Chris & Kioko - July, 2009
Hedonism II—July 20-28, 2009
Let me preface our trip report by giving a little background. She’s 33/blk/bi; He’s 38/wht/strt; in the Lifestyle off and on for about as long as we’ve been married (12yrs). We’ve been to Hedo III and Desire in the past ten years and we wanted to try Hedo II this time. We also were limited in the time we could go, due to the fact we have a three and six year old and we need to be home when the oldest is in school of course. So we were limited to a stretch between July and mid August. Late June we take the kids on vacation.
We also wanted to get down there preferably with a group of color for a greater mix of people. We did some research and the only group of color we could find stating it was going to Hedo II during this time, was Chicago Black Swingers (July 22-26), so we scheduled our trip around their dates. But as time went on, there was no activity on their website, nor Yahoo group. As it turned out, no one from that group did go. So we don’t what the deal was with that.
Thus, we felt a need to create our own Yahoo group, ColorfulCouples to at least get people together and talking before going down. As stated, we’re mixed ourselves, but we encouraged anyone to join. For a new group, we had a great growth of cool people. There was also another small group going down around the same time called Get Out & Play led by a great couple; Ken & Leslie.
We were concerned about the possible lack of energy of the staff as they were coming off a huge Fluffernutter’s takeover week. And with no large groups going our week, we though occupancy might be low as well. As it turned out, both cases turned out to be true.
With all that being said….
TRIP DOWN
We flew non-stop out of Philly on US Airways. No lines, no problems.
Montego Bay Immigration was fine.
Superclubs got us on a bus very quickly, no problems.
Short Red Stripe stop.
ARRIVAL
Noticed that the resort was slightly dated compared to Hedo III, but justifiably so as it’s much older.
We got room 2110, about as far from the nude pool as you can get, but we really didn’t care. This just meant it was a shorter walk to everything else. Getting a room so far from the pool made us think that the nude side must have been packed, but we think we were wrong about that.
ROOMS
The rooms are very simple, worn and dated. No bright colors like at HIII.
We liked the showers.
There was also a safe and a decent selection of cable channels.
Our room didn’t smell of any kind of smoke until the last two days or so when we must have gotten some new neighbors who smoked cigarettes and that smoke permeated our room intensely.
NUDE SIDE
The beach was nicer and closer to the pool than Hedo III. There was a lot of algae in the water, but we didn’t mind, as long it wasn’t something that would sting or bite us.
We liked the rafts.
No problem with bugs. We didn’t use any bug spray. Just lots of sunscreen.
Very short on black couples or females. They mostly stayed on the prude side. Hence, this is why we tried to get down there when an ethnic Lifestyle group was planned to go. Kioko felt like the token naked black girl most times.
There have to be a million reggae artists/songs out there. We listen to them on “The Joint” on XM Radio frequently. One day they played the same two Bob Marley songs back to back to back…. Give us some variety.
Did the women notice every time you stood up in the ocean, the camera flashes would start going off like crazy from a neighboring resort about 300 yards away? They must have had telescopic lenses.
Pool Water:
There were several people there, Kioko included, who experienced a skin rash, slight fever, dizziness and swollen feet. Kioko didn’t, but some went to the nurse and got antibiotics with similar symptoms. As it turned out, a pump was broken for the nude pool filter and the pool was eventually shut down the last two days we were there and maybe beyond. We just wonder how long the pump was not working. Kioko and other guests went to their doctors when they got home and from what we gathered they all said that they picked up an infection found commonly in untreated pool water. Pack your own pool water test kits or spare pump parts, for that matter.
PRUDE SIDE
Couldn’t tell ya. Heck that’s one of the reasons we go to Hedo…to finally get away from the prudes.
DINING
We liked the variety of food; especially the callaloo greens and the omelet station. But….
The milk was fairly warm.
The ceiling fans are a joke. They really need some kind of air blowing through the place. Sweat was dripping off of our faces onto our food.
Some of the more popular items ran out fairly quickly…lobster stew and oxtails.
They had pork, but very little jerk pork.
And speaking of their jerk….it isn’t straight jerk. It’s a mild jerk sauce that has very little kick. We realize they do this as some can’t handle spicy food, but it would have been nice to have the option to get spicy jerk if you wanted it.
Slightly more variety at the grills and midnight snack selection would have been nice.
BARS
Bartenders were simply overworked. And this may have been reflected in some of their attitudes. Many had pretty flat affects. We remembered them being outgoing and cheerful at Hedo III. The resort should have it figured out by now. Certain bars get busier at different times of the day and this is pretty consistent daily….so staff the bars accordingly. Many times there is only one bartender and there are 8-10 people waiting on drinks. I guess I wouldn’t be excited about my job if I was in that situation every day either.
