First time to Pearl but 2nd time to Desire - April, 2018

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First time to Pearl but 2nd time to Desire - April, 2018

Postby shyextrovert » Sun Apr 29, 2018 9:13 pm

Desire Pearl Trip Report:
My wife and I spent Saturday April 21 thru Saturday April 28th, 2018 at Desire Pearl in Puerto Morales, Mexico. We have previously stayed at Desire RM and the now defunct Hedonism 3 so later I’ll make some comparisons to those resorts. I won’t bore you with a day by day play by play but instead give my report by various topics and you can skip to topics that interest you.

Arrival/Departure. We flew from New Orleans which has a weekly direct flight on Saturday to the Cancun airport on Southwest airlines. This is great because the flight is under 2 hours instead of changing planes and wasting time in other airports. I have traveled to at least 100 airports around the world ranging from mega facilities like Dallas or Munich down to convenience store size airports in Exuma, Bahamas, and Key West, Florida. Despite the 3rd world stereotype of Mexico, this is one of the nicest, most efficiently run airports in the world. From touchdown, through customs, through baggage claim to the waiting van was under 30 minutes. We used USA transfers which we booked through this forum. Pay close attention to what they say regarding exiting the airport altogether to look for the person with your name on the sign. There are numerous people who will pretend to be your driver and try to trick you. Ignore them and look for the person with your name on the sign. As soon as we found the sign guy, he took us to our van and the very polite professional driver had us to Desire Pearl within 30 more minutes.
USA Transfers picked us up at the resort on Saturday the 28th and returned us to the airport in 30 minutes on our last day. Again, the time from drop-off at the airport curb to get through checking of bags and through security to our gate was under 30 minutes. And all airway and airport personnel were polite and helpful. 90% of U.S. airports could learn a great deal about professionalism from the Cancun airport.

Resort Quality: Desire Pearl is a first class facility catering to a small specialized clientele. There are less than 90 rooms, so a completely full resort has less than 200 guests. We were greeted with “Welcome Home” by the bell captain (the very friendly and helpful Estaban) and all lobby staff. The lobby is very attractive as is the entire resort. The resort is small, not much more than a football field wide and a football field deep. So all is close by. The hotel part is a series of 4 story buildings. The main pool is huge, and the hot tub is huge as well. With less than 200 guests, nothing is ever really crowded, but neither is it empty. We had the lowest price level room, and it was quite nice with a large bedroom with a king sized bed and a couch. And the bathroom was quite large as well. There was a balcony with an “ocean view” but because of the palm trees and the angle, we really only saw a slice of the ocean.

Spa/Fitness Center:
My wife enjoyed a stone massage at the spa. We both used the fitness center most days for about 30 minutes. One criticism is that there are only 3 cardio machines, but many weight lifting machines. There was sometimes a small wait for cardio machines but rarely was anyone using the weights. I would recommend reducing the amount of space for weights and adding a couple of more cardio treadmill type devices. There is an extra charge for massages, but not for the fitness center, nor was there an extra charge for the sauna and steam room which were nice to use right before a shower.

Lazy Days:
The resort allows you to choose from beds or lounge chairs on the beach or lounge chairs on the busy end of the pool or beds or lounge chairs at the quiet end of the pool. Once you see Victor in the morning, he will assign you a bed or lounge chairs in whichever area you choose and that is yours for the rest of the day even if you leave it for a while as long as you leave something behind (such as a book) to make it clear that you plan to return. There is no extra charge for the beds or lounge chairs. The busy end of the pool has “playmakers” throughout the day who lead games such as water volleyball or music trivia games. There is a bar at the busy end of the pool. The quiet end of the pool and the beach is the choice area for those who want to read or sleep all day. Regardless of where you choose to spend the day, Miguel and Horatio will come by you at least once an hour offering you drinks that they will bring for free. These 2 guys were great. We split up our vacation spending 3 of the days at the busy end of the pool, 2 days on the beach and 1 day at the quiet end of the pool.

