Vidanta Grand Luxxe Nuevo Vallarta

We have been fortunate enough to be able to spend 2 weeks at the Vidanta Grand Luxxe, Nuevo Vallarta in Tower 2.  We have always enjoyed the Vidanta stays with their attention to detail and their highly trained and friendly staff, their beautiful grounds, and walkways, and gorgeous furniture with a thousand sitting areas around the resort.  This is a gargantuan-sized, highly impressive-looking resort.  It is so spread out that you can walk for days and still find a new and different walkway to explore.  The beach is extremely wide and the waves are small.  Due to this fact, all of the loungers are set well back from the water, which is a bit of a downer because I prefer the sound of waves lapping up on the shore to any music playing.

Vidanta is an overly large property with acres and acres. It has a lovely wide and very long Pacific Beach and is bordered by mountains on both sides because it is located on Banderas Bay. Vidanta is parked right beside a river and it is a very picturesque spot, it's beautiful to sit down by the beach under a palapa shade. You can't really sit close to the water because it is an extremely wide Beach so any of the seating is well back from the water so you do miss out on the sound of the waves a lot of the time.

The Pacific sand on the Bandaras Bay beach has a good percentage of black sand which is extremely hot on the feet so you must wear your flip-flops down to the water's edge unless you want to burn your feet.  There is no small choice of pools for you at Vidanta if you are a Grand Luxxe guest.  There is one pool and sitting area that you are not allowed in as it belongs to the Estates' guests.

The Grand Luxxe Punta pool is desperately in need of more towels you can never ever find a towel or a spot to lay down unless you arrive early in the morning, which is not my style.

At Vidanta, since we've been coming over the years we've noticed that as Grand Luxxe guests we were treated in the highest regard and the units were flawless.  Now that the Estates have been built there's a new higher pecking order and I've noticed that the upkeep and the training of the staff at the Grand Luxxe is definitely slipping.  It seems that all of the focus is now on Estates people.   The furniture on our Grand Luxxe balcony is still in very good shape as it's made out of teak wood but the cushions look like they have been through not just World War I but WW II plus WW III and are desperately in need of being replaced because they look like they belong to a 1-star hotel.  There are rips and stains and the bulk of the cushions are all gone. On our balcony, there are wood slats missing around the pool with broken pieces of wood that are just sitting near the pool.   There is a bunch of bolts lying on the stand above the pool and I'm not sure what those are there for.   The flooring is in desperate need of a scrub.  It looks like it hasn't been washed in about 2 years, it is filthy and on our other balconies there were nuts and bolts and a plastic screen laying down, and not once were these things picked up or put away in the whole week that we had this space.  This just would not have happened in the past.  Upkeep used to be impeccable, which is one of the reasons we enjoyed staying at the Grand Luxxe.

There is no shortage of restaurants for you to choose from but in my opinion, they are all overpriced for the quality of food you receive.

My husband and I ate at Taco break which had reasonable prices. I had a decent meal, a chicken burrito.  There were about six different salsas of varying degrees of heat to eat with the chips and we asked for another basket of chips and it was graciously given to us. My margarita was excellent I got the vacation size. My husband was a little worse off, he has garlic allergies and the only thing that he could eat was a vegetarian fajita dish. My hubby is a carnivore and missed his meat.

We then ate at La Cantina and you cannot make a reservation there so we came at around 7:30 pm and we had to wait about half an hour but there were some coaches to sit on. We had a similar problem with my husband's garlic allergies at this restaurant.  The only thing that he was able to eat was the catch of the day. He thought that the fish was excellent and vegetables were served with this but the other half of the plate was empty because there was nothing they could provide to him no noodles no rice no potatoes because they obviously must have been cooked in garlic too.   His meal was not discounted at all and he literally had half a plate of food.  I ordered the Baja-style fish tacos and they were decent but I gave them about a five out of 10. I was asked if I wanted a Margarita I said yes and I thought he said vacation size but he actually said fiesta and I ended up paying about $40 Canadian for my large margarita because it was made with Patron and I don't think there was much Patron in it because I didn't even feel a thing unlike the one at Taco break, but overall I would give that restaurant probably a 5 out of 10.

