Grand Luxxe Residence Club

My friend and I purchased a living social deal for this hotel without realizing it was a timeshare but whatever, first time for everything. We booked our dates and started getting excited. When we called to book our transportation the week before (per their request) they couldn’t find our reservation. I had to make 4 frantic calls before things got resolved. Not a great start to a «relaxing» vacation.
Then they took almost half the day talking our ear off about various things and finally checking us in. We were assigned a hostess, Lauren who told us she’d be around for anything we might need during our stay. Except that it turned out that when we needed her she was nowhere to be found. She only worked 2 out of the 5 days we were there.
After sitting through a FOUR hour presentation when we were told it would be maximum ONE hour we were promised 2 massages for our time. When we tried to book our massages no one could find them in their system. We spent a few hours trying to get that issue cleared up and finally gave up because we’d already wasted so many hours in the Vidanta bureaucratic mess during our short vacation.
Lastly, I’d just say that as two girls in our mid 30’s the age demographics here weren’t necessarily optimal. The majority of people that come here are much wiser.

I am writing from the perspective of a guest. I am not paying for my time here. My only major complaint is the loud, late night music. Trying to sleep while there is essentially a loud rock concert going on late into the night is impossible. It would start and stop at times, so false hopes kicked in. Sleep comes late. I think most places would have a quiet time for after nine pm, or possible 11:00 pm or else have better management of the noise. but this goes on very late and very loud. Otherwise there are many pros and a few cons.
UPDATE
Being several nights in and sleep deprived I docked another star. Some people like to sleep at night and enjoy the morning. I am a morning person. The disruptive thumping music went on VERY late last night and so I was very tired today with having an early morning commitment. :-(Ear plugs from the gift shop did not help. One SHOULD be able to rest well on one’s vacation — it is basic.
Aside from the big problem of the loud late night concerts here are some pros and cons of the Grande Luxxe Residence Club.
PRO
So far the service here rates and overall ⁴⁄₅. The maid service, concierge and staff have been kind, helpful and do their jobs exceptionally well! (⁵⁄₅) I feel warmly welcomed here and they do their best to ensure comfort and ease. The check-​in was too slow and there was confusion about who we were and where we were suppose to go despite that it should have been much simpler. There was a long wait for our baggage to arrive to the room after check in. A smooth check-​in for weary travellers is a good thing. They should work on that.
CON
To get out of the resort and into town requires multiple shuttle rides and walks within the resort and then… a cab ride into town that is approx. 20 dollars both ways. It is a fuss. We did it one day out of the week and that was enough.
PRO
The air quality outside of the resort is in many places very congested, polluted and smelly. I was relieved to return to the better quality air in the resort.
CON
Shopping can be expensive so one would not want to do all the shopping at the resort if one is staying awhile. Souvenirs at the resort are mostly expensive, aside from some souvenir t-​shirts and such. The shops are fun to browse though.
PRO
The resort has most everything one could need or want, easily accessible for good quality groceries. There are 48 well rated restaurants to choose from, pricing from average to expensive.
CON
Wifi here is very slow or sometimes unavailable. Everyone should have access to premium wifi and not have to pay extra for it at an expensive resort.
PRO
This resort is beautifully landscaped and maintained — impressive! At night it is beautifully lit.

Great food views and employees. Mgmt could use some work tho.

Nice hotel, be careful about ever buying into any time share !!! What you buy is not why you get.
Check in time is 5pm. Check out is 10am. If you think you are buying a full week, you are wrong!
Shuttle service is not aways good and you need shuttle service as these hotels are too far to walk to the beach.
Rooms are nice. kids club cost 15 $ a kid, but includes lunch.
Restaurants are over priced and you are trapped in the resort. It takes 2 shuttles and a 15 $ taxi ride to get out the front gate. Sometimes this is a full hour to exit !! And a full hr to return.
Renting a car in MX is horrible as they rail road you with $ 30+ a day in Insurance .
It’s one of the better time share for kids.
One last and most important critique! The hotel is very weak on enforcing the towels policy whereby rude guests secure all the lounge chairs with a book or towel and disappear. I went to one pool at 9:30 am and all 50 chairs were secured with towels and no people. I grabbed 3 staff members for help and they were all useless…
vIdante! (Owners of this hotel) if you are listening, Please put a pool boy for each 20 chairs and make them available and service your guests. If you do this, the guests will order more drinks and food which will pay 10x back in the cost for these pool boys. Check out the 4 seasons. They’ve figured it out. You can too!!!
Update: on check out, the bell hop took 5 pieces of luggage. When entering our cab, they had lost 1 piece. There is nothing that can be done. I called and tt a dozen incompetent workers. Be careful !! You have no choice but to use the bell hops… They are not reliable. Good thing the luggage they lost was my kids and I am not out too much. It’s a nice resort, however run by a bunch of incompetent people. Glad I don’t own a time share here ! Sorry to those that spent a fortune investing in this brand !

