Hedonism II Trip Report - John & Susan (April 2023)

April 11-20, 2023

We returned to Hedo for the first time since the year 2000. This was our third trip to Hedo, and much has changed since we last visited. We have visited Desire RM, Desire Pearl and even Desire Cabo in the intervening years.
Susan and I are not "in the life," but we find that the visitors at both Hedo and Desire are much more friendly than in typical "vanilla" resorts. People laugh and talk with other guests instead of looking at the ground and avoiding interaction. Being a lifestyler is not required! If you can't tolerate a little (or a lot) of PDA, though, you might want to consider another destination.
We had a great time and met many new people this trip. We ate a lot of good food, swam in the ocean, and lounged in the sun. We went kayaking and stand up paddleboarding. We enjoyed the evening entertainment, and John sang (if you want to call what he did "singing") with Winston. Hey, what can we say? Winston invited him. We'll return.
The resort has changed greatly in the last 23 years - for the better. Nudity is now acceptable anywhere on the resort except the restaurants, and most guests took advantage of it. There are several small pools in various levels of the patio complex near the main buffet restaurant, as well as the main clothing optional pool just outside the restaurant. I never saw anyone wearing any clothing in the CO pool.
As a couple who has attended the Desire resorts numerous times, we have some points of comparison, and Hedo is looking pretty good.

• Hedo has a much better beach than any of the Mexican Desire resorts except Cabo - and Desire Cabo is no more. At Cabo, the resort property did not go to the water's edge, so it was necessary to wear at least a brief swimsuit on the beach. The beach was huge, though. Hedo does not have trouble with the masses of seaweed that wash ashore daily on the Yucatan Peninsula. This all makes the beach and ocean much more pleasant at Hedo.
• Desire's smaller beach quickly fills up with guests for the full width of the resort property. Hedo's beach is full at the nude end, but there is always lots of room, with and without shade, at the quieter clothing optional end. And remember, as noted above, "clothing optional" really means "clothing hardly ever."
• Hedo does have beach vendors. They aren't supposed to come up above the high water line, though. If you turn them down several times, they'll remember you and stop asking. It's especially important, apparently, not to buy weed from the beach vendors. The beach weed is illegal, according to a notice left in the room, and may include contaminants. Hedo has its own weed dispensary. Buy it there.
• The room rate at Hedo includes kayaks, paddleboards, snorkeling and diving. Diving is a Big Deal, and costs extra at Desire.
• Hedo's rooms were smaller than the ones we used at Desire, but the bathroom showers at Hedo included a shower head on a hose, which is important when you are likely to get sand everywhere. Desire's showers did not have hoses. The rooms at Hedo are showing their age a little in some ways. The flush valve on our toilet dripped a little with each use. Nonetheless, the rooms are vastly improved compared to 23 years ago.
• Hedo does not have the two-tier system that Desire has. Everyone is equal. Desire has members and non-members, and the non-members often don't feel very good about it. Members can reserve beach chairs all day and get free room service in the middle of the night. Nothing like a fat 3 am burger! Your assigned butler at Desire can take care of most requests easily, including changing rooms if you feel something is wrong with the one originally assigned. We didn't need any such service at Hedo, but I suspect they must have ways of handling things like that.
• Hedo has a much bigger buffet than Desire, and most of the food is pretty good. Hedo has more restaurants as well. No reservations are required - first come, first served. Desire's restaurants require reservations, except the buffet. However, even at the buffet restaurant, you could order food from the kitchen at Desire. If they had it, they would make it for you.
• Desire's grounds are smaller, and nudity is allowed anywhere except the restaurants, like Hedo. Since Desire only has one pool, it is a nude pool and it is much larger than Hedo's nude pool. At both resorts, the social activity tends to revolve around the nude pool during the day. That brings us to a problem that Hedo has and which will be expensive to fix: Hedo's nude pool isn't big enough for the traffic it gets. Hedo has plenty of pools and pool spaces, but the intensity of activity at the nude pool means it gets murky with sunscreen (and, um, other stuff) while the other pools, as nice as they are, don't get used much. I don't know what to recommend here, since enlarging the nude pool will require a major redesign and reconstruction of the pool-hot tub complex at the nude end of the resort.
• Desire doesn't have anything to compare to the view from our CO Ocean View room (see image below).
• Water: Hedonism II has water dispensing stations but the room tap water is just as clean from a health perspective. They are convenient, though. Desire, on the other hand, offers bottled water everywhere. Still, it's inconvenient to have to use bottled water to brush your teeth. In my (not so) humble opinion, a resort with the pretensions of Desire could stand to spend some money on their own private treatment system in order to offer potable tap water in the rooms.