Although we could never get a buzz off of the frozen drinks, we wished they had a menu of their specialty drinks at the bars. Does anyone have an old chalk board they can donate to Delroy’s Bar??
And how can you run out of tequila for several days? We realize this isn’t Mexico, but you can get rum in Mexico, so why can’t you get tequila in Jamaica? We aren’t picky on the brand. We just want some margaritas now and again. I mentioned this to management. I actually got a call to the room to tell me that there is no tequila in all of Negril. The next day, they seemed to find some. When I finally got two margaritas, I asked for; “on the rocks, with salt.” No salt on the rim. So I asked again for the salt on the rim and I was handed a salt shaker. There needs to be some basic training or something, going on here.
No mint for mojitos. Yes this isn’t Cuba, but neither is Maryland.
One bar didn’t have any limes.
ENTERTAINMENT
The steel drum band was outta control…great.
Winston is also very talented.
Now we don’t go on vacation to be anti-social by lying down, burning to a crisp in the sun with our noses stuck in a novel. We can do that at home or Sandals. We go to be active, make good friends and have some fun.
The Entertainment Coordinators (ECs) did their shows at night during dinner. Other than that, they laid real, real low. Now as mentioned before, they were probably worn out from the prior week, but we paid money too and shouldn’t we get at least similar treatment?
(Going back to our Hedo III and Desire trips and even Breezes Runaway Bay where we got married, the ECs were super energetic. They were all over the place getting games started during lunch and all day at the pools. These are great for breaking the ice with guests who would otherwise stay in their cliques. They remembered our names, sat down with us and ate with us. They had contests, and handed out prizes. They were even topless at Desire.)
But at Hedo II…they were M.I.A. Other than when Winston had Chris dancing at dinner, not one asked for our names or sat down to chat with us. And it’s not like there was a ton of people there. Even though the daily schedule on paper and or the chalk board reflected different games/contests set for different times of the day, at least on the nude side, there was close to nothing.
We did not witness any evidence of the following:
No treasure hunt; no ring toss; no Midday Madness; no beach tennis; no hole in one; no naked twister; no find your mate; no ping pong/pool tournament; no kayak race; no hanky panky games; no wet t-shirt contest; no Ms. Red Hot Challenge; no best tan, burn & peel; no pool party. We saw no recruiting for nude volleyball. Heck, we could have started our own volleyball game, but that would have required a….volleyball. These advertised games not only required the EC’s to get them started, but the ECs needed to provide the equipment and instruction for some of them as well. Next time we’ll remember to bring our own rings for the ring toss. (Note: For times we weren’t at the nude/pool beach/main stage area, we asked friends and they confirmed that these activities were not happening. And if there was some attempt to make these activities happen, we saw absolutely no evidence of it our 9 days there; although, we did see GG painting a woman’s breast at one time.)
They need to dedicate two energetic ECs to each, the nude and prude sides all day long. You’re trying to tell me that on the whole island of Jamaica, they can’t find some high energy, outgoing, young staff. Now don’t get us wrong, Winston is talented and outgoing, but as with all the ECs, we frankly didn’t see him much on the nude side. The only time we saw the Hispanic EC was occasionally at the Terrace Restaurant.
OVERALL RESORT
We liked the waterslide, nude snorkeling/cave and massages.
The piano bar was great too.
We also like the idea of outdoor beds, but they could make them more elegant similar to Desire, with white sheets and white linen canopies blowing in the breeze.
The outdoor pool tables look cool, but they’re kind of useless. The balls barely move on the Astroturf.
We don’t know if Jamaica recycles, but it’d be nice to have recycling bins.
Even though Jamaica may not be up to speed with renewable energy, Super Clubs is a US company (we believe out of FL), and with all that sun shining daily, they could generate electricity with photovoltaics or warm up their hot water with solar panels on the roofs. This would save them tons of money that they could then use to fix the pedestrian bridge that is still closed off.
DEPARTURE
No problems.
It wasn’t too hard to leave as the nude pool was shut down for the last two days and the hot tub had gotten unbearably hot. And the resort seemed near empty and lifeless.
WILL WE GO BACK AND WILL WE RECOMMEND IT TO
OTHERS?
With the right large group
With active ECs
With clean pool/hot tub water….
YES
Hopefully this report will help spur constructive improvements where they are needed, so that everyone gets the top notch service they paid for. And thank you to all those who became part of our Group.
Keep it freaky!