February 7 Through 15 2019 Trip Report

2nd week in February trip report- This is our second trip since the renovations, the first was during the opening in October 2017, and it might have been our favorite trip of all time! As I'm sitting here looking at it snow here in Iowa, I feel like I want to go back right now but there's no way my liver could handle it for a while!

We went 8 nights this time. Normally by about day 6 we are thinking we're ready to go home. This time was different, it really went by too fast. We met some great people on the Boobs Cruise on our second day, and the resort was full of amazing people all week.

It was a smallish Boobs Cruise, but we still had a blast! Amy got to swim naked in the ocean again, the shitty drinks, fireball, and vodka were flowing, it was really a great group. We actually like the fact that the cruise is a little shorter than the first one we did years ago. It's nice to be at least semi-functional when we get back to the resort. Thanks Steve!

The next couple of days we spent hanging out in the pool, meeting new friends and having a great time. The weather was sunny but windy so it wasn't ideal, but we still had fun. We checked out the rooftop bar a couple times and it was mostly empty but the drinks and food up there are top shelf so we enjoyed it anyway.

After that we enjoyed a couple of rainy days. I mean, we'd rather they were perfect, but we made the best of them. There were a lot of games set up in the lobby for people to play, and the Score bar was hopping. For some mid-westerners like us the break from the sun wasn't a bad thing, There was nobody in the hot tub, so we decided that would be fun to do in the rain. Within a half hour, there were several people that had joined in and it was a lot of fun. Later that afternoon, we had some unique experiences. When the special NBC Boobs Cruise came in on Wednesday, the hot tub got full quickly. Shortly thereafter, a nice young lady offered (required) that she collect everyone's bottoms, and I think she got most them. If that wasn't enough, Norman decided to do some snorkeling, in the hot tub, flippers and all. He sure got an eye full that afternoon. How he managed to swim around with that many people in the tub, I'll never understand but it's a sight I won't soon forget!

Some new friends had a Master suite for the night, so we made the best of it We had 10 people crammed into that little hot tub on the balcony.

The downside to the rain was that we didn't get to go on our Isla Mujeres trip as planned. I know people say to never leave the resort, but we really love the island as well.

Our last full day the weather turned absolutely beautiful, so it was a perfect ending. A huge party on the rooftop was amazing, but we had to bail a bit early as the lack of shade was getting to us. Amy got to enjoy only a few minutes reading by the quiet pool, because we were so busy the entire week she just didn't get much time. I owe her a couple of days over there next time

We had a garden view room per our contract. It faced a walkway and a wall, which was better than the road so no big deal. It was small, and could have used a table for the occasional room service, but we made do.

For us the service was amazing, definitely better than October of 2017 shortly after they re-opened. They have got that figured out.

As for the food, we enjoyed everything we had. We ate at She twice and once I wound up with a skirt around my head, not quite sure how that happened We also had dinner at Romanza and Sutra, both were great. The lunch restaurant (I think it's Mexican at night) had great wings, and the shrimp fajitas dish was pretty amazing as well. For the amount of food this place has to serve daily, I don't know how it could be much better. The hot dogs/hamburgers that are brought to the pool in the late afternoon are a nice touch also.

Bash was fun every night, the entertainment is only so-so but it only lasts maybe 30 minutes. For us, the music was vastly improved this time around. They played a mix of genres, but most of the 80's/90's stuff was the remixed club style versions, which we like as it seems to keep everyone dancing more. Music is so subjective you'll never please anyone. They could definitely use more bartenders, those guys are working their asses off and it can still take forever to get a drink.

We did hear at least a couple people mention that they felt Breathless Cancun was better in every respect. I know it's typically more pricey, but we may have to check that place out someday. It's hard for me to believe,

Our ONLY real complaint is the changes to Premier. We did sit through the presentation for a "Reset" or an "Upgrade", but really they have made our original contract nearly worthless, so I don't think we'll give them more money to do so again. People booking the tower on Expedia got nearly the same or better perks than we do, a much nicer room, and paid just a few dollars more per night more than our member price (which is a joke). We got a 2 free 50 minutes massages and we were out of the presentation in less than an hour so it was worth it on a rainy day for us.

We've always varied the time of year that we go, but with the group we had this February, this may be our new "regular" week We had a so much fun!

 

Well-written, interesting trip report. Thank you for taking the time! Sounds like you made memories

 

Thanks for a positive, honest and thorough review. (We bet that you loved coming back too this fabulous Iowa weather, lol)

 

I love my membership, but it's not because of what I get at TTR/DRM, it's how cheap it can make traveling elsewhere. Which is a weird reason to get a timeshare/membership in the first place, I get it.

 

good review
I like how instead of complaining about the rain , you turned it in to the best you could do
did yall have a kind of rainy night and do a wet thsirt party at bash ..we did that in sept. hehe
we keep being asked to go talk about our membership ..but honestly we got a bare bones one ..didn't take the travel to other places ..or the tower ..we said look we like the garden view ..we only come here for vaca unless we drive somewhere , yes we are those weird car trip people .. we turned down the spa ..so not sure what they could talk to us about in the meeting that would be worth it to take away from my drinking time

 

That's great you can make it work for you! We actually bought ours second hand, and because of the price we got it for, we are just not motivated to figure out the RCI stuff. Maybe once we run out of free nights we'll have to dig into it. We'll be money ahead if we just use the free nights we had included with our membership.

 

Once you burn through the actual "free" nights, shoot me a PM (or before) and I can quickly explain how you'd use either RCI or SFX to really save some $$$. Example: I saved ~$4500 on a week's trip to Maui. Also, saved ~$2500 on a week's trip to St. Martin. It really can be awesome.

 

How many nights did you’ll get?

 

Nice, we'll take you up on that for sure, thanks!

 

The original purchasers somehow managed to get 28 free nights on their $10k contract. Must have been good negotiators or just bought it at the right time. When we bought it, they still had 21 or something like that.