Duncan & Monique

Before we went, we emailed people who were going at the same time and joined a Yahoo club set up for people going then. While there wasn't a ton of correspondence, it was great to meet the people we had communicated with. It helped us feel more comfortable and helped us get to know some great people.

Our flight from L.A. was delayed a couple of hours, and since it was a redeye, we were tired anyway. The tiny minibus from the airport (no way to sleep on that thing) seated 7 passengers, all headed for Hedo III and all single males except us. My wife was wiped out and not in the mood for conversation, but I talked to most of the others on the bus, and they all turned out to be cool guys that we saw throughout the week and most of them on the flight back, too. The ride took about an hour and a half, a bit longer than we expected.

One of my biggest fears was realized when we arrived and there were no rooms available for several hours. Although people on the message board said our room should be available pretty quickly, I still expected a big delay since we were arriving on Memorial Day. We were completely exhausted after our delayed redeye and were in no mood to party, tan, or do anything else. We just wanted sleep. After some breakfast, my wife camped out in the bench area in the lobby and slept there while I took a brief tour and kept checking back on our room availability. I tried to sleep some, but couldn't, so I just read until our room was ready.

Finally, our room was ready, and while it was a standard quad room and not an ocean view upgrade like we wanted (our travel agent had given us an upgrade coupon, which we used to upgrade to ocean view half way through our stay), we took whatever they had at that point. We spent most of the first day recovering from our travel.

The first time we walked around the resort to check it out, we were walking past the 600 building when suddenly my wife gasped and did the fastest 180 I've ever seen, and she was immediately several yards behind me headed the other direction. I looked left and noticed that through the opening where the stairs are, you can see part of the nude pool area. She shrieked: "I saw a naked man!" I consoled her: "Honey, that's the nude side -- there are naked people there..."

While my wife was sleeping, I popped into the nude pool area to check out the Miss Nude Hedo III contest, which was not at all like any other pageant I'd ever seen. They recruited a bunch of reluctant contestants, not telling them what they'd have to do. They lined up a bunch of men and made two blindfolded contestants identify their husbands by feeling the penises of all these men. Amazingly, they were successful. A single contestant had to go and shake the penis of 10 men to introduce herself. A couple of others had to bring their husbands up to give a blowjob to bananas they held in their crotch area.

While many of the participants may have enjoyed this activity, at least one woman was nearly in tears after being forced to do something she didn't want to do. While I think participation in activities is great, I don't agree with forcing people to do things they don't want to do. I think the activity coordinators should ask people if they're ok with certain things before they're forced to do them (making someone fondle strangers' genitals in public is probably a crime in most places). It's very hard for some people to decline when they're in front of a big crowd egging them on.

When we got up from our nap, we grabbed dinner and decided to head for the infamous nude hot tub. Since nobody was around in the early evening, it was easy for both of us to get naked. Surprisingly, we were literally the only two people there for awhile. A few couples straggled in later on, and we found it very easy to talk to others there.

Later in the week, the crowd got more and more wild as the "Lifestyles" group began to check in for Lifestyles week. What started out with a tame hot tub experience turned into a PDA exhibition, especially 2-4am, by the time we left.

Each time we went to the hot tub throughout our stay, we stayed there until either we pruned up, burned up, wanted to move our activity back to the room or elsewhere, or smokers smoked in our face. I have to say that if you're a smoker, and you go into the tub directly next to and upwind from someone who's enjoying themselves and not smoking, please ask if it's ok to smoke or at least try to direct your smoke in a direction other than others' faces. Some rude smokers forced us to move while we were enjoying the nature and fresh air one evening.

After her initial apprehension about being naked and seeing others naked, my wife couldn't get enough of it. She refused to go eat breakfast with me because she wanted to lay out nude to get an even tan. She won "most revealing" on masquerade night for her body painting costume dressed only in a thong. By our last night, with no alcohol influence, she was ripping off all her clothes faster than I've ever seen in the dining room/main stage when they needed a naked woman in the "Battle of the Sexes." I guess Hedo can quickly change your attitude about being naked...

