Took a while but here is a report
Trip Report - Grand Lido Braco June 3-6.
Such a short trip, but the best I have had. We were not there to enjoy the full scope of the facilities, but we will have to return.
Trip There.
We took a Funjet Charter out of Houston. It was a direct flight into Montego Bay which was real nice. All of the commercial flights went through Atlanta or Miami. We also cut our airfare in half buy using this option. Check out their website for airfare only fares.
The flight left at 5:00 or was supposed to. It was late leaving the gate. Arrival at Montego Bay was also delayed. Once there, we were the only ones going to Braco at the time, so they got a private minivan to get us there. The driver was very friendly and got us there within the expect hour.
Checking in...
Being late it seems that we did not get the top notch treatment of champaigne and towels to wipe or faces. Check in did go smooth. It took about 10 minutes for someone to get our bags and show us to our room. We had faxed ahead for a 2nd or 3rd floor room as suggested. But the resort was pretty full. It turns out we enjoyed having a first floor room.
The Room.
We signed up for a junior suite, but were upgraded to the suite. The towel sculptures are real neat. The rooms are very clean and the CD players are real nice. We had one cd player that could not scan forward on tracks, but I just used scan backwards. Roll with the punches here. The bath tub hot water handle was loose and did not provide hot water. Maintenance did come out and fix it. The Air conditioning in the sitting room regularly went into a confused state and did not blow air. The units have a flip up cover and I found that you can save time and energy by flipping the cover up, turning the unit off and then back on.
You get a key on a wrist bungee cord thing and ideally that is all you wear! We did stay on the AN side. I found it to be a peaceful getaway from the Textile side and the people were absolutely wonderful. I did not see any of the Textile side rooms, but the folks that visited ours said the rooms were much nicer.
The facilities.
The vegitation was absolutely beautiful. We had a tree right outside our room with two lounge chairs that made it wonderful for morning coffee.
The beach has plenty of lounge chairs and floats for use. The break rocks were wonderful for making the beach a calm water, float with a drink kind of place. At night is is also pitch dark out there, so make sure you don't step on anyone 8-).
during our stay there were maybe 5 couples that were on the beach at any point in time. Most of the folks hung out at the pool. A few times they ran out of towels. But they were quickly replentished. There are two bins at the poolside bar that have all the towels for outside use.
The pool is huge. There is a bridge in the middle and we found the folks who wanted to be alone were on the side away from the pool bar and the social crew were at the bar. Some hung out under the bridge trying to decide.
We liked the social crew. We met a few people that we are keeping in touch with.
There are two hot tubs. One is set back in the woods, which is nice for a little afternoon private time. We visited the bigger hottub at night, but there was never anyone there. I guess it was a slow hottubbing weekend. Only once did we find the private hottub not very hot. The rest of the time everything was in working order.
We ate at the club house several times. If you have never tried nude ping pong this is your chance. The cooks were real nice and accomodated every request. My wife devoured the nachos and the potato skins. Service there is 24 hours a day. Since we were up until 4:30-5:00 every night, that was a very welcome service!
We have done the Island at Couples 11 years ago on our honeymoon, but I tell you there is nothing like being able to wake up and go without getting dressed.
Restaurants
We ate at the French Restaurant on Sat. Night. We faxed ahead our reservations. This is something I strongly recommend. If you are a find dining expert, this may not be a top notch place, but we thought it was fairly good. The Maitradee(sp?) gave us the requisite hard time for trying to join two other couples at the last minute, but after a few minutes they accomodated us.
The buffet in the morning was ok. We got there so late everyday, I really can't say much about it. We did it at the italian restaurant as well and found the food to be quite good.
The events.
DON'T MISS THE PAJAMA PARTY. Even though we got there late, it was still a lot of fun. Bring something sexy and fun. Otherwise you will feel awkward. You have to have pajamas to get in the disco on Thursday. Many people were turned away. Several hung out at the Italian diner to oogle. You will not see these folks on the AN side.
We pretty much closed down the Disco every night. If you love to dance, this is a fun place. After midnight it ended up being the same 20 people in there every night. So we all got to know each other and had a great time.
The Friday Night Street Party is a blast. I sweated so much that I actually lost weight! They line the downtown streets with tables and the restaurants serve up food around the fountain. There is a live band and DJ that keep the dancing going. The disco opened at 10:30 and the usual crew migrated there.
Saturday night they had some Casino games in the breakfast hall, but we never made it there.
The bars.
There are plenty of them. I never saw anyone playing the piano in the piano bar, but it serves up drinks pretty late as well as in the disco. The pool bars close around 5:30 pm. That was a little depressing. I think it was too early. But the Club House on the AN side is right next to the pool, so the effect is minimal. The club house on the textile side, which is really far away from the town center and main beach area is also open 24 hours a day.
Overall.
The best vacation we have ever had. So relaxing and so exciting at the same time. We were somewhat blessed by having the international bobsled assoc. there at the same time. We got to meet the most winningest bob sledder ever. I would like to think that the St. Thomas bob sled team are good friends now as well. Prince Albert of Monoco was on site which also added to the fun and excitement. Don't ask why we stayed in the water with a thunderstorm over the mountains with a guy named lightning Joe.
I now refer to Braco as my source for peace and happiness. I plan to return many times in years to come. If you have a strong relationship and no strong aversion to being nude then I highly recommend the AN side. Even if you are curious, take a deep breath and make the reservation. Do make sure that you both are willing to give it a try. We had one story where a couple was being shown to the room and when the wife so nude people she started shaking her head and by the time she hit the pool bar she was outraged and headiing back to the office. Oh well..
Vive le Au Naturel!
Cheers Mike and Michele