Report from June 2024

[ContentTwo]

We had a recent trip to Pearl, and I figured I would share a few of our observations. This was our third trip to Pearl / seventh trip to Desire. We stayed 5 days. This won’t be a comprehensive review. I just wanted to mention a few things that were noticeable or important to us.

The first thing to note is that we had a lot of rain. No one can control the weather, but the persistent and recurring rain was a constant of our trip until the last day.

Victor, Horatio, and the pool guys were awesome. We had no problem getting pool-side chairs on the loud side as non-members. (This was a big deal to us after our last experience at RM two years ago.) On top of being generally awesome, they worked their asses off with the rain. When it rained, it rained hard! Most people went running for the hills. When it stopped raining for a few minutes, people would meander back to the pool. Sometimes this happened several times in the same day. This left the pool guys working constantly to collect the wet towels and then turn around to set up the dry towels. They handled it well.

The pool music was noticeably improved, both in quality and volume. Last year, the pool music was way too loud, and the song choices were...um...let’s say, unfortunate. This year, the volume was nearly perfect. It got louder during the events and foam party, but it didn’t hurt your ears. And the song choices were much better.

For the short time we were in the disco, it seemed that the volume had also improved. It was still loud, but I wasn’t in pain.

The dining was relatively unchanged. Pearl’s food and service was very good. Suki’s food was decent, but that menu is old and tired. They really need to update it. Suki’s service has always been lackluster for us. This year was no different. Not bad, but definitely not great. Aphrodite’s breakfast and lunch buffet was mediocre, and the service was inconsistent. We only had one dinner at Aphrodite, and they were horribly understaffed. We had a butler seat us. The hostess was helping bring out food. And the two servers were doing the best they could. Management (not the workers) really dropped the ball that night.

The playmakers did a decent job. Candice is clearly the anchor for the current playmaker team. Everybody else is just trying to keep up with her. They did the best they could with all the rain.

Theme night participation seemed much higher this trip. It helped that the themes were easy to participate with. The nightly entertainment was good with lots of aerial work and good choreography. The exception was the night they brought in the strippers. For us, that show crossed the line from awkward into cringe.

Like always, the guests were awesome. There were a lot of yellow bracelets this trip. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that many newbies at either resort. The age range was also shifted noticeably younger on this trip. Our last two trips to Pearl, the age range was skewed heavily into the late 60s and 70+. For this trip, the top of the bell curve was much closer to the 50s. Of course, there were both older and younger guests. But this time the 30s and 40s very well represented instead of being outliers.

Because others have mentioned it recently, I noticed a slight increase in the amount of clothing at the pool. Still mostly topless women. A few more women with bottoms. A more noticeable increase in men wearing trunks. It would be difficult to quantify, but I don’t think it was enough to change the overall vibe. That being said, I can see how this trend could change the atmosphere if it continues.

The frequent rain cut down on the amorous activities at the jacuzzi. Even if it wasn’t raining, the jacuzzi beds were rarely dry. A wet, cold mattress isn’t very conducive to sexy times. On our last night everything was completely dry (finally) and there was a lot of activity.

Despite the rain, it was still a very enjoyable trip. We made some new friends, saw some old friends, and had as much fun as we could. Of course, we are already planning the next trip.

Cheers.

[westcpl]

Thanks, that was a pretty good review. We are there in a few weeks, Too bad there are more people wearing bottoms. Like I've always said, why buy the cow when you get the milk for free.