If you're around the nude area from 2-4am, you will see PDA's, and likely at other times of the day as well, depending on the crowd. You also may see PDA's around the resort. We put on some shows in a couple of rooms, in the gazebo, on the quad platform, on the pier, in the grotto, in the hot tub, and in the nude pool. However, we reserved the best shows, and most of the showing, for the bedroom ceiling mirror, which my wife loved. Now she wants to put one in our bedroom...

We packed very light so we wouldn't need to check any luggage, and had no costumes or togas ready for the trip. Some people went all out spending many hours preparing costumes and togas and bringing heavy suitcases full of stuff. While they looked great, you don't need to do that. You probably have something you can wear to PJ and Bare as you Dare nights, and you can use what they give you for toga and costume nights. My wife took the scraps they gave us, and without scissors or anything, made the most incredible toga I've ever seen. That combined with my diaper won us best couple (see picture). We won some liquor each theme night we saw them giving out awards (PJ, Toga, Masquerade).

The disco was small, but fine for the size of the resort. After reading all the complaints here, I was pleasantly surprised by the music. I don't know if they changed DJ's or something, but I liked the music, as most of it was fine for dancing. It was as good or better than the music we hear in clubs in the U.S., as long as you're not expecting them to play American 70's music or something.

Of course, we went down the waterslide, both clothed and nude, but our friends said I almost flew off the edge after pushing off. You have to be careful, as I had some scrapes on my back from a seam or something on the slide. I found some blood stains on my shirt the next day from the scrapes.

Circus

One morning, while my wife was still sleeping, I decided to try the trapeze. They told me I needed to wear socks and wash the sunscreen off my wrists and ankles. When I came back, they had me climb up, swing out, hang upside down, and do a flip dismount. It was pretty scary just standing up there on that platform. After a few times, they sent someone up to the other trapeze to catch me. He tried to catch me a few times with no success, and then after about 10 tries, he finally caught me. What a rush...

The morning we left, my wife tried the trapeze and made it look really easy. After going through her normal dismount runs, they caught her on her first catch try and the second one right before we had to go to check out. Now she wants to run away and join the circus (see picture)...

Dunns River Falls

On our last full day, we wanted to go on the ATV ride, but they didn't have one since it was Sunday. We missed the bus to the Dunns River Falls trip, but the tour guy said we could take a cab there and do it on our own for not much more than the bus tour cost. It was great to do it that way, as we could go at our own pace and come back when we were ready. We chose to not even go with a tour guide up the falls, as we heard they don't do much. The climb was a bit more challenging than we expected in some spots because of the slippery moss, but it was worth doing once.

The staff was great and very friendly to us -- even the staff at Scotch Bonnet. Keep in mind, they're only human and work 16-18 hour days, 6 days a week (at least the activity coordinators do), so they're not always going to be in the best mood. They told us a lot of the staff was new, as there had been recent turnover.

The circus staff was wonderful. I had Johan, Saccoom, Becky, and Stephanie, while my wife had Vladimir and his group. Vladimir's the one who trains and manages everyone, so if you can get him, do it. The staff we had were from Breezes, as they've had recent turnover with the Hedo staff and are training people to take over there.

The food was fine in all the different restaurants/grills. The main dining room breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack were all good, with Saturday dinner standing out probably because they get so many locals coming on day passes. My wife's favorite is Scotch Bonnet, as she's a jerk chicken fan. They're great if you sleep in and miss breakfast (or lunch). The nude grill is good, but most of the stuff they serve is pretty fatty/greasy. I didn't like Pastafari the night we went because I didn't like my entree, but my wife liked it. We would have tried it again, as we heard they change the menu every 3-4 days. We both liked the Japanese restaurant enough to go there twice. We even got sandwiches at the front desk a couple of times. With food available around the clock, we ate many small meals. I've never eaten so little at a buffet, as I usually overstuff myself to get my money's worth. At Hedo, I knew we could eat in a couple of hours, so I never overate. Despite the fattier than usual food in unlimited amounts, the alcohol, and the lack of (nonsexual) workouts, I actually lost a little weight at Hedo.

Our second day at Hedo, we worked out at their gym and were pleasantly surprised. While not a full gym, it was probably the best one I've been to at a resort. There were some treadmills, weight machines, dumbbells, and even those workout balls that my wife uses. We had planned to use the gym every other day, but that one time was all we made it. Hey, we were on vacation...

