Desire Riviera Maya VS Desire Pearl – It All Comes Down to the People

During our week visit to Cancun this year, we hit a bit of the mid-week doldrums. Wednesday is often a quiet day at Desire. The resort tends to be at a lower capacity and the energy just feels a bit sluggish sometimes. So, we thought it was a good day to go exploring. With two other hot couples, we hopped a cab to explore the “other” resort—Desire Pearl.

Bottom line for us, the people make the party. One of our hot couples that came with us to Pearl had spent the prior week at Pearl with a lifestyle takeover event. Then they came to Riviera Maya for the Life on the Swingset week. Having a big lifestyle crowd at both resorts, they found that they enjoyed the amenities of Pearl much more. The pool is much more beautiful. The beach area is divine. The disco is beautiful.

Without the people, the Pearl is a lonely place! When we arrived that Wednesday evening, it felt so empty. We saw very few people. We had dinner in the one restaurant. Desire has three. Our friends said that for the big crowd the week before they also had a great buffet open all week long. But having just one restaurant would get tiring after a while.

After dinner, we had our way to the hot tub area. Again, the physical aspects of the hot tub area were amazing. The hot tub is deeper than Riviera Maya, so you don’t have to squat/stand on your knees like you do at the original resort. But we were the only people in the hot tub! We had an amazing, sexy, time, just the six of us in that hot tub. Thankfully we brought the party with us!

We put our clothes back on and headed to the disco, which had maybe 8 couples total dancing. Very friendly. Some very hot. But not enough people at all. Again, we brought the party with us. We had these couples say to us, “Thank you for bringing some energy here! This place is dead!” So dead in fact that we brought one couple back to our resort with us. They were so hungry for some crazy fun and couldn’t find it at Pearl.

Okay, so I kind of regret that decision. The woman in particular was way too drunk and pushy. I made no promises to them, just that I would show them the disco and hot tub area and they could have fun. I confess that I escaped from this wild woman at the disco. Our Australia friends escorted them to the hot tub, handed them off to our Vancouver friends, and they too ran away. At breakfast the next morning, our friends from Vancouver hollered at us. “Why did you bring that crazy woman over here? She was all over the place in the hot tub, thrusting her chest into people’s faces. Totally out of control!” Oops. But I would say that is that I partially blame Pearl for turning them into a very sexually frustrated couple, LOL. But the original Desire is so much fun. I just wanted to spread the love!

So, bottom line. The Pearl is a more beautiful place. If we found a lifestyle takeover event that had lots of high energy, sexy couples at Pearl, we would definitely give Pearl a try. Although I might need to hop over to the original Desire to have enough dining variety. Plus, the original Desire on balance just has a whole lot more sexy. It is a place that people return to year after year. And they too bring the party with them. When you arrive at Desire, they tell you “Welcome home.” And it is so unbelievably true. Those veterans create the backbone of the Desire experience. They welcome the newbies. They create cultural norms, expectations, a friendly vibe.

And the staff. Cici who makes my BLTs at 2 in the morning. Africa who serves drinks Oceanside. Leo who makes every volleyball game special. Our friends were very attached to the Pearl staff, so that is a great start. But I don’t know them like I do at my “home” resort.

The Pearl will have to work hard to create a similar feeling of home. I also think the Desire management needs to encourage cross interaction among the resorts. They offered no shuttle between them. We had to push to be allowed to have a dinner reservation at Pearl. With such a loyal following at the original Desire, the management needs to promote the new place much more.