Desire RM Sept 27th-Oct 4th, 2015 Trip Report...

[Justskin]

Well, we finally got a chance to catch our breath after an amazing and fun-filled week at the RM.
This was our second trip, and the first since the major renovations took place. It had been about five years. We've been to the Pearl, and to the now-gone Cabo desire many times.

We arrived to a wonderful RM front desk staff, and we received no hard sell--not a word. We requested a specific room in a specific area (we had stayed there before and loved the quietness) and the staff hooked us up within moments.
The room was immaculate, no odd smells, small, but just right. The a/c worked excellent; our housekeeper did a great job. We do have one caveat, we'll allude below...

The grounds are immaculate--gorgeous, although the sewage smell is rough at times, especially at night. We have heard that they fertilize with sewage effluent, aren't sure about that, but it smells like it is the case. It can be pungent.
The pool was immaculate, warm. The hot tub was excellent as well.

The food at all restaurants was top shelf...SUKI is wonderful. We couldn't find one complaint all week, absolutely stellar.
The bars and bar staff were top shelf. The 2am pizza lady rocks. Tip her well, she earns it!
The entertainment staff are doing a great job (!) Ana seems a bit shy at times, but we saw her slowly coming our of that shell all week, Chewy (Jesus) is great, Cuco as well.

The disco was excellent, comfortably cool, great music/DJ....not one moldy oldie Madonna or Cyndi Lauper song. GREAT dance music Kudos! The live shows were excellent as well.

Wait staff was 100% excellent, zero complaints. They waited on us hand and foot. We always tipped. We were surprised to see many people walk away from the meals without tipping, to each his own. We relish giving to such gracious staff.

The beach was seaweed-filled, we weren't too concerned. Not much to be done but keep raking, the stuff is thick.
Bugs were rough, many had bites including us....bring bug spray if you are really affected. We still would rather the bites than the fogger. Thankfully they didn't use a fogger. They have in the past.

Pool beds/chairs were readily available. Plenty of shade for us who ease into the sun.
Activities were great. Plenty of pool volleyballers...great times. The foam party rocked as well. We had some rain, but that didn't seem to affect any of us. Great times were had by all.

Wife's glasses (perscritpion) did come up missing in our room. They never left our room. Very strange. We reason that maybe they got into the bedding somehow and taken out. Our housekeeper seemed genuinely upset they were gone. We don't think that she took them.
We did have about $100 CASH TAKEN FROM OUR SAFE. VERY DISAPPOINTING. We had lots of singles, five and tens for tips throughout the week, and on the last night about $100 of fives and tens were taken. We are absolutely certain of this. It was the only downer on an otherwise magical trip.

The guests were all amazing...there were lots of sexy people. Best crowd we have ever seen without question.

The resort is about as good as it be, we can't imagine it any better other than our safe incident.

[bankerman]

We were there last November and I'm pretty sure that someone took some pesos from my stash in the safe. It wasn't a lot, maybe $30 (USD) or so - my thought was they didn't want to seem obvious, so they only took some of the cash. Going back in a few weeks and we may just keep cash with us. I agree, it is disappointing, as you shouldn't have to worry about that...can mar an otherwise great trip.

[Bareman]

That's not very comforting . We had no problem when we were there. We always stored our RX in the safe. We'd been in serious distress if they were taken. Did you tell the management?

[Justskin]

No, we didn't. We only realized the theft on our very last day and at that point we wanted to use our remaining hours soaking up the last hours of our trip.
We filled out forms for the missing glasses, but doubt anything will become of that.
We also stored meds, watches etc. in the safe, but as was just mentioned here, we suspect the thief wanted to be very subtle about the act. They took just enough to have us second guessing for a moment, and then we realized that mere hours before we were thumbing through a stack of bills that no longer existed.
I had a $100 bill in my wallet and it was untouched, along with many other bills in the stash that was pilfered. It is subtle.

We won't store money/valuables in the safe in the future, we'll utilize other means that we won't state on an open forum. Or, we'll entertain putting a small motion camera in the room to document activity there. Crazy? Maybe, what to do?

