Swinging Lifestyle + Hotwife Lifestyle Podcast - Wanderlust Swingers Podcast
We share all the details about our recent event in the UK for the first ever Swingers Hotel Takeover, Floor Crawl and Swingers Club Takeover of Penthouse Playrooms
UK Swingers Hotel Takeover
We took over an entire 87 room hotel and share the details from the event in a mash up podcast called the Wanderhoppers Podcast (a PennyYoko Production)
Find part 2 on the bed hoppers podcast https://www.bedhoppers.co.uk/
Parties, buses, a floor crawl... what could go wrong
Come and meet the lord and lady of fucktown
Swingers Events
We've got a brand new webpage with the global swingers events listed that we are hosting, attending or recommend. If you're looking for Swingers Events around the world, head over to our website https://www.swingingdownunder.com/swingers-events/
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Love, Peace and Respect
C D
Transcript
you're listening to the wanderlust swingers podcast with aussie hosts kate and daryl if you're curious about exploring your sexuality or the swinging hot wiping and non-monogamous lifestyle you've definitely come to the right podcast or maybe you just love travel adventures either way we share our personal sometimes juicy sexy stories as well as swingers club and event reviews, interviews with other sassy people, and of course, our global swinging adventures. We try to bring you a look into the diverse lifestyle that the swinging and non-monogamous community has. We hope you enjoy.
Now let's get into the episode. G'day everyone and welcome to the Wanda Hoppers podcast. My name is Kate and I am actually from and I'll see you next time. G'day, everyone, and welcome to the Wanderhoppers podcast. My name is Kate, and I am actually from the Wanderlust Swingers podcast, but because I have a joint hosting situation with me right now with Mr. and Mrs. H, of course, from the fabulous Bedhoppers podcast, we're calling it now the Wanderhoppers. Welcome to the show, guys.
Well, technically, I would say this is a threesome, and we're going to run with that a foursome if you include zoom dirty dirty little whore yeah thanks to zoom for hosting us much appreciated oh the things that zoom saw during the pandemic zoom is currently trying to wash its eyes out i'm sure i think she's just trying to wipe her memory of all the quizzes that everyone experienced hey zoom didn't even buy us a drink before hosting his threesome so oh my god that's just dating 101 really isn't it flirting 101 get a clue zoom before we get into our rambling mess what we're talking about today we're going to be talking about the winter wonderland which is the uk's swingers club and swingers hotel takeover that we just hosted we did a good job i thought overall i i thought we did spoiler alert a fantastic job collectively individually and um any other sort of things i can imagine in my head but i think it's important what backpacks for everyone not cow pats because they're quite different it's important to point out that i think this is the biggest uk hotel takeover swinger event and probably the first that's ever happened of this magnitude.
We knocked out of the park, I think. I'm going to say we did. Yeah. Just for everybody who's like, why is everybody just giving themselves praises before even getting to the episode? We have been hosting together now, what is this now, fourth time we've hosted together, right? I think so. It must be something like that. We kind of started out doing kind of a mingle and a bit at a club and we of course went to London City and then we started doing a smaller one at Penthouse Thank you.
something like that we kind of started out doing kind of a mingle and a bit a bit at a club and we of course went to like london city and then we started doing a smaller one at penthouse and and luckily penthouse playrooms uh the club that we now take over kind of partnered with us and said yeah you guys can buy out the whole thing and you're right it did get to the point where i was turning away a shitload of people but the number of people that were coming through was really just astounding and I I constantly underestimate the size of the lifestyle in England actually and I don't know bad bad props for me for doing that I guess well I remember Kate having a very very sort of early days like day one or day two conversation with you where we were like have we done the right thing here are we completely mad do we need to burn everything yeah do we need to take the car set it on fire and then claim the insurance Kate doesn't even have a car I know my bicycle it's not worth much no you're right when we decided to do this and you know of course I signed the contract and I sent through the money to the hotel and there were many a text messages between the three of us just me going what the fuck have I done like are we going to lose all this money is it going to work is anybody even going to come and um thankfully thankfully people turned up so i am still sitting in a house i'm not coming to you from some shanty on the side of the road broken penniless thankfully thankfully but yeah let's let's i don't know crack crack on to the event uh by the way gentle listener uh we don't really have a set podcast episode breakdown, so we're just going to kind of bounce and roll off each other.
So, if this seems discombobulated, that's 100% me. If you were going to explain this event to somebody, how would you explain the kind of event? Well, I was describing it to people as Narnia. Oh, okay.
