Alert – it’s long and wordy.

We just finished our trip to Desert Sun so here is an overall report. The grounds were in full bloom and beautifully maintained. It made for an overall enjoyable environment. There’s been a lot of discussion about how many people are there during the week. Here’s the answer – enough. There are about 20 – give or take – “snowbirds” who are there for the winter. They don’t spend every day all day poolside so you don’t see them all the time. Some take an early morning swim or hot tub soak and others show up in the afternoon for a few hours. There were also people vacationing and checking in on every weekday. The demographic is almost all couples and a wide age range. Even on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday there were over 20 people at the pools. The crowd is friendly and we enjoyed the company of others poolside and in the hot tub every day.
Starting on Thursday, the crowd gets bigger. On Friday afternoon enough people had arrived that within two minutes of someone initiating water volleyball twelve people were in the pool ready to play. I don’t play but it was fun to watch. Unfortunately, Saturday (3/17) and Sunday were cold and rainy. It is supposedly dry 350 days a year but we managed to catch 2 of the 15 rainy days a year. A large crowd of people who know each other were still there for the weekend but they went to a private party in one of the houses “over the bridge” and so the St. Patrick’s Day party was not well attended. In fact there was only about 10 of us there. Chuck who leads the karaoke did a remarkable job of getting people to participate – and he really had to work hard at it – but it is hard to feel good about such a small crowd.

Restaurant – It’s open every day for lunch, for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday and dinner Thursday thru Sunday. On weekdays there is complimentary coffee, tea (K-cup) and muffins in the office. There is a 7 11 a block away and a supermarket, Walgreens and McDonald’s (plus other stuff) about 2 miles away.

You are close to downtown Palm Springs and if you are a walker you can walk. We drove. Parking is easy. On Saturday I went to an outdoor art show before it rained and shopped in the early part of the day. On Monday we asked Mike at the front desk at nights to recommend a place to get a pizza – nothing fancy. He recommended Café Pallett downtown and they had the perfect pizza for us on special – a medium pizza with two toppings for $10. We brought it back and enjoyed it in the nude with the gas fireplace in the villa on. We ate lunch in the café on most days – unless we had leftovers. We enjoyed sitting outside and the lunch menu/food was fine. They get a reasonable crowd at lunch. We ate dinner there on Friday/Saturday/Sunday – we like to stay on the property. Small crowd every night – most on Friday – weather related. The food at dinner I’d call OK but I wouldn’t go there at dinner for the food – its only draw is being able to stay on the property. The dinner hours are 5 - 8 PM. Pretty early close.

On our last night we had dinner at Copley’s – one of the best restaurants in Palm Springs. It is on the site of Cary Grant’s former estate. We ate outside and were comfortable with the aid of the heat lamps. Gorgeous setting. It is only a few minutes from Desert Sun and it is outstanding. Check out their website for more info.

Every staff member we had contact with was friendly and helpful. Starting with Michael on down to the maid. Every server in the restaurant was friendly. Everyone at the front desk was helpful. At night they would light the fire pit if you asked and put heat lamps on too. I enjoyed that on a couple of cool nights. It is perfectly okay to bring your own drinks to the pool – no glass of course.

And for those of you that follow Desert Shadows/Desert Sun history – Jack is back. This may have just happened while we were there. He has been working for the local limo company and there have been recent reports of him being there to pick up passengers. On Friday he came to the pool dressed and was talking to a large group who knew him. He had time before picking someone up. After a while he took his shirt off. When he left people speculated about whether he would be back and some thought he seemed ready. Sure enough, he came back later and played volleyball. After that he was there every day – but not in his old spot on the grass – he was in a lounge chair by the pool. On Saturday he strolled through the restaurant all decked out for St. Patrick’s Day and he was greeted warmly by everyone – especially the old timers.

Overall it was a very relaxing vacation and we will go back even though we come from NJ. There were plenty of people from out of state that we met who were vacationing there. So they definitely are attracting more than a weekend crowd. It would be good if they could do something about nightlife and the restaurant. Maybe barbecue nights. Maybe something other than occasional karaoke. Even Happy Hour and early bird special dinners might help. Movie night? Sports bar night? Some variety with a little more pazazz to keep people on the property at night and also to draw out the residents. I preferred Desert Sun to Caliente because it is more traditional nudist and has no lifestyle atmosphere. My husband preferred Caliente (But we haven’t been there in 2 years) because he likes having the nudist experience in the evening – better restaurant and well attended and the Sports Bar – including sitting outside. There isn’t much offsite at Caliente. Desert Sun has Palm Springs down the road. We timed our vacation to attend the tennis tournament at Indain Wells – and we got to see five big name players play. It is about a half hour from Desert Sun and a beautiful venue. Thanks Jim for the great directions.

Bottom Line – it’s an outstanding, modern, well kept nudist resort. Every nudist should consider it a potential vacation spot. It’s not just for locals.