Mayan Palace at Vidanta Nuevo Vallarta — Hotel in Nayarit

My wife and youngest son went to the Grand Mayan pool at 4:40 pm on a Friday. They sat down at an empty patio chair and a lady came out of the pool and shoulder checked my son to the ground accusing him of stealing her “reserved” chair. 7 months ago he had an almost complete spinal fusion due to severe scoliosis. She was yelling that was her chair even though there was absolutely nothing on it or under it. It’s not ok to assault another guest, but especially considering what he has just come through. By the time I got there, 7 security members and the chief concierge Claudia could only try to whisk us away so that we wouldn’t cause a scene in front of other guests (who saw what went down). When I asked her if anyone asked him if he was ok, Claudia told us that she didn’t know our son was hurt because we didn’t tell her. The first question on ANY scene where there’s an assault is, “does anyone need medical assistance?” But she reversed it to blame us that we didn’t tell anyone that my son was hurt. We asked for the police to be involved and were told that police do not come on to the property. Does that make you feel safe knowing that security isn’t there for you because this is private property? Went to medical and they cannot assist in any way. They don’t even have Tylenol for pain. I’d say that for a resort this size the medical dept is useless. But they were happy to send us to La Plaza to spend more money on simple medicine. What did the resort do about the assault, nothing. We reached out to our medical provider at home for their recommendations and had an immediate appointment for the day after we returned. Get back to our room and there’s a smoke alarm going off in a room somewhere on our floor. We let a staff member know. He laughs, “we’re probably all safe” and walks away.

On checkout I filled out and honest review on the iPad that they hand you. A Vidanta rep, Elizabeth Barrera, has since said, “the hotel is not responsible for the actions of other guests.” From what we saw, other than you’d be an a-hole to do it, my guess is that you’re welcome to push, shove, steal, assault as much as you’d like and the only ramification is that if the victim makes a scene, the victim will asked to leave. I absolutely have no trust in the security or medical team. We demanded the police be involved and were told that the police do not have authority on Vidanta property. We demanded that the other party be charged with assault. Nope. On-site security will only stand with their hands politely folded in front of them and won’t say a word or get involved.

We’ve travelled all over the Caribbean. I don’t understand why people come here. I agree that the property is lovely, but it’s not worth the money. Food and drinks are far more expensive than need be. The people that we’ve dealt with have been sub-standard at best. There’s no true service here — the only thing that has been made clear is that there’s a “class” system and we’re the bottom of it. If you purchased the biggest and best, why? Why not go anywhere else? Honestly, I can’t say we’ll ever go back to another Vidanta property. All it is is high pressure sales to separate you from your money. ANY other resort would be better.

These resorts are nothing but a scam. They promise you comfort and security, but at the end of the day they just want your money and won’t stand behind anything they say. Trust in Vidanta? ZERO.

Would also like to point out that after a week of this post being live, nobody from Vidanta has reached out or commented on this post. I've also emailed the customer service email address that they publish and there has been no response. They...

We traveled in February of 2024 and it has taken me months to process and reflect on our experience and finally sit down to write this review. I would not recommend this place to anyone. I wish we would have stayed home. ||To start our trip, checkin took over 5 hours. It started with them trying to sell their timeshare. And I cannot fathom why in the hell they would try and sell you something when they don’t even have a room for you that night. And WE WERE NOT THE ONLY CUSTOMERS THAT JUST DIDN'T HAVE THEIR ROOM. There were multiple guests checking in at the same time and throughout the week that were promised one thing and got something else. We had 7 guests and booked a 2 bedroom lock out. Our room was unavailable and our only option for the first night was to split our party up between two hotels. This was wildly inconvenient for our young family as you can imagine. They also told us we would be compensated the next day and we followed up with this conversation with many employees only to find out we would have to sit through a time share presentation. After the hours we had already wasted and the poor customer service we experienced we were unwilling to do this. ||When we finally did get to our room on our second day the number of beds was inconsistent with the number of beds we booked for. We booked a room with one king and two fulls and got two kings. With little children, parents and grandparents we really needed the appropriate number of beds to get adequate sleep. When we brought this issue up to them the only way they could fix it was for us to check out of our room for the entire day the following day (our 3rd day). With little kids not having a room to nap and snack is just not ideal. ||They brought a pack and play for our 7 month old which we asked for but had no mattress. It was not usable or safe for an infant. ||In addition to that our room was leaking from the ceiling. I will add pictures. We had a maintenance man in our room many of the days we stayed there. We couldn’t use this hallway and we were not sure what was leaking (water or something else). Again, no compensation when we asked. We were only asking for tickets to the kiddie water pool at grand Mayan. We were not asking for the world. Just something to make our inconvenience validated. ||My husband also wrote a review. Under his review The Mayan responded stating they were committed to resolving our issues and that we needed to send an email. Nobody has ever responded to that email. So it seems as if they come on here and write a response to make it appear they care and want to fix it but then don’t do anything more. ||I honestly feel so bad for the workers. I lost track of how many unhappy customers we saw throughout the week. ||Do...

CONS: They Nickel & Dime you every chance they get. When you check in, they ask for a credit card and charge $500 US Dollars for incidentals. When you go to checkout and close out your account, you will notice a daily room tax they add in. That tax is supposed to be included in the price you pay for the room. Also, if you do not tell them you do not want to give a donation to the hotel, they will charge you $15 US Dollars! Plus, if you do not tell them you didn't drink the coffee or water in your room, they will charge you for that as well.

Location: The Mayan Palace is the farthest away from any of the beaches & pools. So be ready to do a lot of walking. Not only do you have to walk to the beaches, the shuttles that take to the taxi do not go to the Mayan Palace. They make you walk from the Grand Bliss or Grand Mayan! Even though there is a road and drive way in front of the Mayan Palace, they will not bring you directly to your hotel!

Exploring: One major downer of this place is you need to take a taxi if you want to go anywhere that is not on the property. So it's kind of a hassle to have to walk to the Grand bliss to get a shuttle to take you to get a cab that will take you shopping or sight seeing.

Kitchen: There is no stove in the kitchen. There is a microwave, top burners and a small refrigerator.

Water: My wife and I though the water from the faucet tasted awful.

Toilet: The toilet wouldn't flush the contents down the first night. It was like it was stopped up but it wasn't because the water would go down but the contents wouldn't. it eventually corrected itself and I didn't have to call maintenance.

Other things; Basically, they make you feel like you should have bought into the more expensive hotels like the Grand Bliss & Grand Mayan. Even though the facility is beautiful, it's not finished and parts of the resort feel like it needs polishing to be a world class resort.

Pros: The entire facility is beautiful. There are lots of family activities. The beaches are beautiful and well maintained. The restaurants serve good food. The hotel staff are friendly and overall it is nice to stay here but the little things I mention in the Cons section do wear on you. I would recommend people try this place out if resorts and beautiful weather are your sort of thing but for me, I would rather rent a home and car so I can go where I want, when I want. If you stay at the Mayan Palace, be prepared to do...