But because in my head, I had fantastic magical narnian your dress winter wonderland i was like it's narnia aslan's gonna be there there's gonna be a wardrobe it's gonna be tucker delight it's gonna be great i think people really bought into that that's why people were so confused when they showed up oh why so many turned up you're welcome well i i think there's something quite different about the events that we've been running together yeah it's a wonder hopper event and i think they it's it's a little bit of a of a social thing and that there's lots of uh enabling of of social elements so bringing people together so part of this was a a hotel takeover part of it was sort of pre-parties and getting people to know each other and the other element was sort of getting people to all these great these great people that have now met each other and gotten to know each other into a really nice sexy club and just lighting the touch paper and see how it goes i think that's that's the thing but what i've really loved about this this build up to this one in particular is that it's been lots of conversations we've had our chat group running there's been lots of interactions we've had zoom so people hopefully have felt pretty comfortable by the time they get to the actual uh club part and not everyone attending had obviously been to one of our events before so there's always an element of you know a good element of people who are brand new to going to big events or even just clubs generally but what's brilliant is when they get sort of absorbed into the the chat that we have beforehand it's really reassuring to see each other you know sort of talking to each other about don't worry if you're a newbie it's fine you know this was our this is our second one or you know it's so good we're coming back again and you know so on and so forth and by the time you get around to your next event it then becomes again your collective gets a little bit bigger and you've got more more people who keep returning again and again and then spreading the good word so it's it's really lovely but yes we are borg assimilate exactly we are borg about 50 of the people that actually came to this event um had never been to our events before so they go half the people at the event had never been to um our events at all and certainly about 30 ish percent had never been to an event or a club or what have you what i will say is i think that in the lead up it was nigh impossible to actually keep up with the chat so on one hand it's positive because i mean the thrill and everyone was getting super excited and like putting their outfits in the what are you wearing section and putting sexy photos in the sexy sassy photo section and you know lingerie like here's what i'm going to dress down to and all of that like the it was just palpable how excited people were and i gotta say I was actually getting a little bit worried because when there is that much excitement pre-event normally what happens is people go they either over promise and under deliver or they just go insane and then they drink too much and just get absolutely like four sheets to the wind sloppy drunk I was actually pleasantly surprised and very happy to see that whilst people were merry at the event, like there was nobody falling over themselves.
Nobody was sick in the bathroom, like, you know, all of that. So there was definitely this element of like excitement pre-event and I'm very thankful that nobody, you know, was acting a fool.
i didn't get drunk oh you mean other people i think there is something about that that build-up where people do go a bit crazy and i think the other thing i've seen is where people get so they get really het up and they get they start feeling really sexy and they're really looking forward to the event and then they get to the last possible hurdle and they shit themselves about it and there is the inevitable body crisis, inevitable confidence crisis that sort of hits and i think what was interesting is actually we did see some of that and we did see a few people having those moments but actually what was really cool is that they did reach out to ourselves yourself and the rest of the people in the group and everyone sort of calmed down just a little bit and offered their advice and talked them talked them through this process which was really good to see but you're right that the chat does get kind of cray cray and i mean i'm on it 24 hours a day yeah although guaranteed the second that i'm not on that chat something bloody happened every time going crazy now because now people are in that post event like honeymoon period of of reminiscing and reflecting on how great it was and and it's still going you know people going oh this was great and i connected here and let when's the next one but that's mainly the question when is the next one i can't wait for the next one boiler alert so this is going to be a podcast in two parts and obviously the second half of this is going to be in the Bedhoffers podcast.
You have to listen to find out about that. Because we're not telling you until the end. So that's our way of getting you to actually listen to the entire episode. Yes. Guarantee you have to listen all the way to the end. Before we want to get into like some of the more, I guess, how did this event come about? What actually happened? Like, you know, some details about the event.
Let's maybe share some personal stories you know i think i think it's good to sprinkle some of these in as we're talking about the episode just to kind of keep it keep it interesting for people that maybe have been to events or haven't been to events so i'm going to share a personal thought mrs h and i always do the kind of check-in reception and we don't generally tend to get to leave the desk i want to say it until maybe 9 50 ish right that's when we can kind of that's when most people and we get to leave and go and start experiencing the event to ourselves i walked out the little reception doors and as soon as you walk into there you're into the locker room right and i have never seen the sheer volume of people in lingerie or changing into lingerie as i saw at this event ever before really early on i was i was surprised So, yeah must have been 9 50 10 p.m and honestly there would have been 30 sexy bodies changing into lingerie and I you know I'm coming through fully dressed I was literally on my way to the bathroom and I'm like excuse me boob graze excuse me butt graze as I'm kind of walking around and that was just something that I thought was I mean first of all it creates a really sexy atmosphere really nice ambience but what was a standout for me on a personal level was that people felt comfortable enough to do that you know they felt comfortable enough to whatever shape size age you know demographic they were they felt comfortable enough to get down into into their lingerie and that was something that really stood out to me as a kind of a personal experience.
What about you guys? I did experience the same sea of beautiful bodies as I came back from a reception on the way upstairs finally. And I agree. Naughty, naughty girl. It was absolutely incredible. And when I came through the reception, I was like, oh, holy shit. All right, everyone's already doing this. It was great. It was amazing.
