John & Carol - July, 2009
So our 10th trip was July 10-18, with a near-takeover group, the Fluffernutters. This was before the Independence Day rules change, and the place was packed as well.
The Jamaican infrastructure is in flux, in a good way (is this where our stimulus money is going?):
- they are widening the road around the south end of Montego Bay to 4 lanes. This is from the last right angle turn by the (now-defunct) Super Plus store, to well past the last traffic signal, where the "new" road starts. It took about 10 min extra going out on Friday, but returning on Saturday was no problem.
- several bridge ramps on the road to Negril, that had sudden bumps on going from the road surface to the bridge surface, are being repaved.
- replacement of the last one lane bridge in Green Island with a wider one is underway. There's a short detour to a temporary one-lane bridge (similar to an old army Bailey bridge) there.
There are new departure counters for all airlines, the whole length of Sangster.
Rum cream: $14 at Sangster; $19 less 20% = $15 at the Boutique. I don't know if that discount is usual, or just for our week. Buying it in the boutique let us pack it and forget it on the trip home. There were 3 copies of TNTAH2 left in the rack in the Boutique.
Gasoline: JA$75/liter, = US$3.22/gal @ 88.5 exchange rate. At home, $2.35,or 41% more in JA. Last summer JA was only 15% more than home prices.
Food - there were more Jamaican dishes on the buffet than last summer. Callaloo was available half the mornings, ackee & saltfish twice for breakfast. In general the buffet was good, in variety and quality. Qualifier: We are adventurous eaters, and enjoy the new dishes we encounter there.
Pastafari: Blue crab marinara is no longer on the menu. The restaurant was booked for the week by Monday AM.
Munason: best in years, food and service both excellent. Last summer and the spring before, we'd been seriously disappointed in Munasan. but on friends' recommendation this summer, we tried it and they have really turned things around.
Jerk chicken from oneish on, on the nude grill each day.
Towels and the new program were okay: one day there were none all day, but that's no different from before the new policy. They did not count them at front desk when we turned them in at the end, but we had no problems with towels disappearing.
Hot water and cool air were fine in the rooms, but:
Our one room problem (1236) was that there would be a loud thump (pipe inside the wood utilities shaft by the AC unit, warping from coolant, and hitting the shaft wall) every 15 minutes, day and night. Carol had to sleep with earplugs, because of this. I finally figured out it was not our unit, but the plumbing to the unit downstairs that was the problem. We reported this three times, once directly to Lorna Clark who sat with us at a meal. She called maintenance... and nothing ever happened. As we were about to leave on the bus, we were finally told it's a generic problem and "they're working on it."
We've now participated is two H2H3 hashes (the Hash House Harriers, a "drinking group with a running problem.") at Hedo, and I've heard tales of a third sometime in the last year. If you're a hasher, there's a kennel listed on hashspace.
It costs $250 per year to send a kid to high school in Jamaica. It used to be tuition, but the government now covers that... and charges $250/year in supplies and fees instead. It's the same with gummits everywhere. The Fluffernutters have set up a scholarship fund for the kids of Hedo employees, and dispensed over $30K in scholarships in the last few years, and gave out $6K in scholarships this summer.
No apparent action on the closed bridge. The sets of poles supporting it, that straddle the splash-down pool of the waterslide, are visibly cracked and rotting, several feet up from the ground.
In general, a high-energy fun week with no major negatives. We'll be back next summer.