Most nudist resorts are old and tired and we want something different.
It was the end of my birthday celebrations in Vegas with our closest group of friends and we needed a recovery portion to our trip. Fortunately we planned this wisely. When everyone flew home, we had planned some much needed Vegas recovery days in Palm Springs, California. We hit Vegas hard for our now “older” selves with late nights, dancing in clubs till we couldn’t stand anymore, gambling at tables, drinking and holding a continuous high or buzz for the length of that stay.
All this celebrating needed recovery and that recovery was pre-planned to be in a chill nudist/swingers resort in Palm Springs.
The idea of enjoying a couple days to ourselves without clothes was so desirable. Also, we had a sense of adventure about us, being the first time that we would be visiting a resort that also advertised as a “lifestyle” aka swinger resort. Lynn and I had even talked about possibly joining in some activities and possibly expanding who we are to include some fun with others. This turned out to be just fantasy.
Now I am not trying to do a negative commentary of our specific experience with places that are nudist or even lifestyle, but this experience did not go as we expected since the moment we crossed the gate with our bags and entered our room.
I think we were in shock. We had just come from Las Vegas and a high end resort where our every need was met in the full lap of luxury, where the service was impeccable and the pools were filled will eye candy and most of all… cleanliness.
We came into our Palm Springs Resort (PSR) after check in hours. We got there and let ourselves through the gate to find a pool that was strung out with dirty towels, chairs in disarray, and a passed out naked man sitting on an old patio chair. We kept on going, looking at each other with concern of, “what are we getting ourselves into?” Our biggest concerns prior to this point at arriving at a lifestyle resort was, what are we willing to participate or not participate in, not do we feel comfortable staying here?
When we walked into our room… we felt dread. We walked into the par for the course nudist resort room. Old, tired, weird layout, and questionably clean. We have been to some tired and old resorts, but when you have just experienced luxury and you step into a space like this, you come to a realization of how low the standards are for nudist. The standards are overlooked because of the rarity of getting to spend time in a social space nude.
But something clicked over on this trip for us, we would rather not be nude and stay at a place that was textile if it was cleaner and a little more luxurious.
I want to make clear, our experience was not impacted by the people present at our nudist/lifestyle club, but literally the nature of the resort. We came from a luxury Las Vegas pool that had all ages and sizes, and what made that Vegas experience great was the how clean everything was, and the wearing of clothes was a small sacrifice to get to be in a beautiful setting. The opposite was sadly true of our PSR experience. The jacuzzi was surrounded by dirty towels, and smelled so strong of bleach that it made our eyes burn. Not to mention the water was not clear in the hot tub or the pool. Pool chemistry is key to any place. If the chemistry isn’t there, I am not going to hang around to wait for things to “clear up.”
Our room was a whole other story. Old and dated. Grease stains on doors. Broken blinds. Baseboards separated from walls. Top of the toilet cover didn’t fit the toilet. The bathtub had stains in it. Towels had “stains” on them and who knows about our bed. We couldn’t stay there another night, the thought and idea of having a place to hang out nude was not enough to counteract the quality of this clothing optional place. We booked a boutique hotel down the road at $100 more a night and had to wear clothes at the pool.
We fully enjoyed our new place, even wearing clothes.
Now, I would graciously have paid $100 more than what we paid at the boutique resort to have the ability to be clothing optional, putting our nightly stay at $400 if we got to be nude. There were even gay clothing optional hotel options that we would have gone to but were fully booked when we decided we couldn’t stay where we were at, just so we could lounge comfortably by the pool.
The nudist clothing optional world is struggling. The business model is outdated. The focus cannot be on the fact that you get to be naked. If I am going to travel a great distance, pay money, and bypass other options that are more luxurious, then my clothing optional option better be an excellent choice. As someone who has traveled a lot, I have stayed in some shitty places. I am done with staying in sub-par accommodations, clothing optional or not. I think this is the same sentiment for people of our age and economic status.
I give the example of Cypress Cove in Florida. We go there primarily now and drive past other nudist resorts, because the quality of the experience. Cypress Cove has clean and modern rooms. We literally pay more for our Cypress Cove modern rooms than nicer rooms in the Orlando area because of the quality of the Clothing Optional experience. It doesn’t feel like we are staying in a rundown hotel and therefore we are willing to pay more.
People spend thousands of dollars to go to Desire and Hidden Beach in Mexico, but here in the US, we struggle to have more than a couple places to go that aren’t a campground or dying nudist facility.
We want to travel. We want to give our hard earned money for the nudist cause. But we don’t want to spend this money on places where we feel gross and dirty. If we want these places to be successful, they are going to have to compete with textile places, simple as that. The draw for clothing optional simply isn’t strong enough anymore in Lynn and I’s eyes to want to go to and visit if it isn’t comparable to a decent hotel.