You're absolutely absolutely right it was fabulous to see everyone already at that point where they were just starting to get comfortable and start dressing down and yeah it was fab to see that so that's not my personal story but i just wanted to echo your sentiments because i agree it was quite different from being behind the desk and seeing everyone coming in in their finest suited and booted and glorious dresses and then last days of Caligula here we go okay then yeah sorry what's what's your personal story Mr.
Eight well there's there's a few stories but I'll try one for now and you can have another one in 20 minutes all right thank you so the one that I I'm going to share is actually about friday because i we you know we set up on friday and we get to the hotel and uh we had a pre-party on the on the many pre-parties we had many pre-pre-parties it was the pre-pre-party and that but before we got to that point we we'd obviously got together with with kate and daryl and we were packing all of the goodie bags which are great that was really nice it's good fun Thank you.
But before we got to that point, we'd obviously got together with Kate and Daryl and we were packing all of the goodie bags, which are great. That was really nice. It's good fun. It's one of those moments where it's a kind of shitty job, but it's kind of fun. No, I love it. Yeah, it's fun to do. But after that, we went to one of the room crawl rooms that were already set up.
We went and it was a disco room, wasn't it, bris couple were hosting though they won't mind us mentioning that and i love that little moment where we were able to just all hang around together before we went into the pre-pre-party and yeah and it all kind of started properly and that was great because we we did a bit of karaoke and i say we it's mostly me we all had a drink or two there's some some laughs there was some really fun photos shared that really set me up for the rest of the weekend i was it was i was so chilled and happy i didn't want to leave that room to be fair you did not you were like one more song mrs h was like get the fuck out of you get in the shower and get ready for dinner that microphone away from his hands he was picking it up and he had his mouth open already to start singing the next song i was like it is 6 26 we have to get out of here now we have no time left and he was like oh he might as well have like kicked his way across the room like scuffing his feet as he went like god's sake but it did it really set the scene and i really love the fact that we had that moment of being able to just chill out together before we kind of headed out and before the party proper pre-pre-party kicked off properly well this segues really nicely into one of my personal reflections so it's not so much a story but it's more of an observation um people fed back to me kind of on the night uh on both nights actually so and I it was the first time I properly heard this kind of feedback and it resonated with me so I had quite a few people approach me over the course of the whole weekend and said it is so so lovely to see the hosts like all all of you as hosts um enjoying yourselves and i don't mean in a physical oh my god look they're getting their clothes off it was more of a you guys just seem like you're having a really good time like you're relaxed you're you're welcoming you're you've got a smile on the face you were having a great time on the friday and the pre party and again on the saturday when we got to mingle and and talk to people people just commented on how much more relaxed we seem this time around i don't know if there was a notable difference between this one and the last one but actually i i do take that on board because i think this time around i really really enjoyed myself and got to talk to so many more people not because i more time or effort, but because it just seemed to fall into place a little bit more for me.
Personal reflection I wanted to share because I feel if people noticed it, then it must be coming from within, surely, if you're having a great time.
Yeah, I think too, having the early Friday arrival and I think also having maybe the entire hotel to ourselves on Saturday probably lended itself to us feeling a little bit less stressed about what could happen if civilians were to walk in to see to you know do whatever I think that having that does take a little bit of load off you know because I find sometimes when I'm talking to people if it is in a place where there could be some civilians things like that, even though I'm trying very hard to engage with that person whilst I'm having a drink, I'm often scanning the room for potential risks.
And I didn't find myself doing that as much this time.
So I think that probably was a bit of a load off, maybe even subconsciously for all of us that we went, oh yeah, like we don't need to actually be thinking, oh, you know, code of conduct is is everybody doing the right thing and for that also you know is there going to be any issues with with the public you know are they going to come and say something do something you know or or you know non-consensual touches and that sort of stuff like we just didn't i think that's yeah again maybe subconsciously a bit of a load off right yeah definitely just takes the pressure off doesn't it and you can just that's one thing less for you to worry about constantly so do you guys want to hear some highlights yes please always yeah so we've done a survey after the event and i asked a question what was your favorite experience or moment of the event and i've i've highlighted a few that i wanted to share uh with you guys so you have not heard these before everybody listening they haven't heard them so let's let's talk about them so i said yes what's your favorite experience moment of the event this one says difficult my highlight was a personal one i had a wonderful moment showing off a gorgeous friend around the club we had fun dancing on the pole as in the strippers pole inside the club the other highlight was hosting a room we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into but it turned out to be the best thing ever we got to chat to so many people it was really an awesome way to socialize more than doing the actual crawling itself i think wow that's um yeah that's lovely i i that room crawl and i'm sure we'll have lots to say about that in a minute it deserves its own little segment it deserves its own podcast really yeah let's move on to other comments and then we can come back to the room crawl bit because I think there's probably a lot we want to say about the room crawl.