An aside: We know the manager Alberto Martinez very well, and he knows us pretty well too. (He managed the Cabo Desire for years--great guy. When we spoke last week in the lunch room he was proud as a peacock about the pool and renovations, he asked our opinion on things and about ideas for improvements. We couldn't offer much other than thinking about an atv/pull rake setup for quick removal of seaweed; we relayed that overall the place is incredible.)
But we do intend to let him know what happened with the safe situation. Whoever is doing this has universal access to the safes apparently.

[Cdncpl88]

We see they are still up to their old tricks. We love DRM but we too had money stolen from our safe. They did the same thing to us as well. Didn't touch the big bills ($100's) but took most of our $20's and a couple of $50's. Maybe they hope we don't notice. Again, it was taken on our last night there as well. Really is a shame since we love the place and end up leaving on a sour note. Starting to see its becoming quite common at Drm as we know of friends who had the same thing happen to them. Lesson learned and we just have to be a little more creative on how we store our cash.

[Justskin]

Wow. Very unfortunate.
On the last trip we made to Cabo desire (May '13, shortly before its closing) two couples--our traveling companions--experienced theft from their locked safes. Both couples lost about $100. We had nothing taken at all on that trip.
We've never had anything stolen at any Desire resort prior to this trip.

We really love the Desire resorts and hope that this trip report echoes that, but it is obvious that there is a real and serious problem going on. We hope that the powers-that-be will read this and will think about a solution.

[Play_Dough]

We have a secondary lock that we use that I don't think they can get into. It's called Milockie.

[CaptainR]

I have read a few of the reviews on that lock and they all pretty much say its not going to stop anyone because its mostly plastic and nylon. Is that true?

[Play_Dough]

It is but the actual lock and ring is metal. the strap that you can't access from the outside is nylon and the case around the actual lock is a plastic type. It would also be super obvious if they broke it which I would guess they are trying to make it go unnoticed.

[CaptainR]

It is but the actual lock and ring is metal. the strap that you can't access from the outside is nylon and the case around the actual lock is a plastic type. It would also be super obvious if they broke it which I would guess they are trying to make it go unnoticed.

Thanks, I see they are available on Amazon I may purchase one before our next trip. We had a strange event at RM on our recent trip also. We left our room to go to Dinner one night around ~ 8 pm. The room had already been cleaned and restocked with towels and the mini fridge was full. We always closed the blinds that cover the doors when we left the room. When we came back from dinner the blinds on one side of the door were open. At the time we didn't think much about it. We foolishly did not keep a real good count on the money in the safe because we both were taking $ out of it and giving different size tips on many occasions. It is possible that a small amount of money could have been taken, but we can't be positive. We will be more vigilant next time not only at Desire but at all the places we visit. It sure does put a bad taste in our mouths when we are discussing the possibility of going back or not.

[Hector]

Thieves will always take the easy way and leave the difficult ones untouched. Installing an extra lock to the safe will definitely protect your valuable. But I think it is the management who should look into the matters rather than the guests.

[cs70065]

Well if they looked into it, there shouldnt be that many people with the master key to the safes right. I guess thats the big "IF" , if they look into it. They know majority of people wont look into past their original complaint because they are leaving the country.

[Justskin]

Yes, most of us leave the country, but many of us do so with the full intent of eventually returning to the resort, and we may also encourage others to join us in the future as well.
There is a lot at stake here....reputation is a big deal for a resort which caters to such a particular clientele.

We'll be talking to the general manager this week; as we said, we know him well. We love the place, but this needs to be fixed.

[rentman]

I feel I need to chime in here, We had the opposite experience. In a trip to RM about 2 years ago I left my laptop sitting out in a chair in the room. When we returned from a day at the pool the laptop was gone, replaced by a typed letter from housekeeping kind of yelling at me about leaving valuables out and telling me the laptop was placed in the safe. I was instructed to call security to get it out. They came and opened my safe and kind of gave me a tongue lashing (not a desire type) about leaving stuff out. I was rather impressed by the way it was handled.

[Justskin]

Well, that is one way to look at it. That 'letter' instills little confidence for us if they are that concerned about things getting stolen. Very damning frankly.
And the reality as it appears here is that your laptop was just as vulnerable in your safe.