Hello All,
This is a trip report to compare different possibilities for fun swinger vacation.
We have been to Desire RM 4 or 5 times in the past 5 years and were looking at a different option because Desire is becoming so expensive especially with our weak Canadian dollar. US$576 per night becomes around CDN$800. So we figured we would try a Couples Cruise leaving from Miami. Plane ticket is less expensive than flying to Cancun and rooms per night on the cruise was US$330. You have to add the drinks but we are not heavy drinkers so we took booklets for beer, coctails and wine for a total of US$770. Divided by 7 nights so total per night was US$440. $136 less than a night in RM. We finally went to RM for 4 nights before going the the cruise.
Ok, this was the financial part. Now for the fun part.
Veterans from RM know how fun Desire is. The beach beds, the pool, the service and, of course, the jacuzzi are all fantastic. The guest are always fun and easy to talk to.
Now, for the Couples Cruise (April 2016): Food is not as good, service is on the poor side, no beach (except for a few hours when at port if you choose not to visit the Island), no beach beds (our favorite place when at RM). What about the guest do you ask??? Well, we have to say guest were amazing. Of course, you have all sort of shape, age group and good and not so good-looking people. But on average, I would say the percentage of good-looking people is higher on the cruise than at Desire. And instead of have 100 couples, you have 2000 couples to find a good match. And the percentage of swingers is probably 90% compared to maybe 50% in Desire. So if your idea of a fun vacation is having great sex with many couples, the cruise is the way to go. In our 4 nights at Desire, we connected with 1 couple for 2 nights. In the 7 nights in cruise, we connected with 6 couples in 5 nights (wait...that doesn't add up?...Oh yeah, one night was with 3 other couples in a balcony suite...ahhh...memories).
How did we meet so many couples? Couples Cruise organizes speed dating sessions for over 45 and under 45, for BDSM fans, for all sorts of type of sins we may have. There is a dungeon with flagellating experts (very exciting to watch especially when it's your wife that is attached to the cross. There are 3 pools : One in the solarium where older people meet, the main pool for the majority of the people and the smaller infinity pool at the back of the ship with more tecno music (a bit of a younger crowd). Playroom was big but we didn't like it. We prefer the RM playroom. Visiting Caribbean Islands was fun but would easily exchange that for the RM beach beds.
Ok, now the SDC cruise. It was in 2013 in the Mediterranean so the ports were fantastic. Visiting Barcelona, Valencia, Palma, Ibiza, Cannes and Nice was a lot of fun. Guest were on the older side and only 350 couples to choose from. Probably because it was in Europe, there were many cliques. The German clique, Swede clique, Spanish clique. Not very easy to connect. No organized games to help socializing. But the food and wine was even better than Desire. Service was also great. That cruise was pretty expensive and flight to Europe is more expensive than Miami or Cancun. We still connected with 2 couples but almost at the end of the cruise so it was pretty disappointing on the sex side for the beginning of the cruise.
All in all, unless we win the Mega Lottery and can afford 2 or 3 adult vacation per year, we won't be going back to a SDC cruise and it will probably take some time before we go back to Desire. Our next trip will be a swinger cruise (CC or Bliss) but we will miss Desire for sure. Hopefully, the Desire management will come back to reality and charge reasonable prices for their rooms. At par, we would probably alternate.
I wouldn't think a cruise is the best option for first timers or if swinging isn't your thing.
Hope this helps take a wise decision on your next trip.