Yep. Okay, sounds good. This one says, this person said it was really good to have the opportunity to land on the Friday and start talking to people ahead of the event. It was great that it was a smaller, more manageable amount of people on the Friday. This person also says the room crawl was a great way to meet people.
But, yeah, they're kind of remark sometimes that you know if you are i guess a little bit shy or a bit introverted or you're a bit unsure you're new sometimes if there is any kind of pre-party it's not a bad bad idea to come in early right it makes a difference and it helps helps everyone sort of chill out a little bit and they seem to get to know each other and already you can see not so much groups forming but people people sort of actually sort of hanging around and introducing each other. I really love that about the pre pre party is one of my most favorite bits, actually.
The sort of everyone just because there's no there's nothing at stake. There's no club at the end of that immediate rainbow. Obviously, there's rooms upstairs, but it takes the pressure off and everyone sort of chills out a little bit as a result.
It kind of matches this next person they said loved the friday pre-meet as it was a good way to meet people before the takeover the gift bags were also a lovely touch there you go our hard work is not unnoticed and then the room crawl was a fab idea to warm up to the weekend so there you go that's another person kind of saying yeah they did come in a little bit early and it might have helped them relax a little bit i'll go back the first one though, about showing your friend off around the club and being in lingerie and dancing on the pole.
I think, again, that's a really nice thing because I think that we bring all of our sexual desires and interests and intrigue into this club.
And sometimes, you know, you might think that people don't really understand your interest or your kink or whatever, but, you know, having someone there saying like, I was showing off another another person which sometimes people might see as a negative thing as if there was like a level of ownership there but i actually think it's quite a positive thing i think it's lovely that the person was like yeah this is what we're going to do and obviously the other person got a kick out of it too i just think that's um really great to kind of know what is going to make you happy make you feel sexy and make the other person feel sexy as well ah this one, there was so much going on, I can't think of anything that stood out.
However, the team were great at showing us a round. So, of course, shout out to Secret Stag and Secret Vixen there. The other attendees were friendly and flirty and made us feel comfortable. That's great. I think that's really important. It says a lot about the group, I'd say. I would agree.
How important is it to have a, like, if you were going to, you know, going back to maybe some of the newer times when you just joined the lifestyle and going to an event or things of that nature, like, and obviously we've shared many a times when we've attended events and they've just been absolutely shite. But going back to that, like, how important do you truly, truly think it is to find a similar tribe when you are going to something like this? Like, is it the most important thing or are there other elements like security, like consent, like safety that trump the people at the event?
This is quite a controversial question. Some of the security staff, the organization or whatever, that's almost housekeeping. You kind of want it to be of a decent standard.
At least you hope hope it's going to be but i think that the finding the right people or the people that are close to you in terms of the way they act and the way they approach this whole thing it makes it makes an incredible difference i mean we've been to events where that tribe isn't our tribe and it you just come away yeah so i think there's a lot to be said for finding people that align to the same values that you hold and i like to think that so far with the events we've tried to curate groups of people that we feel might have each other's best interests at the core of what we're doing and so by that i mean it's difficult not to create cliques and have people come away feeling like there's little insular groups setting up.
And, you know, I'm sure somewhere in that in that feedback is people who may have commented and said, oh, it's just too cliquey when you go to events like this because everyone knows each other.
and it's not the case you know it might feel coming into a group as a newbie that everyone knows each other already and that already there's like you know relationships forming that they can't seem to sort of break into but it's not and I think it's more likely that people are sharing those those common values that they align to and they're just finding their way into these little groups and finding like-minded people so I think finding your tribe you know we've talked about this before and it's really important but it's also important to know that you don't you don't have to be ostracized from from that tribe you know you can absolutely find your way into it just by sharing some of the same values that that tribe already has but i think we give people a a large number of opportunities to integrate themselves within the bigger group from the chat and if that's not your thing then there's a pre-pre-party and if that wasn't your thing there was a room crawl and that wasn't your thing there was a pre-party and if you know and if you if you can't still can't still can't find your group then there's still the club itself and the social opportunities that exist within that.
But I think there's there's only so much you can do. You can you know, you can offer all these things. You have to take a leap of faith sometimes. Yeah. And you are a little bit responsible for doing that yourself. But I think what I've really enjoyed is, you know, especially in this comment is around how we've offered all these different things. And people have kind of gone. Actually, that was useful for me. That helped. But you are right, Mrs. H. So the next, I'm just going to flip forward to one of the other questions we asked in the surveys, what could have made the event better?
You just mentioned there that, you know, you're sure there's probably, you know, feedback to the contrary, you know, there's always going to be negative feedback and constructive feedback and, and all the rest of it. And I want to be balanced here.
