MARTIN & CAROLINE - December, 2008 Wet, Wild, and Wicked ®

What a great trip - probably our best ever seeing as we were there for 2 weeks (1 before WWW and then the main week itself)

Met some great people from the Purple group and many old and dear friends in the WWW group as well as getting to know many others who we had not met before or were 'newbie's'.

Generally the weather was fantastic from day 1 apart from a couple of windy days and rain on Saturday departure day but cannot complain at that.

Sorry Jen couldn't join us but did send her a get well soon email......

Congratulations to the venue on winning the MIXOLOGY competition!!!

Good points:

Weather - fantastic for 2 weeks

Entertainment Coordinators (especially Sunshine and Winston who worked their butts off during our stay and are just awesome together) plus the lovely Munga, Omeca and Michael who also seemed to be running on energiser batteries!!

Air Conditioning - some nice improvements to the air conditioning

Pathways - smooth rather than rough pathways around the venue which made walking barefoot much easier

Billiard Tables - Recovering of the billiard tables outside the Gym

Piano Bar - terrific evening entertainment **

Front Desk staff - although limited in number, they are always very helpful and attentive although when they do promise to resolve a 'problem' you have to keep pestering them to make sure it is done rather than them taking the initiative to ensure it is resolved and reported back to you.

Augustus - SUCH a hard worker and an absolute delight to be chastened by!

Delroys - What more can I say!

Soups - Terrific soups everyday

Massage - Dwight and Ivelyn - Fantastic massages - Many thanks to them......

Naked Waterslide - Wicked!

Tree Carvings - Such a great idea!

Ground Staff - Unseen and often unnoticed but they do a GREAT job of keeping our 'home in the sun' up to a very high standard.

Areas of Weakness

Disco - Why on earth does it have to be so God Damn LOUD!

Its completely unnecessary and spoils a great facility - we only went in once for PJ night but only stayed for an hour because we couldn't speak to anyone or hear anyone. Turn it down by 50% and a lot more people would attend. When the windows rattle, its just too loud (and they were in our ROOM as well as in the Disco itself!!!!!!!!!!)

Showers - Frequently cold or very luke warm. Didn't feel it worth complaining as nearly everyone we spoke to seemed to have the same problem.

Food - The food on site has noticeably deteriorated. No Lobster at the end of week 1 but fortunately resolved by end of week 2.

Wine selection was much better than the 'diesel' they served up last year.

Food has become very bland/samey certainly compared to the variety we have found in other resorts we have stayed in such as Club Caribbean, Breezes and compared to previous years. Even the Maldives had fantastic food by comparison and they are individual resort islands!!

Its more like 'school dinners' than a quality resort. Jamaican food is renowned around the world for its tasty and varied ranges but sadly lacking in Hedo 2. 

Someone needs to put a rocket up the Catering managers bottom (or give them a more realistic budget!) as it seriously lets down the overall quality of the resort. 

There also seemed to be a very limited amount of many items including yoghurt, blue cheese, croissants, jams, ice-cream over the 2 weeks we were there. 

Most nights there were no tablecloths either which looked more like a cost cutting exercise and downgraded the experience.

In fact the best, most tasty meal in Jamaica (apart from the lobster) was a snack at the Margaritaville cafe at the airport on the way home!!!

Pastafari food is generally much better than the terrace restaurant but even that was 'poor' this year. No green lipped mussels, steaks (excellent) were served up with rice rather than mashed potato (Why?), crème brulee' was pitiful. Service was sloppy on 2 out of 3 occasions with salad bar not being replenished regularly

**Piano Bar - One evening there was no pianist and no Karaoke (just porn on the screen) and it was a very busy night........

Hot tub - 3 nights it was SO hot that there was no one in the pool, only people sat around the sides

Room Service - It was noticeable this year that the maids servicing the rooms seemed to be far less efficient with regards to supply of towels - most days we didn't have a bathmat which meant the floor in the bathroom became very wet and mucky and we only had bare minimum or lees towels each day. No folded towels on the beds for 14 days (not that important but noticeable difference)

Evening Entertainment - Generally good fun but noticeably less range than previous years with the on site entertainment team having to fill the vacuum. 

Thanks again Denny for all of your help and for taking time to be there with the group despite 'personal' needs back home