Sexy Vibe: The environment is designed to be romantic, and it succeeds. There are 2 types of couples at Desire Pearl. About ½ of the couples, such as my wife and I, are monogamous and were there just to reconnect with each other. The other ½ of the clientele is in the “lifestyle” and are there to meet and engage sexually with other couples. Regardless of which couple you are, the environment is conducive to either couple’s “desire.” Although monogamous, we were never uncomfortable with anyone in the “lifestyle” and we met many couples of different desires and enjoyed meeting all of them. The atmosphere is so seductive that you will pass couples quietly fondling each other in the middle of the afternoon on a bed at the quiet end of the pool, or you might see a couple (or more) people eagerly putting on a show for the adoring crowds at the jacuzzi. These things can happen at any time of the day. Technically, the jacuzzi area and the disco playroom are the only places where public sex can take place, but we saw plenty of sexual activity at the pool and beach area, but usually more low key. In fact, the disco playroom is hardly used at all. Most people are nude all day long at the pool or beach and only put on clothes to go to meals. You can spot the new couples who are not used to the nudism because the wife usually has on a nice bikini and the husband swimming trunks. After an hour or 2, the bikini top slips off and once they realize that the world is not going to explode, the bikini bottoms and swim trunks come off an hour or 2 later and stay off for the rest of the week. From my perspective, if everyone else is nude, it actually feels more self-conscious to have clothes on.

Entertainment: Every night around 9pm or so, there was some sort of entertainment in the lobby followed by some sort of show in the disco around 10:30 followed by dancing in the disco. This entertainment is very uneven, and we did not go every night. There was a country band one night that was great and a smooth jazz band another night which was also great. Opera singers brought in for a special celebration were quite a highlight. Some nights were just DJs. The shows in the disco were usually similar to seeing a single Cirque Du Soleil act. Some of these acts in the disco were very good, especially the light show on “neon night.” The various themes were generally adhered to by about ½ or so of the couples. Most women put on quite an effort to wear sexy revealing clothes fitting the theme. The highlight of each evening is seeing the clothes of the female guests.

Excursions:
We are a rarity at Desire as we decided to leave the resort during the day a few times. Most people never leave the resort at all until their trip is over. But we wanted to see the area. We took an excursion to the Mayan ruins at Tulum which were fascinating and well worth the trip. We also, went to Jungle Maya which was a wonderful adventure park with ziplining and rappelling into a cave. Just one kilometer south of Desire Pearl is the town square of Puerto Morales. This is an easy and pleasant walk along the beach, and we walked to the town square twice in the week that we were there. At the town square, there are restaurants, shops, and a quaint Catholic church. We attended church services there where they have an English Mass at noon on Sunday. Next to the church is a high quality souvenir shop where we purchased plenty of things to take back to family. Yes, the souvenir shop has the usual cheap key rings and shot glasses, but they also had many very nice crafts and jewelry. The beach is well patrolled by the police, and we never felt any danger on any of our excursions. One criticism of Desire Pearl is that they make it a bit difficult to take excursions. Supposedly, the folks at the dive shop organize excursions to various sites in addition to the diving and snorkeling; however, when we went there, they have nothing formal to discuss and no brochures so we just booked our excursions online and were picked up at the hotel. Excursions are so rare that one of our drivers told us that he has been a tour driver for 4 years, and we were the first people he had ever picked up at Desire Pearl.

