Hidden Beach Resort trip Dec 6-11, 2003. David & Deanna Parker
Hidden Beach Resort(HBR) is an adults only all-inclusive au-natural resort located along the Mayan Riviera approximately one hour from the Cancun airport. It has 42 total rooms, 18 oceanfront swim-up suites and 24 oceanfront jr. suites. HBR is located directly next to the Eldorado Resort and Spa which has 135 rooms. They are separated by a large wooden fence. Both resorts are owned by the same company. HBR guests have full privileges at the Edorado resort but Eldorado guests must purchase a pass to use the HBR facilities.
Ever since Hidden Beach Resort opened in May of 2003 we have been chomping at the bit to go there. As a background as far as other all-inclusive resorts that offer clothing optional or au-natural facilities, we have been to Grand Lido Braco 5 times with a 6th trip scheduled for May 1-8 with the Braco Ya-Hooligan group, Grand Lido Negril twice, Sans Souci Resort and Spa, Couples Negril, and day trips to both Hedonisms. We came to Hidden Beach with very high expectations for the food and service. Anyone who has been to Braco with me or read my previous trip reports knows that I love to eat more than anything. Great food on vacation is a top priority for me and I would not even consider staying anywhere that did not excel in the food area.
Getting through immigration and customs at the Cancun airport was a breeze. Unless you are in the market for a timeshare, do not stop and talk to anyone until you have reached the transportation area and see a representative from the company that your transfers are booked through. Transportation to and from the resort and airport is not included as part of the HBR all-inclusive package. It is included when you book with some travel agents or tour operators so you just need to check to be sure. We booked a private stretch Limo directly with Lomas Travel for $160.00 roundtrip per couple and greatly enjoyed it. The Limo driver offered to stop for drinks but we had him drive straight through. The ride from the airport to the resort took 50 minutes. The road was straight and smooth and 4 lane most of the way.
There is one main entrance onto the HBR/Eldorado property. It is approx a ½ mile from the highway entrance to the resorts. The limo dropped us off directly in front of the HBR gated entrance which is located next to the Eldorado resort. We were immediately greeted by John who is the resort operations manager. He escorted us through the guarded gate to the HBR reception area. There is a main entrance and a beach entrance that HBR guests can use to access the Eldorado resort. Both entrances are guarded 24 hours a day. All you have to do is show your HBR room key to re-enter the resort.
We received a glass of champagne in the reception area and quickly registered. I found the resort champagne to be quite good. There was also a chilled bottle of champagne waiting for us in the room. One thing I noticed right away is the American Association of Nude Recreation(AANR) membership plaque sitting on the registration desk. While not a family resort, HBR does seek to maintain a nudist/naturist environment. From the posted rules: “Please no explicit sexual behaviors in public areas”. At this point I will also go into detail on the resorts au-natural policies. As far as I know, HBR is the only totally au-natural all-inclusive resort anywhere except for one that recently reopened in the D.R. You can be nude 24 hours a day anywhere on the HBR property including the dining room and disco. From the resorts posted statement and rules: “We are pleased to offer full Au Naturel facilities at Hidden Beach Resort. Our Resort is designed for guests participating in all types of nude bathing only !” and “Dining is clothing optional”. Based on the previous statements, here is what I saw and experienced in regards to the nude policies while I was at HBR. You are not expected to get naked the second you step onto the property or be naked at all times. We were given our resort tour fully clothed and while on the tour with the manager, saw guests throughout the resort in varying states of dress including a woman wearing a full bikini by the pool. I did see every guest at the resort totally nude at some point. There were no “Nude Police” and fortunately no “Nude Nazis” (guests who feel they must take it upon themselves to enforce what they feel are the nude rules). There is no need to worry about “gawkers” from the other side. It was an extremely comfortable and relaxed atmosphere with guests not having to worry about clothing whether on or off. All rooms have 2 very nice thick terry cloth robes. These robes were well used throughout the week being worn by most at breakfast and quite a few at the disco at night. A lot of guests also wore the robes at dinner. The nights and early mornings were cool(mid to low 60’s) during the week so this probably increased the robe usage. The bottom line is that this is a nude resort for guests who enjoy being nude but there is not a fanatical air about it.
