My wife and I just took our 6th trip from April 10th to the 15th. 5 total nights. We were fortunate enough to participate in the last evening at the old disco and playroom and the first night with the new disco and playroom.
Instead of a long play by play, we’ll just go with snapshots of the trip.
The sales presentation has become very tiresome. We are not members and will never be. We agreed to the presentation b/c we were under the impression that just by sitting through it, we were helping out the pocketbook of the concierge that sets it up. We love the workers at this resort and will do just about anything to help them out. Once we sat down and began initially discussing the sales presentation we informed the presenter why we’ve not signed up in the past. After 15 minutes he stated there was no reason to proceed and we could give the free massage back and skip the rest of the presentation. Additionally, the concierge would not benefit from us having sat down with them. I thought that it was extremely unprofessional. I don’t care about the massage, but we made the appointment time, and had already spent 15 minutes with them before he wanted the massage back. Cut to later on, they did end up doing the presentation with us and giving us the massage. I am still not a member. The whole concept of the membership is something they should reconsider. I know most people sign up for it. There are tons of black bracelets around the resort. It’s just not something I am interested in signing up for. A lot of long-time members advise against it, as they’ve seen the full scope of what is and isn’t provided. We will decline any invitations to do the presentation in the future.
One more thing on the membership – certain restaurants are only available to members, and this is supposedly going to become even more prevalent. Currently the new breakfast restaurant is only available for members. This didn’t bother me b/c the old buffet with Matilda making me fresh omelets every morning is one of the highlights of each trip. However, I can see it being frustrating, especially since there seems to be confusion regarding the status, even amongst the employees. We had one employee who knew we weren’t members tell us we had to try that breakfast. Fortunately, we knew other non-members who’d tried going one morning and were sent away, so we never tried. We were told during our membership presentation that they plan to make the new restaurants members only as well.
The feel of the resort was also different. There was a lot less interaction between the guests. They seemed less friendly this year. I can’t say for sure if it was just the crowd, or if it was due to how wide open everything was. It’s great to have a larger pool and hot tub, but it does limit the amount of people you bump into and start conversations with. Or so was our experience. Definitely a different crowd vibe this year, regardless of the reasoning behind it.
New hot tub size is quite large, but it was not warm enough on any single night. And I’m not someone that likes it scalding, but the night air being a little bit cool, made it slightly uncomfortable. A few degrees warmer would have helped.
We ate at both the new dinner restaurants. Neither was open each night, so we had to be on top of getting our reservations, so we didn’t miss when they were open. The Mexican restaurant was good, but service was slow. I’m not sure if they’re understaffed, but that is how it felt. The Greek restaurant was excellent. Probably our favorite meal this trip. Oh, and the Mexican buffet on the old side had great food and amazing churros!
The best part of the resort (other than being able to be intimate with my wife out in the open), is definitely the workers. I’m not sure how they find such hard working lovely people, who put on a happy face every day and make every effort to please the guests. I hate mentioning names b/c I know I’ll forget someone that went above and beyond for us, but I’ll do so anyway.
Litsy – I hope I’m remembering her name correctly, is just too bright and sweet for this place. She was literally everywhere we went. She greeted us when we first arrived and helped us get started, she was hostess at the restaurants we were at (seemed like all of them) and was running drinks from the bar to our table almost every night at the show. She was just beautiful and refreshing. She never didn’t have a smile on her face or act excited to see us. First year we’ve seen her and she was working amazingly hard.
Carolina – This is our second massage with Carolina. She remembered us and did such a great job at the relaxing massage.
Eduardo – Was our concierge on this trip, and on our trip last year. He’s excellent. Works hard and is enjoyable to talk with. We had exchanges with him almost every day and hope to see him next time.
Ceasar – Was in charge of towels this year. We only saw Dany on one day, so I’m not sure if Ceasar is taking over permanently or not, but he was great. I was down there every morning at 7AM and he did his best to get us chairs or a bed that we wanted, even though we’re not members. He’s constantly on the move trying to make sure people are taken care of.
Afrika – You can’t say too much about Afrika. She’s a treasure at this resort and is never too busy to help you out, even if you’re not in her “section”.
The playmakers are all terrific, but Kevin and Javi are on another level. They bring a lot of energy to the place and put in a ton of effort. We’ve been fortunate enough to have some personal conversations with Kevin, that I’m not sure he has with everyone. But he’s one of the main reasons we’ve not ever booked at Pearl. We don’t know how long he’s going to work at this resort, and we want to see him when we can. I was supposed to get in a workout with Javi on our last full day but had to cancel on him. I told him next trip we’ll do it earlier in my stay, b/c on the last day, it’s hard to take time from leisure to get to the gym. Both of these guys provide a lot of entertainment and work tirelessly. I hope they are well compensated for their efforts.
Lastly, Ilsa (I again may not have the name right) is another wonderful playmaker. She is out in the sun all day and never seems to tire or run out of energy for the guests. It’s hard to tell her no when she asks you to participate in a game b/c she’s got these big beautiful brown eyes looking at you. I’ve been suckered in more than once.
She’s another great member of the staff that they are lucky to have.