Bob & Kathy - January, 2010

January 9-23,2010

Our third trip in a row during the January Lifestyles takeover. They just keep
getting better and better. One reason is that many of the same folks come year
after year, so you are often seeing old friends and playmates from past years
plus meeting new ones which will be old friends next year, etc.
There have been a few changes at Hedo. A BIG change is the quality of the
food. WAY up from last year. We heard a rumor that H2 had hired a good chef
away from Sunset at the Palms just down the road. We stayed at SATP three
years ago and -while it sure as hell wasn't H2!- the food was excellent. Hedo
has always had a selection of Jamaican dishes in the main dining room, but
this year the selection seemed much greater. Calaloo, one of our favorite
Jamaican veggies, was present nearly every day. Fresh pineapple, papaya, and
local oranges where available most mornings along with smoked salmon. Yum! We
can't do three big meals a day, but the jerk chicken from the prude side grill
is one of our favorites, so that's mainly where we ate lunch if at all. Dinner
was good and plentiful as always, but the music, once it starts around 9PM, is
much too loud for any sort of conversation at all. H2 would do well to hire a
competent sound engineer to reposition the speakers, install baffles, and
whatever else they do to make it so you can still chat up your dinner
companions. Why else are we there? We like to participate in the theme nights,
but there was a lot of confusion as to what they were. H2 and Tom's Tours had
different themes on the same nights and we heard more than a few folks say
that since they couldn't figure it out, the hell with it. A little co-
ordination would go along way there.
The Friday night beach parties were great, with the highlight being grilled
Jamaican lobster. Not sure what that oily yellow liquid is that they provide
to dip the lobster in, but it sure isn't butter! Yuck! The rest of the dishes
were good as usual and the selection was vast. So much food, so little
stomach!
This was the first time we experienced some rainy days which mainly meant that
the big hot tub got a lot friendlier.:) The weather during the first few days
of our first week was cooler due to the cold front coming down from Florida.
It got all the way down to 70°F. Oooooh... Coming from northernmost CA, that
didn't bother us at all! The beach crew was kept busier than usual with all
the falling leaves from the wind and the seaweed piling up on the beach from
the high surf. Their solution to the seaweed was to dig a long pit right on
the beach and bury it all. We found out from the groundskeepers that they
compost all the leaves and trimmings right on site and use the compost to
fertilize the shrubs and flowers. It really does take a small army to keep a
resort like H2 running smoothly and looking good.
Our room was clean and everything worked just fine.
We signed up for and took the nude catamaran cruise and were kind of
disappointed. The rum drinks were so strong with an off-brand (overproof?) rum
that they were almost undrinkable. It didn't help that it rained HARD for the
last 30 minutes or so of the trip, but even so it wasn't worth the extra $50.
We'll pass on that next year.
Nothing is ever perfect, so we've learned not to sweat the small stuff and
just ENJOY. All in all it was a great vacation- Again!
See you next year,
Bob & Kathy