First Timers Report 13-20 April 2024
Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2024 3:16 pmWe were at Pearl from 13-20 April, we booked a master suite, and here's our take, good and bad.
Good:
Resort was clean and smelled nice
Staff was extremely pleasant for the most part
Breakfast was always nice, when we went.
Bad:
At check in, we mentioned free room service, someone said only for Mansion, I said, no, your site says suites, we booked a master SUITE. They claimed the site didn't say that, having experienced such things in Mexico before, I already had the website pulled up. They said, 'We'll get back to you.' 3 hours later, they called and said no charge for room service. Upon checkout, expected a fight about it, but we did NOT get charged. So this was sorta good and sorta bad.
2 bathrooms, 1 had a shower with 2 settings, ice water or lobster boil. The other one had a sink with the same issue.
No TV in the living room portion of the suite. Why???
Housekeeping wouldn't change our sheets, even if we tore them off. The Mrs is a squirter, a week of squirting on the same sheets....
Our refrigerator wasn't working, needed fridge for medication. They tried to say it wasn't a fridge, it was a cooler. Took 3 days to get a fridge. Medication was ruined, cost me $250.
Coffee maker didn't work, took 2 days to get a new one
Food was sub-par, across the board. We'd go to Italian night, they'd have French night AGAIN, and not even good, just edible. We'd go for seafood night, they'd have BBQ. Etc. Why make a schedule if you're not going to follow it?
Drinks were a mess, Mr has been sober for 26+ years, but he LOVES a michealada with Heineken 0.0, they'd have 2 at any given bar, order a third, they were out of Heineken 0.0. Palm them a $10 spot, suddenly there were Heineken 0.0's there. Wife would order spicy bloody mary with Tito's, they'd give her crap vodka with tomato juice.
We were told being yellow banders would make people come up to us, that wasn't accurate at all. Being a bit shy, we were excited to have people approach us, we didn't experience that hardly at all. We felt ostracized for some reason, we'd get into a conversation with a couple, there was another couple who'd wedge their way into the conversation, then surround one of the 2 people and move in really close to make them back away, and repeat this until they were far away, then the other person of the couple would realize their partner was gone abd chase them down. The same couple did it several times, so we assume that's their MO.
We saw virtually zero swinging, twice a few girls were making out, once 1 woman put another woman on the edge of the hot tub and went down on her. Those 2 women ended up playing as couples with their spouses participating later. That's it. No couples left together, they didn't play in the open, etc. We knew not everyone was lifestyle, but seemed more like none were. Just nudists, voyeurs and exhibitionists.
We found that the majority of daytime activities didn't happen, a few did, but the majority didn't.
Membership presentation was VERY high pressure and, IMHO, a HUGE rip off. It ended up being like $35K for 14 nights and then 25 or 30% off of the lowest rate. When they're raising rates for 30-50% annually, you're really not getting a discount, just a little slower inflation.
Valet parking only, no biggie, but every time we wanted to go anywhere, they'd ask us where and when we'd be back. After 2 or 3 times of us telling them 'We're adults, it's none of your business where we're going' they'd get the hint, but they'd consistently asked.
We also tried Claudia, it was a nice experience, but for the cost, we wouldn't do it again.
Overall, we enjoyed our trip, it was nice to be clothesless for most of the week and to have someone else clean our room and make our bed, but we can get a 5 star resort with 5 star cuisine for around $1500 pp less, and with the lack of swinging, we believe we'd do that instead.
I'm sure some will think it's us, but we're actually nice people and understand how to get things done in Mexico, raising your voice, cursing, etc just makes it worse, so we were quite pleasant with everything.
Good:
Resort was clean and smelled nice
Staff was extremely pleasant for the most part
Breakfast was always nice, when we went.
Bad:
At check in, we mentioned free room service, someone said only for Mansion, I said, no, your site says suites, we booked a master SUITE. They claimed the site didn't say that, having experienced such things in Mexico before, I already had the website pulled up. They said, 'We'll get back to you.' 3 hours later, they called and said no charge for room service. Upon checkout, expected a fight about it, but we did NOT get charged. So this was sorta good and sorta bad.
2 bathrooms, 1 had a shower with 2 settings, ice water or lobster boil. The other one had a sink with the same issue.
No TV in the living room portion of the suite. Why???
Housekeeping wouldn't change our sheets, even if we tore them off. The Mrs is a squirter, a week of squirting on the same sheets....
Our refrigerator wasn't working, needed fridge for medication. They tried to say it wasn't a fridge, it was a cooler. Took 3 days to get a fridge. Medication was ruined, cost me $250.
Coffee maker didn't work, took 2 days to get a new one
Food was sub-par, across the board. We'd go to Italian night, they'd have French night AGAIN, and not even good, just edible. We'd go for seafood night, they'd have BBQ. Etc. Why make a schedule if you're not going to follow it?
Drinks were a mess, Mr has been sober for 26+ years, but he LOVES a michealada with Heineken 0.0, they'd have 2 at any given bar, order a third, they were out of Heineken 0.0. Palm them a $10 spot, suddenly there were Heineken 0.0's there. Wife would order spicy bloody mary with Tito's, they'd give her crap vodka with tomato juice.
We were told being yellow banders would make people come up to us, that wasn't accurate at all. Being a bit shy, we were excited to have people approach us, we didn't experience that hardly at all. We felt ostracized for some reason, we'd get into a conversation with a couple, there was another couple who'd wedge their way into the conversation, then surround one of the 2 people and move in really close to make them back away, and repeat this until they were far away, then the other person of the couple would realize their partner was gone abd chase them down. The same couple did it several times, so we assume that's their MO.
We saw virtually zero swinging, twice a few girls were making out, once 1 woman put another woman on the edge of the hot tub and went down on her. Those 2 women ended up playing as couples with their spouses participating later. That's it. No couples left together, they didn't play in the open, etc. We knew not everyone was lifestyle, but seemed more like none were. Just nudists, voyeurs and exhibitionists.
We found that the majority of daytime activities didn't happen, a few did, but the majority didn't.
Membership presentation was VERY high pressure and, IMHO, a HUGE rip off. It ended up being like $35K for 14 nights and then 25 or 30% off of the lowest rate. When they're raising rates for 30-50% annually, you're really not getting a discount, just a little slower inflation.
Valet parking only, no biggie, but every time we wanted to go anywhere, they'd ask us where and when we'd be back. After 2 or 3 times of us telling them 'We're adults, it's none of your business where we're going' they'd get the hint, but they'd consistently asked.
We also tried Claudia, it was a nice experience, but for the cost, we wouldn't do it again.
Overall, we enjoyed our trip, it was nice to be clothesless for most of the week and to have someone else clean our room and make our bed, but we can get a 5 star resort with 5 star cuisine for around $1500 pp less, and with the lack of swinging, we believe we'd do that instead.
I'm sure some will think it's us, but we're actually nice people and understand how to get things done in Mexico, raising your voice, cursing, etc just makes it worse, so we were quite pleasant with everything.