Also in the lobby area is a computer station where guests have free internet access. It was a phone line connection but it was very quick. Yahoo and MSN were easily accessed. After check-in John gave us a tour of the resort. I was immediately impressed with the beautiful well maintained grounds. The architecture and layout of the resort is very nice and functional. It was going to be about 10 minutes before our room was ready so we went to have lunch. HBR has one restaurant with inside and outside dining. The inside dining room is very nice with a semi-formal feel to it. It was noon so lunch was just starting. We were the only ones in the dining room as everyone usually eats outside for lunch. I ordered an appetizer, soup, salad and entrée. All were excellent. The 4 courses took approx 45 minutes. Our waiter Joel was excellent and took great care of us all week. Everything I tried on the lunch menu throughout the week was wonderful. A few of the favorites were the avocado stuffed with shrimp, the quesadillas, and the fried shrimp. There is a daily soup which was always delicious.
We had a swim-up room and I was very pleased with it. The Spanish motif is nice. All rooms have king beds. The rooms are not huge but offer more than adequate space. There was plenty of closet space with hangers. 2 robes were hanging in the closet. They are adding stacked shelves in the closets to put clothes in as there are no dressers. Our room had the new shelves located under the safe deposit box. The room has a table with two chairs and a couch. There is a ceiling fan over the table/couch area. There is a mini frig stocked with bottled water, coke, diet coke, sprite and two kinds of beer. The frig was fully restocked every day. The daily maid service was impeccable with plenty of towels and bottled water provided. There was also evening turn down service. The room had a liquor dispenser with vodka, rum, tequila and scotch. There is a large tv and a DVD player. The resort has a library of DVDs available to check out. They offered about 8 major motion picture titles as well as a very interesting selection of adult movies. The bathroom was of decent size with plenty of counter space. It had a tub with shower. Water temperature and pressure were inconsistent. Large bottles of water are provided daily to brush your teeth with as the tap water is not drinkable. There was a high power hair dryer in the bathroom. The bathroom also has a scale. My weight gain for the 5 night stay was 6 pounds. Facing the beach is the sliding glass door. There is also a sliding screen door. The outside patio has 2 chairs and a hammock. The pool area in from of each swim up room has an in pool table and seats. You can wade, float, or swim from your room to the connecting main pool and swim-up pool bar. There are small bridges in front of the swim-up rooms so you can walk across to the beach or main pool area. All of the swim-up rooms are identical. There are some small differences in the upper floor rooms in regards to the bathrooms and balconies.
After getting settled into the room we got naked and headed to the pool/beach area. The beach was fairly narrow with a long line of palapa huts. Most of the huts have canvas bed-like pads with curtains. These were very comfortable and relaxing. There are plenty of chairs and floats around the pool and beach with umbrellas also around the pool. The beach has course sand that is raked daily. The ocean is beautiful but not swim-able. The water is only about 1-2 foot deep and extremely rocky. They are in the process of trying to remove the rocks. Due to environmental regulations it must be done by hand. Every morning for about 4-5 hours 2 workers with a pick ax, sledge hammer and wheel barrow would work at clearing the rocks. Management stated that they are attempting to get a permit to allow for more sophisticated clearing. Until some extensive rock clearing and possibly some dredging occurs using heavy equiptment, the ocean in front of the resort will be for the most part unuseable.
