 | It had been a while, so we decided once again to visit Rios, the sauna club effectively just down the road from us. For those not in the know, Rio’s has always been a bit of oddity, it advertises itself as both a health spa on the one hand and also on the swinging scene, so for starters you can never really be sure why people are there and a great many go there just to use the facilities. (Which is fair enough) However, owned by the same chain who own many of the gay saunas in London, it knows clearly what it’s main market it is – Single men looking for an easy lay. It can’t pretend any different, otherwise what on earth are the 5 playrooms downstairs and the 6 upstairs for? Saturday is for couples only, but be aware it’s from 7 until 12 midnight, and at 12.01 it’s like the start of the Grand National as around 50 single guys pile through the doors in a record sixty seconds flat.
Upstairs is now only open on the weekends, and the big playroom at the very top has closed forever. The rest of the venue, all on one level, has three Jacuzzis, two saunas, two steam rooms, showers, a smoking garden, relaxation lounge and free soft drinks. There are also two pools, for cooling off. All the play rooms are off the ‘foam mattress, imagine the rest’ variety. Not untypical of many European sauna style clubs of this type.
Having been here several times over 5 years, our experiences have ranged from the mildly amusing (Women trying to recruit the other half as a prostitute while I was in the toilet) to the down right scary. (Having my partner being man-handled in the changing area)
However for the most part, this visit, which was between 11pm and 1.30 am on a Wednesday evening (mixed) was for the most part free of drama. There were around 6 single women in, three or four couples and 25 or so single men. There was a time when you could not go to this club without being followed pillar to post by packs of guys, it seemed for a while that this would be different, however while enjoying the larger Jacuzzi on our own, 5 guys suddenly appeared, surrounded us on all sides and started very unsubtly all moving towards us. ‘Here we go…’ We think they thought we were novices and were going to have a wank fest at our expense, no doubt hoping for more. Obviously they had all spoken beforehand, as they didn’t even casually drift in. For a first time visitor this would have been very unnerving. We wouldn’t have minded so much if they could have at least uttered one or two words of dialogue between them (Not so much as a hello) so we just left, which resulted in a whole load of rather immature whistling and cat calling. Unfortunately this typical behaviour is why many people, including most that we know, don’t go here. However if your experienced swingers, or enjoy the company of single men with limited conversational ability, then no doubt the club could be right up your street. Some of the single females weren’t too friendly either. A simple hello from Mrs Party was met by a rude blank stare, but perhaps that’s just London for you in general.
That all said, the couples we spoke to were friendly, as were the staff all of whom were extremely helpful and we also spoke to a couple of single guys (There for the first time) who were also chatty and polite, so we don’t want to tar everyone with the same brush. Saturdays have been a much more jovial and friendly experience, we just wanted to go there to chill really, after a long days work of compiling a list of 300 German clubs, it really was well needed and Jacuzzi incident aside, we had a pleasant time there relaxing. Some people do look like they live there though, you can go to the club, spot a guy, come back two years later and the same guy will be there.
If you’re looking for action with single men and can’t accommodate at home, then this will suit you, and the couples night can be fun. The club is a lot cleaner than it used to be and the smiles on the staff’s faces a welcome change from the grumpy ‘Annie Wilkes’ types of previous visits. Still, it’s a weird club and not one we would recommend to anyone for a first time visit, more a port of call for later when you’re more sure of what you want from an evening and also have the confidence to handle any potential difficult situations.
Date: 2 August 2012
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