BÃ©atrice de GÃ©a for The New York Times  At the Gansevoort resort in Turks and Caicos. More Photos »  GRATEFUL for rain on a Caribbean vacation? You bet I was. And you might have been, too, had you just escaped from a mob of bronzed bodies dancing under the stars in whipped-up, blissed-out unison to a 1980s disco hit.  “Gimme, gimme your heart ...” they sang to “Hands Up,” madly waving their arms. Then, suddenly, the purple sky opened and a hard rain sent them scurrying to a covered bar.  Hours after checking into the Club Med in Turks and Caicos, I had yet to acclimate. As I would quickly learn, this particular Xanadu was an all-or-nothing proposition. Take, for instance, the two clocks at the reception desk: one has the correct time; the other, with a plaque beneath it that reads “Club Med Times,” is an hour late. The latter, a receptionist explained, is the official time at the resort, so that guests can enjoy an extra hour of sunlight each day. Never mind that this is not the correct time anywhere else on the Turks and Caicos archipelago.  Inside the gates of this 84-acre compound, fantasy reigns.  As a veteran solo traveler, I’d come to Club Med Turkoise to see how one of the last outposts of the singles resort scene was faring. In its heyday, “Club Med” might as well have been spelled “meat market.” A 1970 article in The New York Times described a Club Med in Martinique as rife with semi-nude swingers and a sensual atmosphere “that middle age should not be forced to endure.”  Flash forward to 2012. The image on the cover of this year’s Club Med brochure? A mother gazing into the eyes of a baby. More than half of Club Med’s 80 resorts have clubs for children, and dozens have a “baby welcome program,” where the draw is not a stiff drink upon arrival, but a bottle warmer.  For solo travelers, this G-rated makeover underscores a broader problem: the travel industry is just not that into you. Singles typically have to pay supplement fees on cruise ships and endure hotels where the Jacuzzi is little more than a kiddie pool. Sure, there are singles tours, fitness boot camps and other adventures that facilitate mingling. But if you’re like me — not looking for romance, but simply yearning for a lazy Caribbean escape — the options are few. At most places you’ll feel as if you’re on someone else’s family vacation or, worse, honeymoon.  The Turks and Caicos property is one of only five Club Méditerranée resorts whose clientele is limited to adults 18 and older. To see just how singles-friendly the resort still is (friends and I passed through it at one point or another after college), I booked a room for a couple of days. I then spent a night at the newer, luxe Gansevoort Turks and Caicos. Part of the hotel chain often synonymous with celebrity and night life, it seemed like a place that should suit a solo traveler.  I arrived at the village, as Club Med resorts are called, on a November afternoon in a van carrying one other guest, a blond, affable man from Manhattan. As we rolled up to the curb, a few employees swayed side-to-side in a slow-motion welcome dance. A plastic bracelet was snapped on my wrist, guaranteeing me all-inclusive drinks, food, fun. In a few hours, there would be an orientation for new guests, where advice like “do not wear suntan lotion or drink alcohol before using the trapeze” would be imparted.  In the meantime, a tanned Frenchman escorted me to one of the village’s colorful bungalows. Opened in 1984, this Club Med was one of the first resorts on the island of Providenciales, and many of the rooms, while clean, recall the village’s spartan days. My “deluxe” room was large, though the mattress and linens were thin; the toilet felt as if it were in a broom closet. (I paid $885 for two nights, though, in general, spending a week is less expensive per night.)  I slipped into a tank top and cutoffs. I need not have bothered. The dress code is bikini. The must-have accessory is plastic beer cup.  STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM is a reporter for the Styles Section of The Times.
Going to the Caribbean solo to compare the swinging singles style of Club Med with the more refined Gansevoort.