DRM Trip report March 2-7th, 2022

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DRM Trip report March 2-7th, 2022

Postby Lkncouple » Wed Mar 09, 2022 5:16 pm

One of my pet peeves is the number of people that come here and ask questions about their trip to the resort, but how few trip reports get posted. I certainly want to give back and provide information about our latest trip.

We are a couple in our 50's from the US. This was our 7th trip to Desire, but due to changes in jobs, Covid, etc we had not been in 5 years. We have not been in the lifestyle, but had agreed that if something came up, we would be willing to try. We were mainly interested in a MFM threesome for our first experience but knew it would be very tough to get at Desire, with most couples wanting to play together. I thought I would give my thoughts on the resort.

Getting to the resort:
We landed around 12:30 on a Wednesday and thought that it would be easy to get through customs. However, the line was huge and thought we would be there a long time. We were extremely pleased at how quickly we made it through the line. It took us maybe 20 minutes to clear customs. The baggage claim was a different story. It took about 40 additional minutes to get our bags. We were excited, but always nervous about going through security and hitting the magic button to see if they were going to go through our bags and pull our sex toys out in front of everyone. To our surprise they have removed all of security, and just walked right through. Once we made it to the rental car counters, it was heads down, no eye contact with anyone until we got outside. We found the USA Transfer guy, and they normally take us directly to a van, but they told us we had to wait for one to show up. My wife decided to go to the Air Margarita Bar outside and grab 2 margaritas’. They were HUGE, but after she brought them to where I was waiting, we did the conversion and paid $90.00 USD for both of them. We will remember not to do that again. The van finally showed up, and we were off to the resort.

Check in:
Check in was easy, and they handed us off to the sales guy to try to set up an appointment. We told them that we were not interested and wanted to start our vacation, but he still had to tell us about Temptation DR and how they have purchased the land next door to DRM and were going to build 58 new rooms. (This is the same thing they told us 3 years ago). We told him that was great, but we were not interested. It was now 2:45 and we were ready to get out of our travel clothes and get to the pool. Even though check in was a 3:00, our room was not ready (I suspect if we would have agreed to meeting them for the sales pitch, we would have had our room ready. We talked to a couple of people that had some shady things going on with their rooms. One was a member and they told him that he was going to have change rooms in the middle of his stay, but if he would talk to him about upgrading his membership then he would not have to change rooms. Another yellow band couple was upgraded to a passion suite for free if they would attend the pitch. They attended and did not buy, and they were told they had to change rooms to a garden room. This type of behavior is just embarrassing for a service organization.

Food:
Overall, I think the food is average. I think the quality has gone down slightly over the years. I kept meaning to take a picture of the menus to post them, but I seemed to always forget. I think someone that goes down, should do this, and it would be great to have them posted on this site. The breakfast and lunch were basically the same every day. One night we did the Hibachi, in the past the chef did all the corny jokes and activities that you normally see. Volcano’s, flipping food etc. This was all business, just cooked the food, maybe spun a couple of knives and he was out of there. The rest of the nights we ate the buffet. For newbies, they have certain theme nights for the food. Thursday=Mexican, Friday=Italian (This was really good!), Saturday was a cookout (Steaks and chicken, the NY strip I had was maybe ¼ inch thick), Sunday=Mediterranean (All Seafood dishes). Once again, this is something that would be great to have published. If you want to eat in one of the restaurants and you are not a member you need to be at the hostess stand at noon, otherwise you may get an early or late reservation or no reservation at all. The late-night pizza was great as always.

Daily Activities:
I think the playmakers try hard, but this is an area that is in desperate need of a refresh. This is basically the same schedule and activities that were done in 2013 when we went to the resort for the first time. The best activity they can come up with is counting sexual positions on a surfboard? Pool volleyball, beach volleyball? They didn’t even do the pool volleyball if you made a mistake, they had you do shots. When they start calling for volunteers, people in the pool start huddling together like they are in a school of fish. Nobody makes eye contact, for fear they are going to get picked. On Sunday, they did pool volleyball twice and came around and asked people to answer riddles. It would be great if they had seminars like an intro to swinging, BDSM, Sensual Massage, Trantra, etc. They used to have a great couple (Richard and Lauren from Room 77) that did seminars for the resort, but they had a falling out. They are greatly missed.
One more thing, MAKE SURE TO BRING YOUR OWN STRAWS. Not sure if it is a resort thing or a Cancun thing, but there were no straws available. It is tough to drink a frozen drink without a straw. You can buy 4 metal straws in the gift shop for $27.

