Newbie Trip Plan Question

[D&KCouple]

After reading all the great advice and experiences on the forum, we are excited to plan our first visit to Desire Pearl for our Covid delayed 30th wedding anniversary. We are an adventurous couple who have never been to a C/O resort before and are not in the LS. This will all be new for D (wife). K (hubby) has enjoyed the clothing verboten German sauna culture but nothing like the atmosphere at DP. So, we have all the usual nerves about such a boundary-stretching experience.

Our main question at this point is on the overall vacation plan. We will likely arrive late afternoon/early evening and plan to stay around the airport the first night, likely at the Hilton Garden Inn. We then plan 4 to 6 nights at DP. How do folks feel about a couple "adjustment" nights at a vanilla resort to after such a sensual/sensory experience? Or, is it better to spend the extra nights at DP and head back "cold turkey"? Any other thoughts or suggestions are gratefully accepted.

We look forward to enjoying the sexy atmosphere, expanding our horizons and meeting new friends.

D&K

[Oilnlotion]

We just got back from our DP newbie vacation as a non-lifestyle, first clothing optional experience. Looking back, we would not change anything about our planning. We originally planned for 4 nights, then we were able to find an additional 2 nights through a different travel agency and added those to make a week long adventure.
Talk about nerves: we both had a lot of expectations for our acclimation into the experience, but when we arrived you could throw all of that out of the window; we both reacted differently. It took me about a day to acclimate. My better half took about 2 days to come to her own comfort level. In the end, we loved the experience and were grateful to have had more time to enjoy the experience together—the extra days were when we were in our best level of embracing our time together and absorbing all the experiences with an open mind and collective enjoyment.
We would suggest spending as much time as possible at DP, as your own first time acclimation period may rob you of valuable opportunities in the latter half, when you hit your stride.
Another word of advice: embrace the theme nights and events hosted by the play makers. It’s worth the extra time and effort in your planning.

LT

[Cheers2US]

I'd say the moment you leave Desire, you will be aching for more. That said, I'd prefer to spend as much time on the resort as possible.

[werfun]

It really depends on when your flight arrives in Cancun. We believe that it you arrive after 2pm you are better off spending your first night by the airport resting up then the shuttle can pick you up in the morning for a full day at Desire. We dislike paying the room rate just for dinner when you are tired from travelng. See that you are in the UK so you will have at least six hours of travel time not to say anything of the dfference in time. We live in Hawaii and it is a 12 hour over night trip for us so we usually spend the first night by the airport to rest up and to adjust to the 6 hour difference in time.

[RJOC]

Don't do a vanilla resort to ease in or out of the Desire mode. Spend all the waking/vacation time you can at either property - you won't regret it!

[STL-MO-CPL]

Don't do a vanilla resort to ease in or out of the Desire mode. Spend all the waking/vacation time you can at either property - you won't regret it!

I used to agree with you. I always thought it was odd how people would spend the night at a vanilla resort, then shuttle to the resort the next day. For whatever reason, the logic just never made sense. Then, all of a sudden, it clicked. What you gain by doing that is extending the amount of time at the resort on your first day. On our June trip, we didn't arrive at the resort until somewhere between 3 and 4 pm. At that point, we've already missed breakfast, lunch, all the games, and pool time. It's really tough to just transition from travel clothes right into afternoon hot tub time. We really feel like we missed out on that day. If you are somehow able to arrive at Pearl before noon on your travel day, then it's probably unnecessary to stay at a hotel near the airport that night. However, if you don't arrive at the resort until later in the afternoon, then I now see the logic and benefit of doing a generic hotel first, then getting to Pearl the next morning first thing. I've seen the light!

[tj71903]

We always plan to get there by lunch time.

We looked once at getting there late afternoon/early evening but if I'm paying for a day I want the day.

[RJOC]

I used to agree with you. I always thought it was odd how people would spend the night at a vanilla resort, then shuttle to the resort the next day. For whatever reason, the logic just never made sense. Then, all of a sudden, it clicked. What you gain by doing that is extending the amount of time at the resort on your first day. On our June trip, we didn't arrive at the resort until somewhere between 3 and 4 pm. At that point, we've already missed breakfast, lunch, all the games, and pool time. It's really tough to just transition from travel clothes right into afternoon hot tub time. We really feel like we missed out on that day. If you are somehow able to arrive at Pearl before noon on your travel day, then it's probably unnecessary to stay at a hotel near the airport that night. However, if you don't arrive at the resort until later in the afternoon, then I now see the logic and benefit of doing a generic hotel first, then getting to Pearl the next morning first thing. I've seen the light!

