Caliente Florida: C & T - November, 2010
**Wanted to post this honest review of Caliente (Tampa) because we had a difficult time finding any frank reviews of the place before we went**
We visited Caliente in November. We went during a LS cruise afterparty weekend
(thurs-sun) with some friends that went on the cruise. The resort was totally booked at the time (we got the last room in the hotel part) After visiting desire and hedonism 2&3 several times, we decided to try Caliente based on ease of getting there, We are in the 30-45 age range.
--FIrst of all, this resort is EXTREMELY far away from Tampa. There are some restaurants/fast food/gas/grocery within a 5 mile radius but if you don't have a car you will feel trapped there. They do have a nice size mini fridge in the room so it was nice to keep snacks/drinks there. If you are truly content with staying at the resort the entire time than I guess this is ok, but we like to go downtown, eat at different restaurants etc so this was a big problem for us.
--To be honest, the clientele is ~80% sixty years and older. Many of the people that hang at pool/bar etc are full time residents (this is their clubhouse). Not to say we didn't meet some fun people, but if you are looking for LS activity the pickings are slim if you are looking for people under 50. I think friday night me and the waitstaff were the only ones there under 35. Again, nothing wrong with an older crowd, but was not what we were expecting at all. The friday night party was really Blah, with an older less "partying" crowd, but because we were so far from tampa we were kind of stuck out there.
--Saturday night is the big party night, and yes the crowd was younger and hotter on saturday. But the crowd is limited I think because not many people want to drive all the way out there when there is a big happening LS club in downtown tampa where the action is.
This is really a "nudist" place. You can wake up and look out the window and see
6 naked guys playing sand volleyball, couples playing naked tennis etc. We heard there have been some tiffs between the nudies and the swingers. Basically that the nudies feel the swingers are degrading the integrity of the place with their saturday parties. But its not like their are areas for open PDP or anything.
These are the big issues we had with Caliente, the crowd did not match our demographic (except saturday) and the location was extremely remote. If these are not issues for you, then you will probably love Caliente. In fact, it seems like a pretty damn cool place to retire.
Positives:
Really good DJ, played video playlists on huge projection screen. Main bar/disco had really great setup and ample seating, areas to hang out, dancefloor.
Lobby/pool/cabana area all very well taken care of and pretty.
Room, not fancy, but clean and comfy. Large mini fridge is an asset. Be aware that the "casitas" are in fact single wide trailers and located a long walk from the clubhouse. There were shuttle drivers everywhere though, we never had to wait for a shuttle to our hotel room if we wanted one.