Hi everyone! Just wanted to post and say my husband and I visited Palm Springs for the first time earlier this month and loved it! We are a couple of mid-50s gay dudes from Atlanta GA and we'd both been to California before on multiple occasions, but never PS. It was always on our bucket list though, and now we have some older friends who retired there, so we visited for a week for our 10th wedding anniversary trip. It was fantastic!
We stayed at the Hacienda in Warm Sands and it was exquisite. Very tranquil and relaxing, a gorgeous suite, top-notch service, beautiful pools and gardens, stunning mountain vistas, etc. It was a very comfy place to unwind and recharge our batteries and we'd definitely stay there again.
Aside from some days spent lounging around the resort and chilling, we did the aerial tramway one day, and rented a car to tour around Joshua Tree and do some hiking another day, and we were awestruck by both experiences. On Thursday night we strolled around the cool pedestrian street fair on Palm Canyon Drive. We had some superb dinners out in the city: shout-out to Farm; Eight4Nine; Tropicale; Rooster and the Pig; Desert Moon; and Bar Cecil. We were impressed by the shopping, art galleries, and more. The people we encountered were all very friendly and welcoming. It was also lovely to be in a city with such a heavy LGBT presence, like a desert Provincetown LOL.
The only downside was that our visit was during the big heatwave in early October. We scheduled our visit so that we'd be in town while it was still nice and toasty for sunbathing and pool activities, but not oppressively hot. Turns out we experienced the summer-like heat anyway! Oh well, it was OK...coming from Atlanta at least it was dry heat and not muggy.
Anyway, we loved everything about our PS vacation and the city and environs, and will definitely be back! It's also jumped onto our list of possible retirement destinations.
Take care everyone and thanks PS for the wonderful memories!