Restaurants:
Desire Pearl has 3 restaurants. The primary restaurant is Aphrodite. It has a buffet with some menu service for Breakfast and lunch and a full sit-down menu service for dinner. Aphrodite is at ground level on the water and is very good for the buffet service for breakfast and lunch. It is good for dinner as well, but it is not the prime spot for dinner. Unik (pronounced “unique” and not the very different meaning “eunuch”) is a dinner only restaurant that sits atop Aphrodite and during the day it doubles as a vacation sales presentation office. The view of the Gulf is very nice from up there, and the service was quite good. We ate there once and enjoyed it. Unik requires reservations as they only have about 10 tables. Our favorite restaurant was Pearl which is only open for dinner. We had dinner at Pearl 4 times. The menu at Pearl has different themes depending on the night of the week. Twice we had the aphrodisiac menu, once the French menu and once the Italian menu. I am a picky eater, and I found something to like at every restaurant. Pearl is near the lobby and has the nicest atmosphere with great steaks most nights. The wait staff and hostesses were great at all restaurants. But I must single out Antonio at Aphrodite and Rey at Pearl as being exceptionally good at their jobs.

Comparison to other resorts:
As stated at the beginning, we have stayed at Desire RM and Jamaica’s Hedonism 3 (which no longer exists but I add it as probably being similar to its existing sister resort Hedonism 2) We enjoyed all 3, but Desire Pearl is the best so far. The problem with Hedonism was that they allowed single males who tend to kill the sexy vibe as they hang out hoping for a threesome. And at Hedonism 3, they had three pools, with only the smallest allowing nudity so 80% of the guests were competing for space at the smallest pool while the 2 larger pools were empty all day. The nightlife at Hedonism 3 was much more lively than Desire Pearl, though. But we felt much safer in Mexico versus Jamaica. Desire Pearl is more elegant than Desire RM and much more elegant the Hedonism 3. Desire RM is more active than Desire Pearl. At Pearl, the “playmakers” had to work hard to get enough people to play the games at the pool; whereas, at RM, people jumped at every game opportunity. RM was primarily for “lifestyle” folks. As a monogamous couple, we were welcome at RM, but we were in the minority. At Pearl there is more of an even split with monogamous versus lifestyle. The evening entertainment at RM was much more lively than Pearl. The crowd, being a bit older than RM, tended to vacate the disco shortly after 11, but the RM crowd partied late into the night and filled the hot tub late in the night. We went to the jacuzzi after 11 a couple of times at Pearl to find it only had a couple of couples there instead of the packed jacuzzi late at night at RM. There was more open sexual activity at RM than Pearl but plenty at both.

Overall conclusion:
We loved Desire Pearl and want to return. Leaving on Saturday was a sad occasion. However, Desire representatives told us that Desire is opening another resort in Cancun proper in 2019 and another in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic in 2020 so we may try those next. Many couples at Pearl seem to come once or even twice each year to Pearl, but that is a bit above our means so it will likely be 2020 before our next visit so we might try to book the new Cancun resort at that time. The fact that the majority of those we met at Desire Pearl were repeat customers is a strong positive report on how wonderful this resort is. From a marketing standpoint, I was surprised that there were no artist drawings on display of either of the 2 new planned resorts. I would have expected the ownership to be trying to generate excitement with the new resorts. Even those giving the vacation club presentation had no real details on the new resorts even when I asked about them.
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Re: First time to Pearl but 2nd time to Desire - April, 2018

Postby Cpl du Nord » Mon Apr 30, 2018 12:54 pm

Great report! Glad that you both enjoyed your week.
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Re: First time to Pearl but 2nd time to Desire - April, 2018

Postby kan2ca » Tue May 08, 2018 12:34 pm

We just wanted to thank you for your excellent trip report. Your details are Very much appreciated!
Thanks so much!!! :L
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Re: First time to Pearl but 2nd time to Desire - April, 2018

Postby Dani'stoy » Wed May 09, 2018 9:49 am

Great report! We loved Pearl too! It's a yearly occurrence for us now.
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Re: First time to Pearl but 2nd time to Desire - April, 2018

Postby NNJAsianCpl » Wed May 09, 2018 4:43 pm

Great report. Haven't heard of one bad trip yet.
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Re: First time to Pearl but 2nd time to Desire - April, 2018

Postby Sunbums » Mon Jul 16, 2018 6:59 pm

Thanks for the detailed report. We would like to take an excursion to the ruins. Where did you book them online?
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