Rooms:
The Rooms and the daily activities are where they need the most work. The rooms are nice enough, even though they are exactly the same as they were 10 years ago. It is amazing that a resort that is built around people being sexy, has no more than 5-6 square inches of counter pace in the bathroom. Whenever you get ready, you have to close the lid on the toilet, so nothing falls off the counter into the toilet. They did seem to have more TV channels in the past, but we never watched any TV. The beds were comfortable, and our housekeeping staff did a phenomenal job.

Nightly activities:
I am convinced that they don’t have many options for nightly activities and themes. It seems like there is an entertainment company that goes to all the resorts and says here is a menu of themes that you can choose from. Otherwise, I am not sure why they pick the theme nights that they do. Our first theme night was Cowboy. I would say about 20% of the people participated in this theme. They had a band that played a handful of country songs, but mostly non-country songs. I think we heard “Black Velvet” every night. Glow night was by far had the most participation. Nearly everyone was dressed, and it was the best night. Latin night may just as well be dress whatever you want. In a strange twist, on Latin night the disco played a lot of 80’s rock and the dance floor was packed. Saturday was Lingerie and tie night. Most of the women participated in this. I counted 4 of the guys wearing ties.( Who wants to wear a tie on vacation?). Fetish night was heavily participated, and it was a lot of fun. We did walk into the playroom every night; we never saw more than 2 couples in there. However, at night the beds around the hot tub were packed. On the last night there were no towels in the hot tub area.

Playtime:
There were plenty of opportunities to play, I think because we didn’t immediately tell people we weren’t in the lifestyle more opportunities came up. We were not pressured and could have played if we wanted to, but never really found the perfect situation for our first time.

Service:
The Service is impeccable. It is amazing how every employee is friendly, happy, and willing to make sure you are happy. The bartenders and waitstaff are amazing. You will be impressed at how great they are.

Summary:
The best description for Desire is that it is tired. The rooms are tired, the entertainment is tired, the food is tired, it is literally a rerun with little improvement in 10 years. So why are they sold out, why do guest keep coming back? There are two reasons:
[*]First, there is no competition for a resort like this. Because of this, they don’t have to invest in the property and the entertainment. Literally, the best thing that could happen would be for Desire to get some competition, so they would then have to compete. Historically, they would ask you to fill out a survey and rate everything. This time when we checked out, they said thanks for staying and did not ask for any feedback.

[*]Secondly, the guests. If you have made it this far, you maybe saying, what a bad trip report. In truth, what makes Desire is the people that go to the resort. If you have never been, it is really hard to understand just how friendly everyone is. It is amazing how quickly you can make friends that you sincerely want to go on vacation with every year. You can discuss things with people here, that you would never talk to anyone about back home. People are happy and friendly and genuinely loving. It is great to know a few people that you are going with when you get down there. The people are what make this resort a must visit destination.

Will we be back? Even though we would like to have lots of improvements, we have found no other place that has such great guests, so yes we will be back.
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Re: DRM Trip report March 2-7th, 2022

Postby Cheers2US » Wed Mar 09, 2022 9:07 pm

Great trip report - thank you for taking the time to post this thorough report!

It's a shame that the membership sales team has resorted to such lows to mistreat guests. I had a somewhat bad experience with the sales team last July. Not horrible, we parted amicably, but I could feel they really wanted to pressure us. (Our experience with the membership sales staff at Temptation on that same trip was way worse. Horrible, terrifying and we may never go back to TTR because of it)

I'm also glad you mentioned the straws. We brought reusable straws with us last time, but they are thick and bulky. Next trip I am packing good ol' plastic straws, but I will reuse them so the turtles and dolphins don't get hurt.

You are spot on with the routine of the resort and lack of change. They know they have a good thing going and as you said, no competitors to take business away.

