Report - by Shawnee1                                           Negril Lido January 22, 2000  

            I am going to write a different type of report, which will center on some specific people. We left Dayton, Ohio at 5:50 AM on Delta connecting to Air Jamaica in Atlanta. We left four inches of fresh snow and 2 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures. The Air Jamaica flight was full and had great service. We each had two carryons for the entire week. We changed into our shorts in the Atlanta airport (20-degree temperature) and arrived in Mobay to 80-degree temperatures.  Two degrees temperatures (no sunshine) to eighty degrees temperatures (sunshine) in five hours brought a smile and an immediate attitude change. The TimAir representative, Dalton met us at the MoBay airport and arranged a shuttle over to our flight where we met the owner Frazier. You will need about 10 one-dollar bills for tipping to and from airport. I dropped Jamaica Jim’s name and Frazier smiled and said, “he is very busy for a retired man”. I had a feeling he would have shared more but our plane was ready (five minutes after we arrived). Frazier did talk about taking Harrison Ford and his family over to Negril the week prior to our arrival. Our pilot “Cecil” made us feel very safe.  

            We arrived at the airport and decided not to wait for the Lido shuttle, which is free. We took a cab for $5 (two of us) for a three-minute ride. Our reservation was made with GoClassy and included two free nights for  “run of the house” accommodations with a request for the c/o side. I faxed a request down a week before our arrival for room 2051.

            We arrived at the hotel at 12:30 P.M. and signed all appropriate documents in the piano bar while drinking champagne and a hummingbird. We could not get into our rooms until 2 P.M. so we scheduled the Zein Cruise, Piacere, Manicure and Pedicure, and our massages. We retrieved our swimsuits out of our carryons, which were still in the lobby, went to the main lobby bathrooms by check- in desk and headed for the main pool. We stuffed our clothes in Barb’s BIG purse. <smile> We could have gone over to c/o beach/pool but it has become our tradition to take our one and only swim in the main pool when we arrive. Our room was ready at 2:15 P.M.  

As returning guests and a request from GoClassy, we were given room 2052. We like to leave our patio doors open all night to hear the frogs and the ocean. We immediately turned off our airconditioner with the remote and wished we had brought a Celsius conversion table (See Mike and Sara Scharphy’s report on conversion tables).

Room 2052 is close to the beach and closer to the beach bar and pool. The view was not as nice until the second day. (LOL) On the second day, one of the lawn maintenance men used a Jamaican chain saw to take down a coconut tree, which improved our view but took away some shade on the beach. Two hours later and many carefully placed WACKS of a machete the tree fell right where my chair was the day before. The main stem of the tree had been hit by lightning and the tree was dying. A day later and sand over the stump, you would never have known that a tree was ever there.

One negative about room 2052 that we hadn’t noticed in room 2051 is the early morning activity noise and talking as the water sports people were cleaning the pool deck.

I had asked Mike Scharphy if I could take anything down to the employees. He suggested a bag of the little Halloween sized snicker bars. I took the sack of candy bars to the c/o bar on the beach and immediately Nicole, Kathleen and Enold started smiling and asked if we knew “Mike and Sara”. I told them that we had communicated on the Internet and asked our names. They shared the candy with all the waitresses. They called us by name from that moment on.

Omar, the grill cook makes great onion rings, which became part of our standard grill lunch. Hopefully, our pictures of these people will turn out and we will post them. Interesting side note, one of the hot tub crew brought their own “HUNTS” ketchup from the states. Jamaican catsup is sweeter than our brands.

We met some really great people on the beach and in the hot tub. I am going to mention only a few. Jim and Bonnie had the room below ours and were great on our scuba dive. We talked often while we were on our own little section of the beach. We met Steve and Susan in the hot tub one night as the bottle of Champagne began to mound up. A hot tub legend was told of 14 bottles of champagne being consumed by 8 people. Jerry and Kathy (also from Ohio) were part of the annual “Superbowl week” migration to Lido Negril.

Steve and Susan were married on the Zein three years ago and asked if we wanted to be a part of their vow renewal on the Zein in the morning. We met them at the dock in the morning, which is very close to our room block. The four of us, the wedding coordinator and boat crew went to the Zein “SHIP”.

Susan was given a beautiful native floral arrangement and Steve was given a boutonnière. The Lido arranged it so the minister who did their wedding would perform the renewal service.

The service was a “class act”. The minister was articulate and gave a great message. Steve and Susan repeated their vows while Susan had a few very romantic words of her own to say to Steve. Barb and I were their witnesses, held their rings until the exchange and took pictures with our camera. Pictures are not included as part of the renewal service. Steve and Susan cut a cake and toasted each other with champagne.  It was a very touching and heart warming ceremony. We returned to shore about 30 minutes after the beginning of the ceremony.  I recommend this “renewal to anyone” who wants to do it again. <smile>  

Steve and Susan left for Florida two days later. The Superbowl crew begins to arrive and faces change at the beach and at the hot tub. Midweek, we begin to hear stories about the “Lifestylers” at Hedonism. Throughout the week, the stories became wilder and wilder. One couple transferred over to Lido to get out of “harms way”. A day pass at Hedo is $65 a person good until 5PM. One couple took the Catamaran cruise from Hedo (highly recommended) and then strayed away from the group as it returned to Lido. They stayed the rest of the day at Hedo. I have no first hand knowledge of the “lifestyler activities” at Hedo but they were great hot tub legends.

            Piacere was so good that we booked it twice. We are just wild over “Rickie” at the Italian restaurant. He has recognized us each time and has a smile that makes you smile. We let him choose our pasta and wine. We missed him our last day.  We met the assistant manager, Wayne Brown who had started at Lido as a waiter and shared with him our high regard for Rickie.

            Last, but not least of our most memorable characters/friends is “Nelson” my ten-year friend. I knew Nelson when he was a guard between Sandal’s Negril and Hedo. Now, he is a cab driver working out of Lido. Last year, he had a little car; now he has a full size air-conditioned van. He picks flowers for his lady passengers and gets discounts at many of the stores. We had a hard time linking up to him, three days to be exact. We finally hooked up at 2 PM the fourth day. He took us to Rick’s with another couple from Texas and then shopping for jewelry at B.D.Dadlani (Time Square Mall). Nelson knew the owner and arranged for some unbelievable prices. While we were at Rick’s, Barb was talking to a lady when three women she used to work with from our hometown walked over after recognizing her voice. They came over in a van from MoBay. 

            The famous Thursday P.J. party was unique. The skimpiest was a blonde in high heals, black lace bra and black g-string. Another outstanding contestant was a black open front outfit with gold V-shaped streamers down the front in only the right places. These two winners were from the c/o side. A newly wed won a prize with a green, tied up the front corset with matching g-string. After the judging and contests the disco cleared out, with the party moving to the hot tub.  

            The water temperature was about 81 degrees; most days were cloudy, windy with a temperature of 85 degrees.

The gala buffet was very nice. Jerry and Kathy invited us to sit with the Superbowl group and on the last day allowed us to leave our baggage in their room until 2pm. We were ready go home. Atlanta was a zoo. Most flights were cancelled. We did manage to get out at 10:30PM on an Air France flight that did not suffer from ice on the wings.  All other flights into Dayton had been cancelled. We were able to move around with flights with having only carryon luggage.

            Having more time this trip, we were able to get to know other guests and the staff which made us feel more at home.  We look forward to going back again and understand why our complimentary T-shirts say; “ Returning Lido guests, again, and again, and again.