Nick & Kitty - July, 2012

In the past when I have sat down to write our trip report I feel I have a sunny disposition about the trip….. Sunshine, rainbows, and pixy stix….. I will start the trip off with the good stuff and then move onto the weird, bad, and finally we have an announcement to make at the end.

The Good.

First, let me say that AWOL once again rocked Hedo 2. With a group of about 100 people, if you did not find someone to hang out with or found yourself not having a good time you should perhaps look inside yourself to find out why. Every year the AWOL peeps adopt people along the way and this year was no exception. Most often, people would see how well they got along and how hard they were partying and come over and introduce themselves. It’s what the group is about. Much thanks to our co hosts and friends Rick and Ivy and Bob and Steph for the year’s worth of hard work to make for a smooth trip for all of our people and the lifetime of love and friendship we share. Special thanks to B and T for the dog tag silencers, J and K for the trip CD’s, to R and E for organizing and running the nude cruise, and to C and B for saving my ass by going to the house and finding the door cards and bringing them with you. The constant buy in from members and willingness to offer their time and resources to other AWOL’ers is something we think is special.

We met some other great forum people again- always a huge plus. Diva and Dude, Shelly and Doug, Francois, Scoops, and of course the Cocktails people were there on our arrival- great to see them as well. I know I am forgetting some names here, please forgive me as those early days in the trip are always a blur.

As always, the staff was kind, friendly, and worked very hard to make our stay special. We brought a couple pairs of leather gloves down to Augustus which he seemed to appreciate, as well as the usual little gifts for other staff members. We got to see and spend time with Serena most days which was awesome, and enjoyed our time with Delroy and Scumba as well.

The food was so-so for us. Nothing spectacular, but never had a problem finding something decent to eat. Spent most days eating from the nude grill which was always quick and good.

For the most part, the 10 days went by quickly. We made some new friends, hung out with old friends, and just tried to relax as much as possible. The group events were awesome, and one of our people even got a job there last week, performing his karaoke songs for one of the other groups every afternoon. The weather was fine with some rain but not a ton, not too hot, and we managed to get out just a couple days before Hurricane Ernesto was going to brush by.

The Weird.

There were two instances that I will talk about here. The first is something that we were only told about, and the second one that we were directly involved with.

THE ONE WE HEARD ABOUT: 2nd hand info:

As we arrived on Wednesday before the group got there, we got to be there for two Friday lobster buffets. Not our thing, but we see that people definitely line up for them.

Apparently, a female member of another group that was there bypassed the line at the buffet and stepped in front of a gentleman who objected to her cutting in line and said something. Somehow, it was relayed the woman’s husband and eventually, after words, there was actually a physical altercation between several guests over the issue resulting in at least one table being turned over and one person “being taken to the ground”. All I could do when I heard about it- and I heard more than one version from people who claimed to be there- was shake my head at the time. Apparently it got all sorted out but we had never heard of anything like that happening there before.

Little did we know.

THE ONE WE WERE INVOLVED IN:

While we were definitely the largest group there our week there was at least one other smaller group on resort at the time. The other group’s name we were told is Desirous. One afternoon while the other group had come to the nude pool, and provided a DJ by the way which was nice, one of our members stopped me and said “Hey, that guy has a camera in the nude pool”, and pointed to the other side of the pool. As I went over to where she pointed I told one of our larger AWOL’er members what I was doing and just asked him to keep an eye open for me in case things went sideways.

There were 3 guys standing there so I went over behind them for a minute and waited to see if I could see which one she was talking about. After she pointed exactly which one she was talking about out I could see it in his hand under the water. I stepped around the side of him and said in as little of a confrontational tone as I could “Hey man, if you didn’t know, there are no cameras allowed in the nude pool.” After what seemed like an attempt at a very intimidating look at me (I deal with drunk and belligerent people all the time at work and almost had to stifle a laugh) he asked me if I was in any of the pictures. I told him it didn’t matter, there are no cameras allowed in the nude pool. He turned toward me and in a threatening manner asked me if I wanted us to go check and see about it. I told him sure and followed him out of the pool. As we went down the stairs next to the nude pool bar by the nude grill I could see Serena standing there so I shouted past him “Hey Serena, what’s the rule about cameras at the nude pool?” And pointed at his back as he attempted to hand the camera off to some random guy standing next to the nude grill. I figured the issue was taken care of so I circled around the nude pool and walked back up the stairs and started to get back in. As I sat down on the edge I could see Kitty getting out of the pool on the other side and through the noise she could not hear me call out to her so I got back out and went back down the stairs. As I got there, I could see her standing behind Serena and two female security guards. The other group’s leader was also standing there. I called and got her attention to tell her to come over and out of the situation. At this point Kitty told me no. Knowing that Kitty can have a much bigger temper than myself I called her again, was told no again, and the third time I called her she just looked at me and said “He put his hands on Serena.” The next few moments are a bit of a blur as I found myself up next to the other group leader in his ear and throwing most of the curse words I know at the guy with the camera, questioning his manhood, judgment, and pretty much anything else that came to mind. Probably not a good idea but I have known Serena for 9 years and consider her a friend- no apology for that.