You know, I don't want to just constantly blow wind up our own arses so we're going to do we're going to do that what could have made the event better and a couple of the comments were around you know just how to integrate with people right so yeah the perception is that it can be clicky or that everybody knows each other and that sort of stuff so i'm going to read a few of these again i want to be balanced uh this person said where with there being a lot of new guests us included maybe the pre-party um should have a type of meet and greet or speed dating so everyone mixed more it would have helped as um we knew some but we had I don't know.
guests us included maybe the pre-party um should have a type of meet and greet or speed dating so everyone mixed more it would have helped as um we knew some but we had difficulty mingling you know around a little bit more so we can't we stayed in contact with the group that we came with and we mixed with we would have liked to have mixed more and make more connections so that person's kind of acknowledging hey you know another person did also say that they would have liked to have gotten more involved too and they said you know we're aware that's on us you know so it says here for us it was purely just having the the charisma to speak to more people and and get more involved you know so again it's it's you can you can do as much as you can but at the end of the day that like you said there does need to be a leap of faith you kind of need of need to put yourself out there because if you don't, it is just a missed opportunity.
The amount of times that I've spent money and time going to events or resorts or what have you and walked away and going, well, that was a, you know, quote-unquote waste of time, waste of money. And, you know, I've got to own some of that shit myself too, you know, because I've not put myself out there. I've not gotten what I wanted out of the event. Granted, yes, as you said before, Mr. H, there can also be that housekeeping that's just crap. If it's down to, you know, mingling, there has to be an element of ownership on everybody's behalf.
Like the host, yes, has to, we have to create an environment that's going to be able, you know, people are going to be able to mingle, that people are friendly, like-minded, you know know that kind of needs to filter down from us but equally you know the attendees two things they need to be they're trying to mingle themselves but also we all need to remember regardless of your host or if your attendee to open our circle up you know and if you know because there can be those perceived clicks and so having the body language having those circles kind of opened a little bit more so people feel that they can uh they can approach but yeah there you go that was some of the kind of more constructive feedback yeah and i was going to say there's one more bit as well that struck me um and it's it's hard sometimes not to try and incorporate an element of forced fun into things to to to try and make sure those wallflowers get a chance to kind of pop their heads above the power of it and say hello but some people like me I'll be the first to say I cannot stand forced fun because no one does what to do and I don't like being told she can barely stand fun to be fair let alone forced fun so it's a real fine balance because you know you want to try and please as many people as you can and give them a platform to try and find their way and bring them out of their shell a bit but you don't want to force fun on the people who already know how to have their fun and then my god they don't want to be told how to do it so it's a real fine balance and i think this time we managed to get a really good balance of there is something here for everyone if you let yourself try all these little things you don't have to do all of them are not mandatory but some of them if you give them a go you might just find that it breaks that ice a little bit so i think yes having the room crawl which we'll come on to in a second and the pre-mingle parties all those things really helped i think to try and give someone something that would appeal to to whatever element of your personality you're you're kind of trying to bring out i do think that we did there is so many things that we do collectively to try and help people through some of this stuff and I don't think I've ever seen so much I'm not going to say it's not hand-holding but support for people and you know people to this event got their own personal podcast about attending the event not only with the details of how that podcast works but or how the event works but how to make the most of the event uh we we did a zoom call for people to dial in to to ask questions and get to know each other there's so many and you know even just the uh the the dress code or theming just so you don't have to think about it if you don't want to well there's not just that but there's there's because it is nice people do a lot of people put a lot of creativity in but what that's really doing is giving all of those people the opportunity to go oh i really like your outfit to somebody else i really like your shoes your jacket you look really sparkly oh can i touch the fabric there that looks amazing these are all means for you to integrate yourself into the group or to introduce yourself to other people it's it is by design that we do all of this stuff so you know i absolutely agree that you know it's it's very easy to kind of go oh man it all feels a bit clicky but at the same point you do like as you said okay you have to take advantage of this stuff yourself as well and put yourself forwards and And we try and to, I think we try to create as many opportunities as we could for people to, to be able to do that.
I'm not, you know, not defending what we've done, but I just think, you know, I've come away from an event and thought, you know, you're right. That was a bit of, bit of a waste. And, and the waste was that we didn't integrate ourselves and didn't make that effort. And part of that is on us. Yeah, that's true.
And I think if you, if you legitimately do, and and you walk away and you know that you've you've tried and you've tried to mingle and the crowd's not for you like you can walk away just going yeah that was actually not for us you know what i mean yeah um let's talk about some of the sensuality and the adventure and the freedom and the excitement and by that i mean the floor crawl before we get started on on the floor crawl and everything, I guess the elements of it and everything, if you were to say to somebody in very black and white, in a very black and white way, what the original reaction to us saying there's going to be a floor crawl in the chat and to the group going, how would, what would you say that reaction?
