was furious!

 

I have Sprint cell phone service.  I was reading a strong digital roaming signal from my room.  I made two calls for a total of about 20 minutes.  No bill yet, but when I called from Hedo 3 in April I found the rates to be quite fair.

 

Since I have returned I have read the message strings on the dennyp message board about Super Clubs customer service and the people that got bumped due to the resort sell out.  While I agree that this is an inconvenience I would be far more worried about any unsanitary food service conditions that led to numerous people getting ill.

 

I went out in search of the lime tree, but could not find it.  However I did find a banana tree in front of the garden view CO building that I never new about before.  It had a nice bunch of bananas that were almost ready.

 

Arriving on a Friday and departing on a Saturday is much easier than arriving on Saturday and departing on Sunday.

 

After almost 100 dives I had my first ever dive incident.  At 95 feet on the dive to Ballard’s Reef the small group went into a tunnel.  I was trying to avoid the coral and other structures on the bottom.  The tunnel got narrower and narrower.  At one point my tank and regulator got stuck on the coral above and I couldn’t move forward.  I kept my cool, didn’t panic, backed up a bit and untangled myself.  I came out unscathed and learned a good lesson about diving and about myself.

 

Overall impressions

It was good to see everyone and I miss them already, but I was so sick I was more than ready to go home Saturday.

 

Having been to Hedo 3 at the end of April (and having had a great time) and having returned to Hedo 2 in June (and having had a less than great time) I now find myself torn between the two resorts.  I can’t honestly say I prefer one resort over the other.  If you are trying to decide where to go and you are traveling as a couple, and just want to be alone, either resort will do.  If you are going to socialize, it does help to travel in a group and to communicate with them beforehand.  Otherwise, I think that the only other key factors are that Hedo 2 has a better beach and better diving.