W Hotel dives into nighttime pool-party scene

At the W Scottsdale Hotel and Residences (Credit: Emily Piraino/Special for Metromix)

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By Megan Finnerty
Metromix

The W Scottsdale Hotel and Residences has a reputation for a poolside bar scene that often looks like a casting call for the MTV "reality" show "The Hills." (Get it?)

On Thursday through Saturday nights, models and those who look like them are  admitted past the velvet rope in the Living Room lobby bar to make their way up the extra-wide, glass-lined staircase to the Shade and Sunset Beach bars.

(You can get upstairs, too, with connections, confidence or a particularly compelling sense of personal style.)

The 21-and-older crowd is typically dressed as though they expect photographers from various Valley magazines to snap them: Hervé Léger-style minidresses paired with teetering heels on women, button-down dress shirts and glittering watches on men.

It's a crowd that acts as cool as it looks, which is to say, the dancing is at a minimum, but the small talk is huge.

Which is why I'm pretty much dying to see what happens this Thursday when the hotel launches its summer nighttime pool party promotion, Acqua.

Thursdays throughout the summer, general manager Leon Young has partnered with Steve LeVine Entertainment to host laid-back evening swim parties with live DJs, reduced drink prices and a relaxed dress code designed to get guests to strip down to their swimwear and jump in the pool.

“It's still so very warm here in the evening, and we have a dress code here, and people abide by it,” Young said. “But we thought, what if we relaxed it a little on Thursdays? You could come in your flip-flops, in your linen pants, put your feet in the pool.”

Scottsdale nighttime swimmers have the chance to become national trendsetters because this is the first W to host special evening pool parties, although, technically, the pools are open to guests at all times.

“I could see this type of thing taking off at other leisure properties, the Ws in Dallas, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale,” Young said.

Young said this is part of his mission to make the W the first place on every local's list for a stay-cation. To that effect, the resort will also begin showing Wednesday night movies by the pool June 17, starting with “Transformers,” and will be hosting acoustic live concerts called Sunset Sessions on Sundays throughout summer.

The W joins the Wyndham Hotel in downtown Phoenix as the only clubs hosting nighttime pool parties. The Wyndham hosts Saturday and Sunday evening parties called Star Swim and Adult Swim, respectively.

In Scottsdale, guests can chill out in the 13 white-curtained cabanas, relax on the white chaise longues on the poolside mini beach and even listen to the music underwater.

But the real highlight of the parties will no doubt be the crowd itself. It will be fascinating to watch such a typically image-conscious crowd reconcile itself with the laissez-faire attitude that usually accompanies the donning of a bikini or pair of board shorts.

"Night pool parties have never really been done here and we're just trying to switch it up for the summer, offer something new," said promoter Steve LeVine.

Guests interested in swimming, but not interested in traipsing through the lobby in their swimwear can come in via the Buckboard Trail entrance. Everyone else can still try to get past the velvet ropes at the Camelback Road entrance.