We ate at Custom Burger at the Grand Luxxe and there were five of us the bill was over 200 American and the meal was not that great.  I ordered a chicken burger and it was decent about a 6 out of 10.  4 of us ordered the truffle oil fries and when they came they were bland and tasteless we sent them back and 2 minutes later they were put back on our table as someone sprayed some oil on the top fries only.  We paid a lot of money for these fries and I have had better at Mcdonald's.  We were very disappointed because we have had the fries at the Custom Burger at the other Vidanta Grand Luxxe in Riviera Maya and we know how good they are.  I had a margarita and it was supposed to be a raspberry/ blackberry-infused and muddled Margarita but they forgot the blackberries. We were given some free macarons with chocolate in the middle and they were delicious and that was probably the best thing about the whole meal but overall we were very disappointed with this tasteless and overpriced meal for the value that we received and I would give that restaurant a four out of 10.

There is a multitude of things to do at Vidanta.  You can always check out what is happening on your Vidanta App for what is happening for entertainment.  If you go to the Santorio at night, you must order drinks to maintain your seating.  

If you do sit down by the beach in an unblocked-off area then you have multiple peddlers coming by trying to sell their wares and trying to make their living.  If you just go with the flow it's fine you just keep saying no thank you but it can be slightly annoying if you let it be.

Much to the happiness of our son, they do have three Beach volleyball courts which my son and his friends played on almost every day at organized times and they had a lot of fun.

The Lazy River here at Vidanta is wonderful and it takes about 15 to 20 minutes to go around.  You grab a tube and you ride around and it's lovely, unlike the Vidanta on the Riviera Maya side where you have to pay to go into their Park which is roughly about $87 Canadian per day.   As mentioned there are many pools at Vidanta and we used to have access to all pools and all seating areas as guests of the Grand Luxxe.  Now the Estates is top of the food chain and in life and at Vidanta if you pay more money you get more privileges.  Estates also have their own big bridge that leads to their Estates pool and seating areas and they also have access where only Estates people are allowed over there.

The rooms in tower 2 at the Grand Luxxe, Nuevo Vallarta are starting to show their age and our mattress, for example, was extremely soft and caved in when you sat on it so that definitely needs to be replaced. Many of the appliances are starting to show their wear and tear.  The kitchen is not stocked as well as it used to be with kitchen gadgets.  We had to ask for a basic egg flipper and another large pan just so that we could prepare our meals.  I've noticed the management is definitely slipping here in housekeeping.  I had to ask for a face cloth on two different days etc.  These are 1st world problems, I realize this but this is not normal for the Grand luxxe.

The wifi at Vidanta is atrocious in the mornings especially.  This was very frustrating.  With the two bedroom/3 bathroom unit you would expect at least 8 devices allowed because the accommodation number should reflect the device number.  This was not the case.  We were allowed 3 devices or we had to pay more.  This did not sit well with us so my husband went and talked to someone and we were allowed 6.

At Vidanta you will be gently harassed to do a timeshare spiel.  If you say no then another person usually comes in and it's a little bit more of an aggressive approach.   You have to say no several times and then they'll call you several times and you still have to say no.  They don't offer you much for doing a timeshare spiel here. He offered us a better view if it was available?  Our view was a second-floor jungle view which was great.  It beat out looking at the snow in my backyard.  But many people would feel pressured into it if they're novice travellers. 

If you choose to walk everywhere at Vidanta then you will lose some weight which I liked.  If you don't like to walk there are electric shuttles to take you anywhere you would like to go.

If you would like to check out this impressive resort the link below will take you there.

Vidanta- Grand Luxxe- Nuevo Vallarta