The pool at HBR is very nice, offering a swim-up bar with barstools. On each side there is a half circle area about 1 foot deep that can hold 3-4 lounge chairs so you can layout in the pool. There is a net across the pool attached to a basketball goal for pool volley ball. With a volley ball game going on there is not much room for floating. The pool water was very cool the week we were there due to the cool evenings so we only played pool volleyball one afternoon. There were always plenty of beach towels available. By 6:00am there were neatly folded towels placed on all of he pool chairs and beside the bar. Drink service was provided around the pool and beach. Food was also able to be ordered and delivered to the pool or beach. A small outdoor buffet table was set up daily beside the pool during lunch with a different selection daily. One day they had chicken and beef fajitas that were the best I have ever had. The salsa and guacamole with chips were also the best I have ever eaten. I would usually have some of the daily poolside buffet right at 12:00 and then order more food off the lunch menu around 2:00pm. Daily at 4:00pm coffee/tea and cookies/pastries were set out by the restaurant entrance. The main pool bartender is Tito and he is fabulous, funny and makes great drinks! The “Dirty Monkey” seemed to be the most popular frozen drink. I am mainly a beer drinker and was in heaven with the great Mexican beers they offered. Dos Equis was available on draft and was great with a lime. In bottles and or cans they had Sol(very similar to Corona), Tecate, Tecate Light(an awesome light beer), and my new favorite beer Bohemia. Bohemia is a lager with a wonderful taste. For liquor they have a nice selection of top shelf brands. They offered 2 house red wines. One was a Chilean Merlot that was very good. I did not try the white wine. There is a list of premium wines available for purchase. For drinks by the pool and beach they used large plastic glassware that looked like real glass. These were very nice to drink out of vs. small plastic cups.
There is a large beach volleyball court set up on one side of the resort. There were quite a few quests who enjoyed beach volleyball so we had some great games daily. The sand on the court is very course so most wore shoes. Chava is the main activities person on the HBR side and he played in the nude with us. Some of the more popular activities during the week were the daily 10:00am stretching class led by Chava and the nude body painting. I enjoyed the nude ping pong tournament. They have a very nice championship ping pong table beside the pool and a pool table in the disco. There were nightly theme nights in the disco with varied participation. Most of the guests including myself seemed to do must of the partying during the day and call it a night by 11:00pm. There are also nightly activities and entertainment on the Eldorado side. Casino night was very fun as I won $3600.00 in play money and was able to win the bid for a free massage. The Eldorado has 2 Palapa bars with 2 person swing seats that were fun and they have an open air palapa disco that starts later in the evening. Having full privileges at the Eldorado Resort was very a big plus. Nightlife and activities at HBR will vary greatly each week depending on the guests.
Most mornings I was up at 6:00am to watch the sunrise which was beautiful all week. There is a continental breakfast served in the dining room from 6-7:00am. Breakfast starts at 7:00am with a buffet and menu available. There is a station for omelets and cook to order eggs. The buffet had traditional breakfast items as well as a number of Mexican dishes. There was a red sauce most mornings that was fabulous over the omelets. They had a very nice fresh fruit selection as well as cereals and yogurt. Toast and bread items are available by request. Homemade waffles can be ordered from your waiter and they are a must try! Service at breakfast was very good with coffee, juice and water refills provided as needed. You can be fully nude in the restaurant and at the buffet but just about everyone had some type of cover-up.
Having discussed lunch earlier I will go into dinner. Dinner is served 6:00pm-10:00pm. During our first day at the resort we heard from a lot of guests who had been there a few days that dinner could take an extremely long time to be served(up to 3 ½ hours) especially when in dining in large groups. We decided to dine early at 6:00pm just the 2 of us. Prior to coming to Hidden Beach I was greatly anticipating the food on the dinner menu especially the grilled lobster. We ended up having grilled lobster all 5 nights and never did get tired of it. Most nights I had 5 courses. Cold appetizer, hot appetizer, soup, entrée, and dessert. For cold apps my favorites were the salmon carpaccio and the shrimp cocktail, for hot apps the crepes and the Hawaiian stuffed shrimp were wonderful. The soups were one of the highlights at lunch and dinner. All were top notch gourmet delights. The French onion soup was great even though they left off the melted cheese. Every night there would be an additional theme specialty menu. Make sure you try the apps and soups on this. For the main entrée the grilled lobster was wonderful! You have to ask if you want melted butter but we found that the lobster had plenty of butter basted over it and was plenty moist. In addition to the lobster I also tried an additional entrée each evening. The jumbo prawns were the best I have ever eaten and were almost as good as the lobster. At this point I have to mention the only sub par food we encountered at HBR which was the lamb and beef. Both of these were night and day inconsistent from one night to the next. I heard wonderful things about the lamb chops from a guest who tried them but mine were nothing but grizzle and fat. Fortunately I had the lobster to eat also! I encountered the same thing with the prime rib. I heard rave reviews one night but the next night mine was too tough to eat. Good to have the lobster! I did not get to try the filet mignon but heard mixed reviews about it also. The manager stated that he was aware of the lamb/beef inconstancies and that he was meeting with their meat supplier the following week to threaten them with loss of their business if it did not improve immediately.
