Adrian & Shirley’s first visit to Hedonism II - 14-17 April 1998

Hedonism II was an afterthought. We were taking a rare opportunity to stay with some friends in Kingston, the other end of Jamaica. It’s all right for you guys from the U.S. - it’s 4,700 nautical miles from England! Wouldn’t it be nice, we thought, to have a few days on our own, away from the kids, indulging ourselves on a tropical beach with "all inclusive"? So Adrian spend a while surfing the Net to get all the information we could on all-inclusive resorts in Jamaica. He had heard of Hedo but didn’t know all that much. The first plan was to be driven from Kingston (which would have been an experience in itself!) by the female half of our friends and stay somewhere (anywhere all-inclusive). Fate dictated that Hedo was the only place bookable within the U.K. with any room. Not really suitable for our friend with a 4 month old baby! That sort of focussed it for us. Go for it. It’s fate. Be adventurous!

TRAVEL

Our journey to Jamaica was Hell. NEVER even consider using Air Jamaica from London. We could not get British Airways flights at short notice. Now we know why! The flight was cancelled and they didn’t get us on another plane until the next day (ironically British Airways!). The ground staff really screwed up and the hotel overnight lost electrical power. How we ever made it to JamJar we’ll never know. Almost 24 hours late in the end. Oh, and 2 hours late getting back to London. We’re "in discussion" with Air Jamaica so we won’t say more here.

After a few days seeing the "other" Jamaica with our friends we took the internal 45 min. flight to Negril. I’m sure our ears will recover eventually. Black mark to Hedonism - there was no one to meet us at the airfield, despite several faxes and telephone calls asking us for our arrival time. We waited around for 10 mins, then paid 5 US$ for a cab. Incidentally, Hedo only called a cab (for which we paid) at the end of our stay. Our idea of "all-inclusive" is - "all inclusive", including reliable transport to/from the local terminus. They also charged us twice in error for the deposit we had paid in the U.K. but we are completely satisfied with the prompt action the U.K. office took to put things right on our return home.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

First impressions? A taste of paradise. We were already feeling pretty relaxed when we arrived (in time for breakfast) so I guess we were predisposed to liking the place. The room was clean, cool (why do you Americans insist on having everywhere the temperature of an icebox?) and comfortable enough. Our only criticism was the thin walls. We heard the first female orgasm like it was in the same room within 10 minutes of our arrival! I guess they heard ours later. If you care to look there are humming birds in the gardens, beautiful flowers and trees. The reception desk staff are friendly and helpful (as are all the staff).

THE BEACH

The man-replenished sandy beach is adequate rather than spectacular. We spent all our beach time on the nude side, most of the time away from the crowded area near the nude pool. The sea was warm and clean (not as warm as the less visually attractive black sand beaches elsewhere on the island but few "whities" [this is not usually a derogatory term in Jamaica] go there) and great to make love in. Away from the pool area we never had a problem finding loungers. We were not at Hedo long enough to make the best of the beach activities but we had a wonderful hour sailing a Hobby Cat, maintained in good condition and sensibly quizzed as to our competence before setting off. The nude swim-up bar was certainly popular and very welcome in the perfect weather we were lucky enough to have all the time we were there.

FOOD & DRINK

We heard quite a few criticisms of the food in the buffet dining area. We found it rather bland and "international". Very little in the way of Jamaica spices. Sanitised for mass tourism? The quality of the raw ingredients was good, it was well enough cooked and plentiful. There were signs, at least it seemed that way to us, of cost cutting. I never got a papaya for breakfast(maybe I was just unlucky). Conversely, we found the Italian restaurant (Pastafari) truly excellent, both quality of the food and judgement as to portion size, etc. Let down a bit by the wine. We’re both used to the quality wines easily available in the U.K nowadays so perhaps we’re being a bit harsh. On the subject of alcohol, we were impressed that the unlimited drinks were just about right. Not too much alcohol - no dehydration for us or obvious drunkenness in others.

ENTERTAINMENT

What we saw of the entertainment was pretty good. We heard the type of music in the disco being criticised but we didn’t go ourselves so we can’t comment. We thought the band did a good job. Some of the "audience participation" was a bit strained and went on too long. There’s a limit to how long people humiliating themselves remains entertaining! Overall though, we enjoyed it.

SUMMARY

General summary of Hedonism the Resort? Relaxed, comfortable but not luxurious, very friendly, excellent, helpful staff. The obvious security was reassuring without being intrusive (although we did wonder just how short-sighted the guy by the nude hot-tub in the evenings was instructed to be).

Which leads us on to .....

NUDISM & SEX

Remember, this was our first trip to Hedonism. We have stayed on regular naturist campsites and nude-tolerant resorts in Europe but not before at any place where there is a deliberate emphasis on liberal thinking. Hedo has quite a reputation in the U.K., not helped by Sky TV, as a hotbed of non-stop fornication and debauchery. We are pretty free-thinking ourselves, and our definition of marital fidelity would not exactly match that in the Oxford English Dictionary, but Shirley was frankly somewhat apprehensive that there would be a great deal of pressure to take an active part in whatever was going on. We should not have worried at all.

We arrived on Tuesday. We were nicely tired and sleepy after dinner and decided to skip the Pyjama Party. I doubt they missed us! Wednesday we just lazed around on the beach and in the nude pool, somehow missing meeting Sandy & Carole with whom we’d exchanged e-mail beforehand. That first day we saw no sexual activity anywhere and Shirley relaxed. At the same time she realised (how regretfully is open to debate) that there were no men she was interested in (sorry guys), even on her own limited terms. That confirmed that it was unlikely that we would take advantage of the liberal atmosphere and we decided to simply enjoy each other (and we certainly did! - the ambience of the place is overwhelming). That evening we ate a great meal in the Italian restaurant and no doubt entertained our neighbours audibly that night.

During Thursday there was more overt activity in the nude pool. Frankly, whilst most of it seemed natural and in no way offensive there were a few people there whose aim was apparently to be outrageous. We were told that we just missed seeing one girl enjoying herself with multiple partners in the pool but we did not witness more than foreplay and simple discreet sex ourselves. At no time was it threatening and we were never propositioned (does that say more about us?) We would not hesitate to recommend Hedo to our like-minded friends.

Thursday night is Toga Party night. I even managed to tie my sheet so it stayed on! Shirley had taken one of her own. Some of the "togas" were little more than a twist of cloth, some engineering miracles. It was a good evening and we ended up in the nude hot-tub. Just maybe if there had been someone we really found attractive ..... but there you go.

DEPRESSION SETS IN

We did NOT want to leave! Friday the management let us stay until mid afternoon and our friends Sandy & Carole let us shower off in their room before we made our way sadly to the airfield. We thoroughly enjoyed our short vacation at Hedo. We made quite a few friends, we even met someone from our home town in England (but failed to get their phone number! - if anyone from Swindon is reading this .....).

A QUESTION

Why on earth is there a "prude" side? We didn’t speak to anyone who was staying there by choice and the slight overcrowding on the nude side could be relieved by using the relatively empty prude beach to better purpose. Why not just admit that the specific attraction of Hedo is nudity and stop trying to be a mixture of both? Maybe there’s a legal problem with that I don’t know, but it seems a shame.

WOULD WE GO AGAIN?

Yes! We think about 10 days would have been the ideal. Three and a half days was way to short, 2 weeks might be too long.

If you’ve never been there ..... go! If you have, maybe we’ll see you next time.