Gary & Mary - December, 2007
For those of you
who do not like long trip reports, just skip over this one.
Our trip actually
began with our return from Hedo last year.
Through out the year we often thought about our planned
upcoming trip. At
one point after talking to our travel agent, she suggested we
book no earlier than 6 months before our travel as often travel
packages don’t come up before this time.
We were able to delay booking this trip until August.
Once we had booked we became even more excited and suffered from
frequent bouts of DIF.
On Christmas day
before our trip, we received 8” of snow making for a perfect
“White Christmas”.
Preparing to leave a couple days after Christmas for the airport
in the predawn morning and the potential of weather delays
didn’t put a damper on our excitement.
Getting to the airport was no problem; however, there had
been a light snowfall at the airport.
The lines were manageable; we were soon off to the gate
and boarded the plane.
It wasn’t until then we were informed that the plane
would have to be de-iced and a ½ hour to 40 minute delay.
Now the worry began.
Would we make our connecting flight?
We only had an hour lay over at the connecting airport.
We arrived at the
connecting airport about the time our flight to MBJ was
scheduled to leave.
We rushed to the boarding gate where most of the passengers had
already boarded.
Whew, that was a close call.
Once on the plane, it was announced that they were still
loading baggage and that the departure would be delayed for 20
to 40 minutes. About
an hour later we finally were pushed away from the gate.
After a few emotional ups and downs, we were really
getting excited about getting on our way.
The 4.5 hour
airplane ride didn’t seem long at all.
Soon we were landing in
We located a
baggage agent who attempted to find our missing bag.
No luck.
Cheers were heard
as we pulled into Hedo.
Check in went smoothly.
We always book ROH and there was some curiosity as to
where our room would be.
Our first year we were in the H block, second year a room
on the nude side overlooking the vendor area, and last year we
were in the nearest room of the farthest building from the nude
beach. Luck wasn’t
with us this year.
Room 1158 is only two doors down from being as far away from
everything as you can be except Sandals.
It is really quiet though (Ha!).
Got to the room,
opened the suitcase and discovered we hadn’t planned our packing
well. Only lady
stuff in the one bag that made it.
Oh, well.
It is Hedo.
We undressed and one of us thru on a wrap, the other only a
towel and headed for Delroy’s and the nude grill.
We were in heaven.
No shirt, no shorts, no shoes, no problem, mon.
The days all run
together and at the end of the day we often comment between our
selves questioning where the day went.
I love to swim and I swam the full length of the nude
beach every morning.
Then we would go for breakfast.
On Saturday we went on the nude cruise.
We really enjoy going on this extra curricular event.
We enjoy snorkeling on the reef and swimming at the
caves. Just having a
good time with a bunch of friendly people.
Following the cruise it was to the nude beach.
We took a cab to
the Catholic Church on Sunday and New Years Day.
After Mass, we walked the beach back to Hedo.
We really enjoy seeing all the places along the beautiful
Negril beach.
New Years Eve day
was busy with a lot of people out and about.
The New Years Eve dinner was really nice with a packed
house. The staff
really worked hard and did very well with the overflowing crowd.
We were impressed.
We actually didn’t stay long after the band started.
Maybe it is just that we are getting older (old), but we
don’t enjoy the excessive volume.
We actually turned in before the New Year the same as we
have done previous years.
We went on a
second catamaran cruise on Wednesday.
We had as much fun as the first.
The ocean was a little rougher not conducive for good
snorkeling but for a great boat ride.
They do offer a discount if you are going on your second
cruise. Thirty
dollars per person compared to the normal fifty dollars.
Comments on Hedo:
The staff:
We love them. Since
our room was almost adjacent to Sandals, sometimes it would take
us quite a while to go from one side of the resort to the other.
Not that the walk was all that far, but if we stopped to
talk to the staff, it was hard telling how long it might take.
Maybe it is because I am so long winded as this trip
report is, but I really enjoyed visiting with the staff.
The EC’s, the water sports people, the cooks, the
bartenders, the grounds people, the maids, security, and even
members of the management were included in our conversations.
These people seem to always have a smile for us and more
than one has recognized us from one year to the next.
The grounds:
Very well kept up.
The resort is beautiful and very clean.
The beach was kept up very nicely.