Agreed - if getting in late, stay at another hotel. I was specifically speaking of intentional transition with a vanilla hotel/resort, which Desire is too fun to plan a transition, but do stay at another hotel if you get in late.

[kandsny]

If getting in late a lot of people stay near the airport but don't overlook getting a room in Puerto Morelos for the night. My wife and I did that for our trip in March and had a great time. We got a room through VRBO for $100 that was amazing. We walked three blocks to the square had a great meal and some drinks. Arrived at DP the next morning at 9:00am had breakfast and was naked by 10. We plan on doing the same thing this October.

[beachnbaja]

We don't think you will need a day at a vanilla resort after to reconnect. If you are like us and anyone else we know you will be terribly sad to leave Desire. The worst feeling is getting in a van and watching others arrive. Ha!
We couldn't imagine doing that just to go to a vanilla resort.

Having said that, we are big fans of going somewhere else first (and understand we are in the minority).

We do so for a few reasons:
1. We run our own business and even though we scale down before leaving, it takes OTHERS a day or two to really get the message that we aren't working. Going somewhere else helps that transition.
2. For us, it is harder for us (than others) to go from regular, daily lives to all the sudden being there. We love taking a couple of days and making sure we are connected and great before getting to Desire.
3. We are often tired when we arrive. Going somewhere else lets us rest and relax and get to Desire refreshed and ready for fun.
4. We love exploring Mexico. So we always try to go somewhere we haven't been if we are flying that way. We love Tulum, etc.

If we only had 3-4 days to travel, we wouldn't do any of the above. But for us, a perfect week is a couple of days in Tulum or Holbox followed by 4 days or so at Desire.

But after Desire? No way. We are always sad to leave. Enjoy your trip!

[D&KCouple]

Wow, we cannot believe how many people responded so quickly! Thank you all for your thoughtful responses and great insights.

Due to arrival time, we will stay at a normal hotel the first night and get to DP early the next day. We have already had our boundaries expanded as we will look beyond the airport hotels the first night.

We loved the insight about taking advantage of time spent acclimating and being able to spend more time in the comfort zone after the first couple day. Thanks LT! So, we will stay the full 6 days at DP.

Thanks again for all the feedback.

D&K

[gaviao]

In 2014, we took the longest beach vacation we've ever had, taking advantage of the fact that our youngest son had gone on a summer course in Canada.
The first three nights were spent at Hidden Beach Resort. It is an extremely quiet hotel (we could call it “Vanilla” if it weren't for the fact that it is a nudist). Both my wife and I wanted to have the experience of spending 72 continuous hours without wearing a single item of clothing and, except for the trips to and from the SPA (which is on the property of the neighboring El Dorado Resort) in which we had to wear a pareo, we were naked the whole time.
We then stayed 8 nights at Pearl. We thought they would be enough, obviously we were wrong, it's never enough in Desire.
The mistake was the last four nights, we went to Catalonia Royal Tulum, a hotel for adults on the Xpu-ha beach, one of the best in the Riviera Maya. And there we start to really miss DP. Fortunately, our imagination and the "naughty" spirit that we had immersed helped us make our vanilla portion a little more spicy.
When we were packing at Pearl, my wife realized that she hadn't packed a single swimsuit, so I went to the hotel store and bought her a red g-string, no top; I told her she wouldn't need any more. As a result, she became the only topless woman in Catalonia's pool (there are usually quite a few on the beach), and luckily a few more girls soon followed her example. To go to dinner she put on the most daring outfits, covering what was strictly necessary so that no one could protest. And we devised some exhibitionism games, among them the well-known one of receiving the room service man in her birthday suit.
Conclusion: a vanilla hotel after Desire is a bad idea.

[tj71903]

Agree that Pearl can change your outlook. I already had the question about being sans clothes for her October trip. And admittedly when we were away for April our butler didn’t have the same capabilities as our Pearl butlers.

[wwpc]

Last summer we had a last minute trip to Pearl and RM, we had some extra time so we pre paid for 3 nights in an awesome room on Isla Mujeres.

We will never do this again! The service was not the same, we were at an adults only resort but there were lots of families there with their 20 something kids, not the vibe we were after.

I did call and there was some availability at RM but we would have had to change rooms, so we ended staying and chalking it up as a learning experience.

[D&KCouple]

Thanks gaviao, tj and wwpc. We are looking forward to our first Desire experience in mid-March 2023. Is it too early to get really excited? 6 months seems like a long lead-in time. Since we are not as young as we used to be, the anticipation may kill us.

D&K