Steve & Kim - February, 2013
Feb 4 - 17, 2013
This report recaps our 8th
visit. We celebrated our 20th anniversary with a 13-night stay, our
longest to date. And perhaps most remarkable, we brought the sibling of
the Mrs. along for her first visit of 5 days; which she agreed, was too
short. This trip was in advance of the management transfer, which would
happen in the following two weeks.
The bus ride was quick, no
stop made along the way. Our transfers were included, due to booking far
in advance. We were happy with our room assignment on the ground level
of the H-block. The only drawback was noise at night; most nights feral
cats were making noise, and on other nights people were noisy returning
to their rooms in the early morning hours. Earplugs took care of most of
the noise. A single share worked well for the single sibling of the
Mrs., she ended up not having a roommate during her stay.
Two groups were in the
house during the first week of our visit, the MILFs (who used to
frequent H3) and the Wild Women. The Wild Women Sybian party sounded
interesting, but it seemed that you had to be a member of the group to
participate. The MILFs held contests most days on the prude side, and
they perked up the mood a lot. It was fun having naughtiness and energy
on the prude side.
A disagreeable part our
trip was the “chair-saving” behavior of a portion of the guests. We seek
shade throughout the day, as the Mrs. has fair skin. It became
frustrating trying to find a lounger in the shade. Around eighty percent
of the loungers around the pool had clips attached to the top edge, with
a guest’s name written on the clip with a marker. Maybe these clips were
given out in goodie bags distributed by groups? Some people went as far
as to place a laminated sign on their lounger, saying they would be back
shortly. Sometimes we would sit near these chairs for a couple hours,
and not see any sign of the “owner” during that time. Many times we
would sit in chairs with clips without incident, leaving before the
“owner” returned. Our personal policy is that the lounger belongs to a
guest when his/her rear end is IN IT, period. We often moved belongings
to adjacent chairs as part of finding a place to sit. The second portion
of our trip, when the Bubbly Bares were in the house, was better for us,
with much less chair saving.
One other complaint is the
guests who take over the sound system at the pool (if you can call it a
sound system - plugging in an iPod to the speaker) and play the same
boring music you’d hear at home. We prefer to hear reggae, and prefer to
have the staff manage the music. A professional DJ might work, we
haven’t experienced that. We found another place to sit when guests
started playing DJ, and playing their favorite 10 songs.
Bob Marley’s birthday is on
February 6, and Hedo had some nice celebratory touches. Fifty quizzed
guests on Bob Marley trivia, and we gained some Hedo bucks. This is the
first trip that we accumulated enough Hedo bucks to get a t-shirt! We
were Hedo rich! The evening entertainment featured lots of Bob Marley
tunes, very enjoyable.
When our anniversary date
arrived, we found a cake and a bottle of champagne in our room. We had
dinner at Martinos on our anniversary night, and one other evening. The
food was good, we ate pasta and salmon.
The food in the dining room
was the same as it ever was. The salad bar was good. Anchovies were
beside the caesar salad daily. Capers were seen the first part of our
trip, but disappeared the second week. The carving stations looked busy.
On Friday night, two grills were going on the pool deck with plenty of
lobster tails. We like the smoked fish in the morning, and arrived in
time to enjoy it most days. Only saw ackee and saltfish one morning,
what a shame, as it is delicious. We ate at Munasan twice, it was fine.
A nice option was available - the kitchen will deep fry tofu for you if
you don’t want meat. That went over big with the ladies at our grill one
evening. Watch out for the sake! Somehow it exacerbates the hangover!
But then again, it could be the all-day drinking...
The Mr. got out early and
hit with Garfield, the tennis pro, on a few mornings. Mega was no longer
at the resort, and the tennis experience is improved.
We probably used the water
slide more on this trip, than all our previous trips combined.
We had a lot of laughs on the slide, and were impressed by a couple of
girls who don’t swim well, but went down the slide anyway.
There was some
international representation, we were aware of Poles, Argentinians,
Chinese, Dutch, and of course, Canadians - lots of them.
A few shortages - one night
there was no rum cream! Luckily they still had Baileys. On a few days
the towel deliveries were late, arriving after housekeepers had gone
home. We were told the laundry comes from Ochi! They could save a
fortune with a closer laundry, if that’s really the case.
We had a blast on the
catamaran trips (extra cost). The Tuesday cruise was a lot of fun. It
was calm enough to swim through the cave, which is not to be missed. One
snorkeler spotted a sea turtle. We’ll long remember the aloe massage!
The Thursday cruise was packed with people from the groups. It got a bit
crazy. People “failing” at the slide kept us amused and we almost
drowned from laughing too hard while in the water. Two trips in one week
was plenty, and we sat out the cruises for the second part of the trip.
If you want to make friends - go on the cruise!
We had good times at the
piano bar - and found out the sister of the Mrs. is a piano bar girl. It
was her preferred hang out. Ike was playing piano and singing, he was
open to suggestions. Did some sing along, and one night Winston came in
and entertained for a while. It was fun to see Winston relaxing and
sipping a cognac. Ike was not in every night, so some nights it was
karaoke, which had to be rescued by a couple of guests using their own
laptop. We’ll always remember “Lady in Red.” Big ups to Eldon and Diego
for the drinks and smiles.
Most nights we would check
out the disco, even if we didn’t stay long. Our single sister impressed
with her knowledge of Top 40 lyrics, thanks to her daughter at home
who’s into that music. It would be fun to hear some groovy older disco.
Beware the brownies! The
award for the most-stone person we’ve ever seen was a 67-year-old guest
who ate a quarter of a brownie. He affirmed he’s never been so high for
so long!
The second week of our trip
brought in the Bubbly Bares, who were a more sedate group. They had a
band that played on the beach one afternoon, rock classics. The nude bar
would get pretty crowded with the Bares in the house. We saw one
instance of naughty behavior by a Bare, she took the whole tray of
deviled eggs from the Repeater Party, and said she was taking them to
the beach, for those who didn’t want to come up to the pool deck for the
party. Well, the point is - tasty appetizers for those who show up! We
think that group members don’t realize how entitled they behave
sometimes.
We had some excellent scuba
dives this trip, 8 dives in all, with sightings of sea turtles,
lobsters, large crabs, golden spotted eel, lizard fish.
We went out on the snorkel
boat one afternoon, as the Mrs. caught a cold virus and couldn’t dive
for a few days. Respect to Oshane who jumped in and located the cannon
and anchor at the site.
We are activities people -
we sent out sailing on the Hobie cat a couple times, it always seemed to
take a lot of cajoling to get the staff to agree. The sailboat was okay
to sail, as it had some new parts recently installed by a guest (only at
Hedo!?!). We also got to waterski once, although the water looked really
good most mornings, just as we were heading out on the dive boat...
Memories that will last a
lifetime - the pure joy of Hedo - thank you for the opportunity to
re-live it by sharing this trip report. The sister of the Mrs. keeps
asking, when is the next trip? 1love.