My wife and I just returned from a great trip to Pearl over the 4th of July. I will just give a brief overview from someone that goes all the time. See the yellow band report for a complete take on the resort.
For us the two main differences were the staff interactions and the food.
Those of you that go to Desire frequently and become friends with the staff you know how they treat each of us like rock stars and give us a hug every time they see us at the resort. Due to the Covid restrictions the staff are no longer able to touch the guests. The staff was still amazing as always but the little touch was missing. We noticed that there were less playmakers at the pool and they did not have all the silly games that are always going on in the afternoon at the pool. The play makers still organized pool volley ball, but had to wear their face masks in the pool. I felt very sorry for them. I cant imagine how uncomfortable they must have been.
We are not foodies, but we have always loved the breakfast buffet with all the amazing fruit. One this trip the breakfast buffet was not an option. We opted to sleep in and order fruit and eggs to the room. Actually ending up being very nice not getting up after a 4 am hot tub.
When we booked the trip we decided not to worry about how many people would be at the resort. We knew we would have a great time at this resort if it was just a few of us there. It turned out to be a fantastic trip. Some friends of ours from another trip surprised us and showed up for the week. We had a blast with them. We also met a lot of new couples and had a great time partying with them. The hotel said they were at 30% occupancy which does not sound like a lot of people, but the only time we felt the resort felt empty was at the pool in the afternoon. The quality of the people more then made up for the quantity normally at the resort. The hot tub and disco were well attended. We did notice that not a lot of the guest brought costumes but the disco was still a blast.
The guests that were at the hotel were not concerned with social distancing at all. The hot tub while not a wild as some trips it still had a lot of body shots and couples on the beds. If you expect the guests to adhere to the social distancing rules back home you might have picked the wrong resort.
Note that on the flight back home you will need to go thru a thermal scanner. Not sure what happens if you have a temp at the airport. The only issue we had was the psycho couple on the plane that tried to make us move so they can social distance.
When we got home and had time to reflect on the trip, we both decided it was one of our favorite trips. We cant wait to return in Dec. Hope to meet up with all the same people.