We met a wonderful couple that invited us to their wedding while we were there. Hedo took care of all the arrangements and they had a beautiful, small ceremony in the gazebo. It was a bit warm in the early afternoon Jamaican heat, but other than that everything went smoothly.

The instructions in the room for making a calling card call were wrong. They said you dial 8730 when actually you need to dial 873, as the operator told us after a few unsuccessful attempts. We had tried calling the 800 # MCI told us to call from Jamaica, we tried using the long-distance operator the hotel connects you to, and we tried to use our prepaid calling card. Finally, we were able to use the 873 # and then follow the automated prompts to use our second MCI calling card (WorldPhone, which was part of our normal calling card) -- our first MCI calling card didn't work, as MCI said many cards don't work in Jamaica. The MCI operator was surprised our second card worked there. After our struggles the first time, we were able to use the correct method every other night. Each call, the hotel charged us $2.65 in addition to whatever MCI will charge us (they told us about 60 cents a minute). They charged us a bunch of $2.65's for that first night, but they removed most of them from our bill and said they'd correct the instructions in the rooms.

Probably the biggest surprise to me was how little my wife, a gorgeous swimsuit model, was hit on. While she got a lot of stares and a lot of compliments, she didn't get hit on aggressively at all like she does in the U.S. One guy at the nude swimup bar sent his wife/girlfriend over to her sitting in the hot tub to tell her he wanted her (my wife ignored her) and another guy going down the waterslide nude asked her if she wanted to go down with him, but neither were aggressive. The worst was a guy in the nude hot tub who seemed to be fondling every woman in the tub. I was wary of him so I was protectively holding my wife as she faced me with him behind her in the middle. Despite our position, he still tried to fondle her, putting his hand on my hand when it was on her ass!

I think there are a few reasons my wife didn't get hit on more aggressively. First, the crowd when we were there for the most part was very respectful of each other, much more so than at a local club in the U.S. Second, she got this nasty look on her face any time any strange men approached her. Third, she was almost always with me.

Aside from the hot tub fondler, the singles we met were very friendly and respectful. There were far more single guys than single girls, and the single girls we saw were definitely not the Playboy type. If you're a single guy going hoping to get laid with hot playmates, forget it, at least during the week we went. If you go just expecting to have a good time and meet great people, you'll be fine...

In addition to missing the Hedo III orientation, we had missed the orientation we were supposed to attend for Air Jamaica, so we didn't know when our bus was going to leave for the airport. No problem, mon -- they called the day before our departure to confirm when we were leaving and told us our bus was at 2pm, and they also slipped a paper confirmation under our door the night before we left.

The bus ride to the airport was much more comfortable than the ride from the airport, as we had a big coach bus and were able to sleep some. Of course, our flight was delayed about 3 hours, so we had a long stay at the airport. Fortunately, we were with some of those same guys who were on our bus from the airport and met some other fun people who had stayed elsewhere. We all hung out, played cards, and ate together at the restaurant using the vouchers Air Jamaica provided.

We did meet one person at the airport who had stayed at Hedo II. She told us it was really wild. We asked what the wildest thing she saw was, and she said there was an activity where people posed in their favorite sexual position with their partner and then switched to another partner (musical sexual positions or something) -- fully clothed. Let's just say we saw much wilder stuff at Hedo III. I think if she went to Hedo III and saw what we saw, she would definitely report that Hedo III was much wilder than Hedo II...

Coming back through customs, they only asked for the value of what we were bringing back, never how many liquor bottles or how much alcohol. While we were worried we'd be bringing back too much after all the prizes and hedobucks we won and the couple of bottles of coconut cream liquor we bought at the airport, I think we could have brought back 5 times as much with no problem.

We participated in many activities on both the nude and prude side as well as the theme nights. We did an off-site excursion, tried all the restaurants, all the bars, all the pools and hot tubs, stayed in the quad and in an ocean front room, attended a wedding, and both did the trapeze until we succeeded at the catch. We also had some alcohol and some sex and made a lot of friends. We were lucky we had great weather for the most part, but Hedo is what you make of it. We had a great time, but others going the same time as us could have had a terrible time with unrealistic expectations and a bad attitude. While we really missed our kids, we really enjoyed our stay...

Duncan & Monique - 05/01