In the end, the camera was taken and the pictures reviewed. According to Serena, there were many with myself and other AWOL’ers in the background as well as underwater pictures and video of random people, so I guess I could have answered his initial question with a solid “Yes”. He was not removed from the resort, which I would have hoped for and expected after touching a staff member in an aggressive manner, but apparently the group he was with is there several times a year. We did not see him again during the stay, and were told they were banned from the nude pool. Sad and completely not what we expect from Hedo people.

The Bad.

It appears that whoever owns Hedo no longer cares to put money into the facilities. After 9 trips now to the island, all to H3 or H2, we were still surprised by the amount of neglect we saw. The grounds themselves- the greenery and beach I mean, are still lovely and seem well cared for. However, we saw tons of rot in the woodwork, poor paint coverage, and what I would consider half assed repairs throughout the resort. The new fans in the dining room were the only improvement from last year that we could tell aside from the improved AC in the Disco.

The AC in the Italian restaurant was overmatched by the heat all 3 times we ate there. Personally, I do not really have an appetite when I am hot, so it was not so great for me. Room AC was just OK for us, but we heard from many members whose did not work all week, despite calls for repair.

Our hot water was mostly fine.

Mold in the rooms seems to be getting worse. I don’t know if they have scaled back the number of housekeeping staff hours or if it is just that time of year, but we don’t recall it being so bad before.

Before our group got there, we decided to go to Rockhouse for dinner. Having done my research about how the restaurant will send a car for us to get there for free then call a cab for us to pay our own way back, I went to the excursions desk to ask them to make a reservation for us for dinner. After explaining the transfer thing to the person at the desk, I watched as she made our reservation. What I did not know was that she also arranged our transfer- after I asked her to have the restaurant do it. Imagine my surprise when we returned to the resort and got hit for $17pp- a total of $119 for a 10 mile cab ride, by the cab driver. We spoke with Rusheen about it, feeling that we had been screwed on the deal- but nothing changed. I would encourage people to not use the tours desk if they can avoid it. Shameful.

The nude pool water quality, despite it being a relatively slower week than last year with just us as the big group, was fair to poor for the most part. At one point the filtration system just was not working at all. We spent 3 days in the prude pool by the beach and the water was awesome if a little cool. The table there was perfect for big games of flip cup and we lamented it when we had to go back to the nude pool to be nekkid when it started to get crowded with prudes and gawkers.

We had such high hopes for the piano bar this trip but were completely let down. When Glenn the old piano player at H3 left we got John… who at least played the piano and had a varied repertoire. The new guy seemed content to play riffs on the keyboard mixed with his Ipod playing through the sound system. In the nights we spent there he never truly had the crowd. The best time we had was our last night there when he left to go smoke a joint by the tennis courts… which happened every night (yes, people are paying attention) and Kramer and Jeremy took over with a bloodless coup or insurrection as I called it. It got rocking then to Jeremy’s aforementioned karaoke show with Kramer getting all Illinois ghetto in accompaniment. Karaoke did not happen during our stay as far as I know.

The Announcement.

After 9 years of Jamaica it is time for a change for us. We have always enjoyed our trips because of the people we meet there and the beautiful scenery. It has never been about the resort, but after being displaced from H3 2 years ago we find ourselves disenchanted by our experiences since.

With the planned resignation of Rick and Ivy as hosts of AWOL to be effective after this year’s trip we decided to start looking at other options.

We decided that we would rather attempt to move the group than let it dissolve or spend another year at a resort that honestly we had seen enough of. This decision was not a quick one, but has been made much easier to live with because of our experiences there this year.

Rick and Ivy have decided to come back one more time to train up new cohosts after hearing from the H2 die hards in the group and we wish them well as they move forward with AWOL in Hedo and Bob/Steph and us move forward to Temptation Cancun next July with what we are calling AWOL World.

We founded AWOL with Rick and Ivy 5 years ago because as good friends we thought we could make a great group. We were right.

See ya out there.

Nick and Kitty