Hopefully the husband and I will get a chance to go this year. We tried for January and the stupid omicron hit. We then wanted March (this week actually) but the weekends were all sold out. We might try for July, during Swingtopia (never been to a takeover)

Thanks again for posting
A mix of nervousness + excitement
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Re: DRM Trip report March 2-7th, 2022

Postby Coupleat302 » Thu Mar 10, 2022 11:24 am

That's a brutally honest trip report.... The stuff about having to change rooms and the bait and switch of the membership pitches is despicable and I would roast them on here and other lifestyle friendly forums.
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Re: DRM Trip report March 2-7th, 2022

Postby desireaddict » Sat Mar 19, 2022 10:38 am

Thanks for the trip report.

We too have discussed experiencing an over decline in things at Desire. This was before Covid. The year before Covid hit we were there for 6 trips. Each one seemed a little more disappointing. By and large, NOT the service of the staff, whom are great. (Even though there seems to be a bit of moral problem and many of the best long-time employees are gone.) I don't see much of a decline around the pool daytime activities. They were always just so-so, other than regular volleyball. But theme night themes are lame. Some of the bands were great. Some not so. Food quality and choices had declined but not the personal service of the service staff and the chefs.

The resort industry took a tremendous financial bashing during Covid with weeks (or even months) of closure and then many months of only partial occupancy. Prices were slashed to increase occupancy. I was worried that the resort would survive without the constant inflow of cash from the (oversold) membership program. Management is likely scrambling to make up for the loses. I understand DRM has a new manager again.
“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body. But rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up,totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming .... Holy Shit! what a ride.”
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Re: DRM Trip report March 2-7th, 2022

Postby Lkncouple » Sun Mar 20, 2022 8:35 am

Thanks for the feedback on the trip report. We love Desire, and just want it to be better.

Be careful on giving feedback. I posted this trip report on TripAdvisor and the resort responded with my and my wifes full name. I am convinced they will out anyone that does not give them a good review so you delete the review
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Re: DRM Trip report March 2-7th, 2022

Postby nokidclub » Sun Mar 20, 2022 4:13 pm

Lkncouple wrote:Thanks for the feedback on the trip report. We love Desire, and just want it to be better.

Be careful on giving feedback. I posted this trip report on TripAdvisor and the resort responded with my and my wifes full name. I am convinced they will out anyone that does not give them a good review so you delete the review


How do they know your review belongs to you? Did you make the reservation through TripAdvisor?
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Re: DRM Trip report March 2-7th, 2022

Postby Lkncouple » Mon Mar 21, 2022 8:47 am

nokidclub wrote:
Lkncouple wrote:Thanks for the feedback on the trip report. We love Desire, and just want it to be better.

Be careful on giving feedback. I posted this trip report on TripAdvisor and the resort responded with my and my wifes full name. I am convinced they will out anyone that does not give them a good review so you delete the review


How do they know your review belongs to you? Did you make the reservation through TripAdvisor?


I have no idea. We did not make the reservation through Trip advisor, we did not use the link Desire sent us. The email address was not the same email address that we used to make the reservation. We have no idea how they tied it to us. My guess is that they figured it out from the review. We had our check in and check out dates. They knew that our room wasn't ready at 3:00 and that we didn't sit through the sales pitch. I think there was enough information that they could figure it out.
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Re: DRM Trip report March 2-7th, 2022

Postby Powderfinger » Wed Mar 23, 2022 10:02 am

We've noticed the same things you reported over the past several years. While it will always be "home", it is not the same Desire we fell in love with. I literally LOL'd at them telling you at the sales pitch that they bought the property to the north and are building 58 new rooms. They have been telling a different variation of that story for over ten years now. Think it started out being that they were going to move the pool there, then it was the hot tub, then it was both of them, then it was multiple villas, then it was.....oh, and somewhere in there it was "Desire is going to be made members only".

Nothing is going to change in the foreseeable future, however. Rates are at there highest point ever, and yet we've never seen so many sold out dates when looking to book. As long as people will pay for the current product, there is no incentive for them to change a thing.

Naming you on Trip Advisor is absolutely despicable. To have somebody read all the Trip Advisor reviews and try to deduce who wrote it is disgusting. And there's always the chance they get it wrong. Wow.
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