I often wonder how the staff keeps such a positive
attitude looking after guests who have so little regard for the
beauty of the resort.
The rooms:
First of all, we should say we don’t go to Hedo for the
rooms. They were
very adequate.
The new safes are great.
You don’t have to be near as careful as to what you put
in the safe as there is much more room than before.
Hot water, well most days we had, OK, well it was tepid.
Some days it was just a quick shower.
The air conditioner? Well, it was rattling when we
entered the room. We
shut it off and never turned it on while we were there.
There was often a breeze which kept the room comfortable
and the wildlife sounds were much more pleasant than the sound
of a creaky old fan.
The maid service was excellent.
The food:
We never left hungry.
We are not picky eaters nor are we very adventurous.
Breakfast was always good.
The few times we ate lunch in the dining hall were good.
We ate our evening mean in the dining hall every night.
We didn’t want to miss any of the evening entertainment.
Many of the choices are not what we are accustomed to
eating back home in the States, however, we always found plenty
to eat. Most of the
salads were very good and we were often satisfied by the time we
finished with them.
The meat entrees including beef and pork were tough by
our Midwestern standards, however they were tasty.
The people:
We had another great time at Hedo.
You can always make friends at Hedo. From our first time
at Hedo, when we didn’t know what to expect, to our 4th
trip where we thought we knew what to expect.
Each trip has brought about different experiences.
This trip was much the same as those in the past, yet
much different. The
group seemed to be more into relaxing than getting involved in
activities than on previous trips.
Disappointing for me, but not a fault of Hedo or the
EC’s, was that we never saw a volleyball game going on at either
the nude or prude beach.
We never saw a nude waterslide run or most of the other
posted events. The
EC’s were there trying to get people involved, but group people
there were not interested.
The nude side was much busier with many more people than
the prude side, however we thought there might have been more
people on the prude beach than we thought in the past.
Beach towels
and lounge chairs:
Both the beach towels and lounge chairs are plentiful and
sometimes hard to come by.
I am not sure how Hedo should handle this or what they
should do differently but at times it is frustrating.
On occasion we observed people reserving lounge chairs
only never to see them use them thru the day.
Perhaps Hedo could establish a policy that if a lounge
remains vacant for an hour, it becomes available, I’m not sure.
We just find it frustrating that people reserve lounges
early in the morning and these lounges remain unused almost all
day long. Beach
towels also continue to be a premium.
Again I don’t want to blame Hedo entirely for this
problem because we observed guests abusing towel usage.
Once I was third in line to get towels from by the nude
hot-tub. There
appeared to be a reasonable stack.
The first person ahead of me grabbed 7 towels.
The second person took the remainder of the stack which
was similar in size to what the first person took.
We were left scrambling to run down a couple of towels
elsewhere.
PDA, PDP, PDS:
Yep, they were everywhere.
This year much more so than in our previous visits.
In the past they were more discrete and generally
confined to the pool/hot tub area in the late afternoon and
after dark. This
year we observed twosomes and moresomes becoming frisky out on
the Hedo raft, on floating rafts, on the beach, in the pool, by
the pool, in the hot tub, by the hot tub and even by the bar (if
there were some on the bar, we missed them).
Various forms of PDA/P/S happened in the morning, in the
afternoon, and at night.
Perhaps the EC’s were relieved as they didn’t have to
work very hard to keep people occupied (Ha!).
Cameras on the
nude beach:
The new policy as spelled out on the form we signed
seemed to have little effect on camera usage on the nude beach.
It seemed there were as many if not more cameras as on
previous visits. A
few times security was summoned only to have the picture taking
offender discreetly hide the camera or leave the area before
security caught them.
One time a fully clothed person was taking pictures and
security was called.
Security talked to this person after which the person put the
camera away and walked away from the nude beach.
In conclusion, we
are already talking about going back.
Our vacations at Hedo are always the highlight of our
year and we look forward to the next year.
This year was no exception.
The weather couldn’t have been any better.
We had perfect sunshine for the first 5 full days we were
at Hedo. On our 6th
day the weather wasn’t as nice.
Big waves and cloudy all day.
Still a fun day, some of it spent searching for treasures
washed up from the ocean floor and going to the market across
the road from Hedo.
The Good Lord
willing, we will be back at Hedo next year.