First, the bad. Well, not bad so much as...mediocre. For the first 3 days we had no wifi in our building, had to go to the lobby and get the guys to unlock the coded lobby wifi to do our daily home check. Is this a big deal? I guess not, but when you have small kids and your only contact with their caregivers is over Facebook, I want my wifi, on my patio, during my morning coffee. However, those first 3 days were the only days that I even had coffee in my room. I am also a fan of the towel animals (or towel body parts, depending on your housekeeper) that they leave, but only had them for the first 3 days too. What happened? New chambermaids maybe I dont know, and again, its not that important, but while our room was always cleaned, it was not restocked. So while by then I had wifi, I had no coffee to make, no nice body wash, no towel animals and once, no freakin toilet paper. We started raiding the carts left outside our room for our supplies. Yes, I could have complained to management but in all honesty, I didn't want to. I shouldn't have to. I did however explain all of this at our checkout interview/survey thing. The other concern is that alot of people are uncomfortable with people like me, who bring electronics capable of taking pictures to the pool/beach beds. I read on an ipad and while putting a sticker over the camera lens was a non-issue, I had to seek such a thing out myself, rather than it be mandatory. FYI the lobby has stickers to cover camera lenses, and it makes your naked neighbors happy.
That's it for the "last year was better" stuff.
Do we go to Desire for wifi and coffee and towel animals? Of course not, its the people that brings us back, both guests and employees. Lets talk about the employees for a moment.... The service here is outstanding. If we got service like that here in Canada or the US at a resort we would go broke with tipping. Edmundo, I cannot tell you how special you made me feel, every single day. We chose to tip the staff that we felt went above and beyond, but to be honest, so many more of them deserved it. At the exit interview theres a space for you to fill in, naming the staff who you thought deserved kudos. Try really hard to remember (or write down) the names of the people who stand out. I have no idea what (or if) theres a bonus involved but I hope the management acknowledges them somehow. I also really liked the new entertainment staff, or playmakers they are now called. They are not as experienced and as outgoing as the people last year, but they are really personable, and fun.
Now the guests. Last year we visited during spring break and the majority of people were like us, in their 30s and 40s or so. This year our visit started out pretty heavily tilted to 50s and 60s, which was actually cool, because first of all, we made some GREAT friends, and also the "younger" group gravitated together probably sooner than it would have if there was more of us. We've all had some form of public sex somewhere at RM, and maybe its just me but does anyone else think the employees are AMAZING at being discreet, like seriously, if they are watching I have yet to catch them
. Last year in March it was too cold to be outside naked at night. In May it is not. We made great use of the beach palapa (sp?) beds at night. Oh, that's another interesting addition, lovely lanterns in the beds on the beach, they've got this soft come hither glow, so we did, again, and again. Also if you like f**king on a waterbed, the beach has swinging beds too. Its warm enough at the beach at night you could sleep out there, the beds fit two couples easy, three if you spoon. There tends to be a shift in guests about mid week, and the latter half of our stay had way more younger people. We also met a lot more non-lifestyle people this time around, which makes for interesting conversation, though maybe not as jaw dropping as some stories we heard from those who are a lot more...ummm...adventurous than us. A great night, tons of laughs, but we all pinky swore to never talk about it again. (you know who you are lol) The swinging beds that were in the lobby area are now down at the beach, along with a bunch more palapa beds, no trouble getting one for the day at all, even though we were told they had to be reserved at $20 a pop. Not true, find Renee and ask him. Isn't it awesome that (1) if you've been there and you've been to the beach, you know who Renee is, and (2) if you have yet to go, chances are it will still be Renee there. I LOVE the fact that the employee turnover is minimal. LOVE it. Sylvia will be at the pool, Africa at the beach, and Edmundo, I hope you will be behind the bar waiting for me next year too.
All in all, the best vacation ever. Where else but Desire?