How did that go down? Like a lead fucking balloon? Can I feel this one?
one yeah i would love you to uh because it was a fucking lead balloon and and so we we had people coming along to the event and we're all in our chat group and we're like we're going to do a floor crawl it's the biggest selling point of this we think it's going to be amazing first question do i have to do it do i have to host a room i don't like socializing with people do I have to go that's a whole big thing that needs to be explored there but it was what is it how does it work why should I bother do I have to come early if I can't get there early do I have to do a room it was can I have a nap when am I going to get when am I going to eat honestly yeah when am I going to eat do I have to give away free stuff do I do I have to go to every room and we went over and I don't know.
honestly yeah when am i gonna eat do i have to give away free stuff do i and do i have to go to every room and we went over and above trying to explain we kate was posting videos of previous floor crawls we talked about it on the podcast that we did we we sent pictures and we pretty much bribed a good chunk of our friends to host rooms because we knew people would like it if they gave it a chance i owe so many people cocktails made by me i didn't i didn't bribe people with anything i was just like come come along to come on it's like a pub crawl in a hotel well no not not the actual people because i think once people understood what the room crawl was they i think they were quite happy to mill around and get free stuff and explore the rooms.
But getting people to host the rooms was then trying to get them to understand the benefits of doing that. And I think people got there in the end. But it was like, come on, folks, come on. And, you know, we started roping in some good friends and then one by one people joined in.
And then they got nervous about the fact that people would be coming into their room and did they have enough time to decorate it and what if their room was too similar to another all of this stuff went on see i've got a question for kate because kate is a is a seasoned veteran of floor crawling now because you know not only has she hosted her own in the past at past events but i'm sure she's also witnessed maybe some as well in the past i don't know anyway you've been to way more than we have in terms of floor i keep saying floor I don't know anyway you've been to way more than we have in terms of floor I keep saying floor floor crawls how do you think this this UK first ever floor crawl in the hotel went compared to some of the ones that you've seen in the past so this is just I will answer that question but i do have to say i was so flipping excited that we were going to have the opportunity to bring this to the uk i was so excited the three of us were talking about it we were getting excited like man people are going to have so much fun in the other and it did it it went down like a lead balloon in the group chat and it kind of crushed my soul a little bit i was like guys you're gonna have so much you know what I thought?
I thought, fucking British people, got to find a problem with everything. That's what I thought. This is true. Just got to complain, got to complain. British people, got to complain about bloody everything. I remember you and I having a conversation at Palm Springs about would this transfer over to the UK? And I said, I think we could get it to work.
But I said, they are going to moan like bitches no you know apologies to bitches that about it and it will take a large a large bit of effort to get them into the space where they they'll do it yeah and it was it was an immediate crash and burn when we mentioned it and we were like maybe so upset it's like just try it you love it so to answer your question mrs h to from that, how do I think it went? It went bloody brilliantly, as I knew it would.
The minute people started, and I mean, the feedback here that's sitting in front of me from the survey, every second, if not, yeah, every second piece of feedback is about the floor crawl, how amazing it was, how people made all these connections, what a great mingle opportunity.
Wow, this was wow this was so much fun i had no idea honestly i could sit here and just read all of these responses about if anything was a standout for our event it was the floor crawl and i knew that would be the case because people once they had i mean this was a brand new concept to people in in in the uk um so i get that you know there's maybe a little bit of hesitation when there's something new and you don't really know but i knew in my heart of heart that when i when when it was going to happen and that people were just going to have this amazing time and walk away having it be a standout for their experience and it was i think it worked really well i think that i saw from from the host perspective i saw as much effort as i would see at any of my u.s floor crawl um locations i saw people putting an effort with their decor with their themes you know everybody's having a different theme in their room uh with their personality their creativity letting that come through and letting a little bit of piece of them come through i saw people that might have been a little bit introverted coming out of their shell because this allowed them to have a, you know, a job, if you will, and feel like they're part of the event.
I saw the attendees walking around room to room, getting excited, going to the Santa room, getting a present and coming upstairs going, look, a present. And I'm like, yes, it's, it's see, see? Yeah. Bloody moaning Brits. Like I just, so yeah, I think the host did an absolutely fantastic job on par with what I see with other events in the US. I think that the attendees were as excited as what I see in other countries around the world. Like I wouldn't say that there was a significant cultural difference between the two.
The only thing that I might is that the the hotels in in england and the uk do tend to be a little bit the rooms themselves a little bit smaller yeah and so in terms of that was probably the largest hurdle and i guess negative was that you know in yes and now u.s ones the rooms are sizably um bigger you know and so i think that that would probably be the the biggest difference if i was going to say anything that i saw between the two but in terms of the effort involved the excitement involved people mingling partying everything else i think also that i did see and you know british people and australian people are known for just getting absolutely drunk right we're known for it yeah and i, I was a little bit worried that having the floor crawl and then, you know, a short interlude and then the club, I was a little bit worried people were just going to turn up absolutely slaughtered at a club.