For dessert the chocolate cake was to die for! They really need to come up with a better name for this as it is closer to a death by chocolate or chocolate decadence. For chocolate lovers it is pure heaven! The crème brulee was also very good. It is now being served in the proper dish and the top was caramelized right before being served. This is the key, the top of the crème brulee must be caramelized with a blow torch or under a broiler right before serving. The tableside flambé bananas were also fantastic and a great show! Try a flaming mayan coffee also. Strong and delicious! They offer a very good selection of after dinner cordials. The service we received at dinner 4 out of 5 nights was impeccable! On average one hour and 15 minutes for 5 courses. This was dining in parties of 2-6 persons and eating fairly early in the evening. The one night service was slow we dinned outside at 7:30pm with a party of 8. Our waiter had 3 other tables at the same time that were all seated around the same time. He ended up having to do flaming deserts for all 4 tables one at a time at around the same time. Having previously waited tables myself for 10 years at fine dining restaurants this was a logistical nightmare. He tried his best and with a little help from the dining room manager we had a wonderful dinner and lengthy dessert. I would also like to include a word on tipping as a lot of people have questions about it. The official word from management is that tips are included in the price you pay and that tipping is not necessary. Unlike most Jamaican resorts however, tipping is allowed if you feel like someone goes above and beyond to take care of you. Management instructs the staff not to expect tips and they can be fired if they actively solicit them. Management also prefers that if you do tip, to do it discretely. A smooth bill in the palm handshake worked well. We found the staff to be so wonderful and to go out of their way to provide such great service that we did tip quite a few toward the end of our stay. The tips were very much appreciated!
At Eldorado they have a gourmet Italian and Mexican restaurant that you can make reservations to dine at. We heard nothing but very positive comments from other HBR guests about both of the Eldorado restaurants. On Monday night we had reservations for 4 at the Italian restaurant at 8:00pm. First we went to the HBR restaurant at 6:30pm for soup and lobster(did not want to miss a night of lobster). We all found the food and service at the Italian restaurant to be excellent. The soup was again wonderful! I had a seafood pasta dish that was also terrific as was the dessert. After dinner we had drinks at the swing bar on the Eldorado side.
I used the HBR fitness center one time during the trip. There are 2 treadmills, an elliptical trainer and a stationary bike as well as some free weights and 2 multi-station weight machines. Nothing elaborate but enough to keep you in shape while on vacation. The fitness center always had plenty of towels and a frig full of bottled water.
We left the resort one time during our stay to go shopping at Playa Del Carmen. From the Eldorado side there is a free shuttle that leaves everyday at 11:00am that you can make reservations for. The shuttle does not return until 5:00pm so we took a taxi return for $16.00US.
Currently under construction are another pool, hot tub and bar that will be covered by a large palapa hut. The pool is supposed to be heated. These will come in handy when the weather is bad. The management has lots of plans for other improvements and are working on a daily basis to continue to make Hidden Beach better and better.
In summary, we greatly enjoyed our stay at Hidden Beach and would highly recommend it as another great option for those wanting an au-natural vacation. There are still areas that need to be improved on but there is the management and staff in place to make this a top notch resort.
Please feel free to contact me with any question at
david@allthewaytravel.com David & Deanna Parker
