Newbie Vanilla Couple - DRM March 2022

[C&T]

I’m C, the male and taking lead on our trip report. My wife, T, and I attended as newbies on 2/28/2022 for 4 nights. We found the trip reports here to be so very helpful that we wanted to share ours! This was our first time attending any LS resort. We’re a long-time married couple not in the LS, but wanting to explore and make some new friends, too. We heard (and read here!) some great things about DRM and decided to take the plunge and attend for four nights.

Arrival: Wait, you called us what?
Because we’re not in the LS, we were a bit concerned that we might feel pressure or discomfort. After reading all the great posts here, we were rather convinced that DRM would be a relaxed, respectful super-sexy, no pressure experience. When we arrived and introduced ourselves the front desk person and another person who would later attempt, three times in our first 24 hours, to sell us a membership promptly told us that as newbies we were “Fresh Meat.” They called us this several times in about our first 5 minutes, while grinning at each other knowingly. This felt kinda cheap and really wasn’t the greeting I was expecting from an all-inclusive couples resort of this caliber. T and I both felt a little uneasy, wondering if we made the right decision coming to DRM. Was this going to be a sleazy place after all? We looked at each other, realized we were committed at this point, and just laughed along asking what we should do to settle in. The response was a bit unhelpful.

And how do things work here?
We’d seen the previous week’s itinerary online and had read loads of helpful posts, but we still weren’t sure what the best ways to get oriented were. We were unsure what we should do next. The desk person said “Just go out to the lobby bar and then go to dinner, then later go to the disco, then up to the hot tub.”

Now what I would have liked.... In retrospect, it would have been nice for them to provide just a bit of orientation for us (rather than just calling us “fresh meat”, handing us a room key, and telling us to go to the sparsely inhabited lobby bar.) Maybe they could have said “Great! Here’s our weekly activity schedule. Look! You’ve arrived just in time for ‘Meet and Greet New People!’ I recommend you go up to the rooftop bar and introduce yourselves!” If we’d arrived earlier in the afternoon, they might have directed us to the pool swim up bar to grab a drink, wade around and introduce ourselves. Instead, we wandered off for a drink and dinner together at the buffet. This was pleasant, but it delayed us getting into the people groove of Desire. (And as others have noted, it’s the people who make Desire great.)

The Room
We’d been told that the rooms were nothing special. That advice didn’t disappoint. It was nothing special. We had the least expensive garden view room. Super comfy bed, super simple room. It did the job but definitely not spacious. This wasn’t a problem since we really didn’t spend much time there. During our stay, we saw some other much more luxe rooms, but we just didn’t want to pony up the cash. For us, a small simple room was just fine.

Connect with other couples before you go
Connecting with others on this forum and on other sites was really a key to our fantastic time. We’d made nice connections with some other couples and then met them in person during our stay. This really was great. Next time (and yes, we ended up having so much fun there will likely be a next time!) we’ll see if we can connect even more with other couples prior to going as it was loads of fun. Repeat to yourself: “It’s the people who make Desire.”

Theme nights: Just do it!
Even though we’re a vanilla couple, we jumped in with all four feet: participating in theme nights, dancing at the disco, and generally carrying on. What a riot! This let us have a ridiculous amount of fun and shed our “normal” selves. Between dressing up for dinner and theme nights, we did take a truly silly amount of clothing for a clothing optional resort, but it was totally worth it.

Enjoy some serious relaxing, too
We also enjoyed snagging beach beds a couple of days and pool lounges a couple of days. Some of our new friends gave us this tip and it was so relaxing. Surprising how wonderfully restful it is to lounge around all day. We enjoyed watching the beach volleyball and activities by the pool, too.

Learn the flow
We may be a bit of slow learners, but it probably took us about two full days to figure out that meeting people while wading around the pool and going to the upstairs bar in the afternoon are two of the best ways to get to know others. We also learned that theme night shenanigans and dancing in the disco were great ways to connect the dots with people you’d met to move things along more, if you want to. We didn’t end up hitting the hot tub upstairs, though we did go up to the bar for drinks and conversation. We’re leaving plenty to explore on our next trip.

High Points
Some real high points were the service and friendliness of the staff. It is a real pleasure to be at Desire; everyone is super accommodating. The playmakers were loads of fun. Always enterprising, T somehow managed to find a way to dance with uber-hunky Playmaker Kevin three times! We also loved the food. Our favorites: Sahlo and Suki were both quite good. But don’t waste your evening on the very blah Hibachi experience at Suki. As others have noted, it isn’t anything special, the food was kind of bland, and we both felt we could have skipped this. Instead, go to Suki for the restaurant side of the house and enjoy some incredible sushi and other specialties. We loved the lunches at Tentazione, as well. T thinks that the dessert chef for Desire should receive a bonus, promotion, a medal of excellence, and probably a big wet kiss. Which desserts to choose was always one of the meal’s most difficult decisions – they were all amazing.

Take some pictures home (some you can share, too!)
T also took advantage of the Provoke Experience makeup and photography session. This was fantastic fun and the pictures are phenomenal. T was a bit shy at first but the photographer was so professional it made it easy. We now have some fantastic pictures that we both totally love. Plus, she got to leverage all her fun lingerie and costumes. And her makeup was super fun for the theme night too. We also did some couples pictures around the resort and on the beach which are totally appropriate to share with friends and family.

We left after 4 nights wanting more and thinking we’ll be back!