Again, Brits and Aussies, really well known for this. And actually people, I think people did very well in that they didn't get too drunk at the event.
So again, cultural difference there was that I was pleasantly surprised that we didn't allow ourselves to just get absolutely blotto and then not even make it to the club agreed I think one of my biggest challenges or one of my big bits of feedback to myself actually for the floor call I was so upset I didn't get to see other people's rooms yeah that was my biggest takeaway but I was like oh I didn't get to see the other ones and I knew they would have been amazing and yes I saw one or two in preparation kind of thing getting ready but I didn't get to see it in flow do you know I mean I was I would have been really excited to walk around and see that it all come into fruition it would have been great so a learning point for me we possibly could have managed to somehow tag each other in and had a quick you know circuit ourselves of the rooms just to check them out because it sounds like i missed some amazing rooms i i did not stop serving drinks since from the moment the first person walked in that into our room do you guys want to talk about our room then because we've kind of spoken a little bit about the you know the lead balloon the excitement maybe you guys want to talk about our room then?
Because we've kind of spoken a little bit about the lead balloon, the excitement. Maybe if you guys want to talk about our room and then let's touch on some of the other little rooms with the trophies and all the things. And I think after we talk about the floor crawl, probably a really good time to break and then do the next bit on the part two. Part two. Sounds fantastic.
So our room, this was the the Kate Darrell and Mr and Mrs H room which was all around a sort of tiki Hawaii themed piece and I think we kind of went with this one because it seemed you know pineapples lifestyle seems quite fun but also that we had an inordinate amount of pineapple lights throughout our house so we thought we could grab these dress the room and then sort of other ideas started coming in like we could make an upside down pineapple drink be the drink of choice we could I can get some Hawaiian cookies to give away to people and then then I was like well we could project sort of Hawaiian surf in the background of the room when it wasn't advertising Samson fridges or whatever the hell it kept doing.
Thanks YouTube, very helpful. You could play some good music. You could have little pretty lights everywhere. It just all came together really didn't it?
And we had all these amazing little decorations that Kate had sorted out with the little sort of little umbrellas for your drinks and little skirting stuff and all these little tiki things and it honestly it felt really fun and we all wore pineapple themed clothing which we all apparently owned already yeah so i apparently have enough hawaiian shirts to fulfill an army so it was great and and people i think because we were down the end of the room down the end of the hall and people took you know a little while to get to us i think but once they come around the corner it was like this nice little oasis that we'd created for ourselves and we had apparently the coldest room on the floor i'm told yes now whether it's because we just figured out the air con in the room more factually i don't know but at one point we did open the window every single window was open in the room that was what it kind of took down your projector a little bit but you know people were like oh my goodness this room is cool compared to the others it's like a furnace when you have 160 odd people um visiting 10 different rooms across two floors of a hotel uh you know 30 people in a room it tends with a room that's meant for two to four people uh it tends to get pretty hot pretty quick and I think think that the funny point of that is everybody was like, man, the air conditioning is really struggling.
I'm like, okay, have you cracked a window? No. I'm like, well, I had every single window in that room open. Not only that, but obviously our door was chocked open and I opened the door to the stairwell behind and I chocked that open and then I went down into the stairwell and I opened the window in the stairwell creating a funnel wind situation through our room. Well, it worked because people commented on the ambient climate in our room compared to the other rooms.
Which is ironic because Hawaiian themed it actually probably could have done with a bit of the kind of, well, it's tropical o you know we're like no we're sweating balls so we're actually going to make it really cold i've got um a tip for the next one i'm saying the next one because my god we need to do another one it was great so a tip that i think i kind of heard multiple people comment throughout the evening and i wish we'd had this is um it would have been great to have like a notepad or some way of people being able to jot down each other's like names profiles or whatever so they could like take them away because the amount of people saying oh you won't remember who i am but on this i'm this profile and some people didn't have their phones with them so it would have been cool to be able to give people the opportunity to jot down each other's details if they wanted to kind of like catch up later and remember who they were i talked to a ton of people and fucked if i could remember i wish i could but i'm relying on people's better judgment to maybe reach out and say hey we talked but it'd been really useful it would have been handy to have a little takeaway option to hey jot this jot this down if you need to remember someone's name.
Or a business card or whatever it was, yeah. I don't know. Or just something like that. Yeah, I mean, in my head I'm like, let's just all get white shirts and walk around with marker pens and then you can just write on each other. Oh, someone did have a pen that they could write on mirrors. Yes, yes.
