Trip report July 14-21 2006
It was our 6th trip to Hedo II. I wont do a day-by-day, just the changes and interesting points. A lot of this will be in contrast to our trips 4 months earlier in March 2006, or a year earlier in July 2005. We went this time overall with the Fluffernutters, and with our own sub-group of about 12 couples that had been at the same time for two previous summers. With the FNs there, the resort was >90% full.
The food was definitely improved over spring 06, with the arrival of the new chef (Anthony Miller, from Grand Lido). It was still not as good as when Thompson was there, but had some specific character at certain meals that was lacking in March. - One of the major improvements is that Oakville Swill is gone; the basic wine in the main dining room is now the Chilean Leon de Tarapaca: Merlot, Sauvingnon Blanc, and Chardonnay, formerly served only in Pastafari. This is basic table wine, but quite drinkable, unlike the Oakville. I judged Oakville to be the last winery in the world to not use the Gallo technology to make decent wine. - there was ackee&saltfish, but no callalloo all week. We saw Charlie picking ackee from the tree in the center of the lawn just dining room-ward from H Block. You cant get it fresher than that. - I didnt notice a difference in the food at Roberts Grill, with him gone. A woman I was told was named JaJa (or something like that) was head cook there most of the week.
We saw Robert walking through the Main Dining Room on Saturday, dressed up and in full dreads. He said not clearly but implied that he would be opening a restaurant soon, in Negril or MoBay. The Bars were out of cocoanut rum for two days.
Winston was there, and did a great drag show to an old Chicago Blues Aint Gonna Be Giving It Away. I think his stay in the Midwest is influencing his musical tastes.
At check-in, we were clearly told that a credit card strike for $200US was required, even if we did not plan to charge anything.
Delroy was gone all week; Scumba was there maybe two days at the nude pool bar.
There were few rafts there (we brought our own), and towels were not exactly rare, but not easy to come by either.
At the Repeaters party (no sign of Burke) they said that the A/C upgrades were done, and in the coming year there would be some major changes in the layout of the Main Dining Room.
There were repeated short (5-60 seconds) power outages our first 3 or 4 days there, but then little after that. There were two days of 1-2 hour afternoon downpours, but not much rain otherwise.
To my delight, a friend showed me the OneTruWay to eat creme brulee, in Pastafari: with a woman in slutwear straddling your lap, feeding it to you with her fingers... slowly. Life does not get better than that. Thank you, C.
One early afternoon, the Fluffernutters Took Over the main pool for a couple hours of fun. We were told that there were people in the Dining Room complaining Why cant They stay on their own side"... but we also converted numerous prudes at that time to the Dark Side.
If you ever wonder why there are colored paper stick-on dots on the booze bottles, its a bookkeeping things, to tell which bar the bottles were originally allocated for.
One of the sponsors of the FNs was the Spice Closet (www.spicecloset.com), an excellent on-line slutwear firm. They ran a boutique out of their room in H Block, and Carol commented Ive never bought a dress from a naked saleslady before. (nb: Carol was naked at the time too, save for when she tried things on).
On Thursday morning, as we sat at breakfast in the Main Dining Room, I clued in after a bit to having been hearing a repeated three-tone beep. It was much louder in the outer lobby, and it turned out to be a fire (from welding) in the Engineering Room (the part of the Main Building that sticks furthest out into the employees parking lot). They had a fire hose stuck through a window there as they hosed it down and we learned from a friend who was showering at that time that the water pressure elsewhere on the resort went to about nil at that point. The mens restroom off the Main Dining Room was filled with smoke then also.
Good trip, good people. Were ready for next summer.