David & Stacey - 5/00 - 2nd Trip and also GL Braco
We just returned from our second trip to Hedo III and our first trip to Grand Lido Braco. The split trip was great. Our first trip report from February explained most things, this trip report will tell you what's changed and our wishes for the future.
I will say that Grand Lido Braco is "the" place to go for a relaxing vacation. The pool and the beach is far better and prettier than Hedo III.
We will be posting updates to the activities list (certain night's themes have changed) and a listing of all exercise equipment at both resorts for those who care about such things (I don't, but my wife who is a personal fitness trainer obviously does, alot!...)
First off, Hedo III is still a great place. Would we go back for a third time? Yes, but not for a few years. The food is still great. The rooms are still wonderful and the staff is still good. But Hedo III is lacking in certain areas.
First off, Lincoln is gone. He left to teach bartending. So forget drinking the Lincoln Continentals.
Our main complaint is the disco. It still sucks, music wise. As 99% of the guests are American/Canadian/ European, you would think that the music played would be what we like. Nope. We are a late 30's couple and we like to dance to 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's music. In our two visits, I could count on one hand the number of songs we recognized. And then after an hour, the music turned to all what the locals wanted. It's like the sooner they can clear out the guests, the earlier they can go home.
The disco opens too late, at 11:00 p.m.. It's too much of a lag from dinner and the evening show to the start of the disco. The PJ party is the best. We won "Best Bondage" (don't tell our kids). But except for the sights, we still left the disco after an hour.
We heard the same problem happens at Grand Lido. But there the music is rap. Most people left the disco within an hour too.
On the good side, there is relaxation on the prude side. We are happy to report that women can go topless at the prude pool and beach. We even went down the water slide totally nude during the middle of the day. We did happen to be filmed by a Chilean TV station.
The hot tubs still have temperature problems. Too hot, too cold. Every night it was something else. It's nice to see that when the nude side hot tub is full, people are congregating at the quad pool hot tub.
Welcome additions were the volleyball nets in both the prude and nude pools and the cage and the bed (why a bed?) in the disco.
Suggestion - do not keep your bedroom window open with the air conditioning on. If you do, the floor "sweats" and you'll find a layer of water everywhere.
Also, take along an engineering degree to work the air conditioning remote control. I spent over an hour trying to turn off the air (and yes, I figured it out during my first trip there) only to find out the aim of the remote was slightly off. The person who set the infared device must have been drunk.
Also on the good side, we had no towel problems this time. In February, finding towels was a daily activity. Towels were plentiful this trip.
Make sure you try the Italian restaurant. It's wonderful. They can customize your dish, so if you want to add shrimp to your scallops dinner, no problem, mon.
Lobster was out of season (seems strange to me) so the resort substituted shrimp.
Finally, we fought and won the free day for the No Sunshine Guarantee. It was cloudy and rainy the entire day we arrived. It took some doing, but we did get a free day to be used within a year (at any SuperClubs). At Braco we also fought for a free day (at Braco only) as our air conditioning was broken and we bitched and moaned and all that. So now we have to go back!!!!
David and Stacey