And they were walking around like leaving people lovely notes cute little messages on the mirrors that was really nice you are beautiful ps for a good time call me 6969 this is why i keep getting so many calls oh yeah we put your number thanks i'm gonna take us back to a few months ago right because i remember so we'd we talked about the room call and we'd we'd kind of said okay we're going to do this and one of the things that we we do quite regularly regularly throughout the week is that we play fortnight with um secret stag and secret victim and i thought given that they're our friends it would be quite easy to rope them into a situation where they hosted a room we may have taken advantage to that situation but i remember having this chat with them as we were on the battleground and whatnot and sort of saying well guys it'd be really good we'd really appreciate it if you host a room it would really help us out it'd get things moving and and then they were like well what could we do and we had this great conversation of just them sort of batting ideas and all of a sudden that the idea of christmas came up and they are both christmasaholics christmasaholics and they they love it and it got to the point where they they were oh we could have a we could put a fireplace on on the tv and then we could bring our christmas tree and then and then he's like i've got a santa costume i can i can bring that of course he does of course he does yeah of course he does he could dress secret fix enough as an elf as an elf and then then it became a bit perverted it was a bit like then she could be a elf an elf in leather and she's like no no just a regular elf is fine but that that creative process once they got the idea and and had that that sort of sniff of oh this could be something really cool that they can do and really plays to both of their their personalities.
I'm amazed, to be fair, he didn't wear the Santa suit round around penthouse. He was hot as balls. No, he would have expired. He would have done the tour in that, which I'd have endorsed.
I think at one point I lifted his beard up and like force fed him some pizza because he was like trying to pass out i was like you need to eat but it was that moment of oh they get it and i thought if they can get it then other people will get it and then it wasn't that much longer afterwards we we asked people to to start sort of sending us their ideas and what they wanted to do for the room crawls and one by one sort of some friends decided to join in and some other people that we hadn't met before and before we knew it we had i think did we end up with 10 10 rooms i think 10 10 rooms so we had our hawaiian one we had the christmas one we had like a disco cocktail karaoke thing with balloons and we had a mario kart tournament oh yeah well they printed their own trophies and 3D printed trophies, yeah.
They were great. We have got the big ones. Oh, yeah. There was a duck room. There was a hooker duck room where they had a whole... We had a dungeon. We had a dungeon. We had like a Christmas dungeon. Gardens for Galaxy, bi room. Bi celebration room Room. Bi Celebration Room. Social Media Room. We had the Rosie K Room as well. I think, I honestly think that there was a moment when, I mean, Mr. H was just pouring cocktails like they were going out of fashion in our room. And I will laugh about the fact that everything was starting to run out. Like the alcohol was running out.
The food was running out. It was bloody hilarious. People were coming into our room.
They're like, do you have any cocktails left and i'm like do we have and then you're like no um i thought 10 minutes to the end yeah it was when we ran out and i thought it was funny because you did not move from that cocktail making station really um and obviously mrs h was in there doing her thing and chatting to everybody and i was standing at a moment just out at the front of the door and this was when people came up the stairwell near me with their gift from Santa, so that's from Secret Stag and Secret Vixen's Room, like I'm so excited, what is it I want?
I'm like, you know what you could do? Open the fucking packet, wild idea. And then somebody else came with their trophy from the Super Mario room and their 3D printed boob trophy and they're like, look, I got a trophy. And, again, this is what I – the idea of sometimes this – what could be seen as slightly silly fun and being a little bit childish and removing those masks that we wear, I think actually it makes – it heightens the excitement of the event and it makes people come out of their shell. Agreed.
It so much not be so maybe worried about body confidence issues and all that really serious stuff because we're actually just having a really fun casual just you know time as opposed to being a little bit more serious and like you said about the friday party as well mr h is having this goal in mind of like well we're at the club there's going to be playrooms and there's this and that i think that with the floor crawl what i saw was people just legitimately walking around getting very excited having a really good time and allowing themselves to yeah maybe be be a little bit silly and fun i think if you set the tone and much of what we we do is about setting the tone for this stuff if the tone is fun then actually like you say that does carry on over to the club and on the bus i was on the third bus this time around and the the atmosphere was really people were really chilled out they were excited they were happy um and no one was really kind of no one had the look of someone that was going to be lord of fuck do you know what i Yeah.
People seem to be genuinely enjoying the moment rather than, like, game faces now. Now I am fuck. There was none of that sort of nonsense. Well, before we get into the Lord of Fucktown, do you guys want to finish this episode off here? And then on the next episode, we can talk about the Mayor of the Lord, the, I don't know, President. Lord and Lady of Fucktown. Lord and Lady of Fucktown. So, yeah, so this has been part one of the Winter Wonderland kind of Wanderhoppers review and discussion on the event.
But we will put the second part of this out on the Bedhoppers podcast so you guys can go and tune into that one to listen to us again. We're going to pretend to go away, but in actuality what we're going to do is do nothing and we're just going to start talking in very, very soon. Mr. and Mrs. H, thank you for joining us on the Wanderhoppers episode one. Thanks for having us.