Just got back from this paradise. Spent a week with our daughter and her family at Tower III. It was amazing. We were pampered in every way. The 2 bedroom suite was beyond our expectations and lush. The only complaint would be there is no oven or dishwasher so hard to do any serious cooking in your room. Of course, there are so many excellent restaurants on the property so you won’t want for any type of food you desire.
The pools are all great and differ in some way. Try them all if you can. We loved the lazy river at the Grand Mayan. Most pools have swim up bars and two have nice kids areas. They come around in afternoon with delicious fresh popsicles. You are pampered beyond what is normal.
The staff are all friendly and available to help.
The only complaint, if any, is that the property is huge so you need to take shuttles to some of the areas and wait time
can be a little long (especially when you have tired little ones).
This place hit a home run for all of us and we hated to leave.

This is our 7^th visit to a Grand Luxxe property, and 4^th to this one in particular. There was rough couple of years with construction noises, but nothing that affected service ever!
It is always a long drawn out check in process, which frustrates me every year. We make reservations at least 6 months out, and it always seems a surprise when we show up. Okay, once you are a checked in guest, just wow.
All the restaurants were amazing. Bar none! We were there the weekend of Hurricane Patricia. As news watching just wasn’t on our radar, we had no idea that a hurricane was headed our way, until Carlos and Leonard starting shutting down the pool bar. You can imagine the horror that ensued as they locked up the booze. :) We thought that there must have been a language barrier when he told us there was a hurricane headed our way. Ok, so now we know, they know what a hurricane is. We swam around for a little while, in shock and withdrawal, as we watched the resort staff pick up anything not nailed down to be locked away to some unknown location. They were quick, yet left us with no sense of panic, which is a good thing. We talked with a manager looking type who was helping move things about, and he actually did stop what he was doing to tell us what was going on.
We headed back to our room, where in the lobby we were met with little flyers letting us know what they knew up to that point, but no decisions had been made yet about guests staying or going. We watched what news we could, through tv and WiFi on our gear. We had shopped earlier for provisions, water and food that we could eat if the power went out in our room. When we woke up the next morning, we got a phone call the about 9:30 that we had two hours to pack a small bag and prepare for evacuation. We all traveled with backpacks through the airport, so our group packed our water and sandwiches, and other non perishable food we had bought the day before. A couple of changes of undies, shirts and socks. We didn’t know where we would be taken at that point.
We were met with staff, about 20 in the lobby of front desk clerks, the friendly activities people (the amazing Antonio and Tatiana) and maintenance folks who were just dismantling the hotel at such astonishing efficiency.
The staff told us that the resort was going to put us in the large corp headquarters which was on the resort property, a big sturdy light on the windows concrete building. Took about 90 to 120 minutes to get everyone out of the different buildings into the new accommodation. To move 3000 people in large 8 to 16 passenger golf cart electric shuttles. No yelling, no stress, it just happened.
It was a little daunting to walk the hallways, as were were some of the last to arrive. The staff had moved to the pool lounges to the headquarters to use as cots (how utterly clever, if you ask me). They seemed to be all gone when we got there. but the four us found a length of wall, and sat down to make this our new home for however long. The two guys went to find us some chairs, and they did. As folks moved around, we did acquire two of the cots/​lounge chairs. Then we just sat back as we were surrounded by staff, maintenance workers, concierges, and new friendly seat neighbors. We figure there were at least 300 staff on hand. Electricians came, hooked up extra electrical boxes to get cpap machines into direct line so as not to lose power, plumbers that kept the toilets going, they gave up the huge employee cafeteria for us, and it was staffed to feed us hot soups, pizza, chocolate cake, hot rice, sandwiches, fresh fruit. I mean where do you come up with fresh bread for 3000 sandwiches on such short notice. Someone would say they were warm, and BAM! Antonio or someone would show up with a fan, new out of a box. We had WiFi for Pete’s sake. Everyone was able to contact family back home, we were on facebook the entire time. We never went more than 20 minutes without staff checking on us, bringing baskets of fresh apples around. There were small updates every few hours. The hurricane turned away from PV and kept us out of danger, we didn’t spend overnight in the shelter. The only hiccup was just the crowd not following any sort of direction from staff and wanting to get back to their rooms in the end. Again, staff smiled and tried to get us to follow along, with graciousness and pleasantries.
We were back in our room by 10pm. We got in to bed, and woke up to the hotel being back to normal the next morning. Yes, they had replaced all the furniture and pool accommodations by the time we woke up, all over the resort, and that is no small measure. hey gave the entire resort an amazing free buffet breakfast, there must have been the usual 100 or so different choices. Plus it was complete with mariachi band. All the restaurants were in full go mode at that point. And they opened the pool bar back up. :)

We were here for the first week of August 2015. We own a 2bd/2.5 ba unit with kitchen. I requested several times before we arrived to have a unit with two beds in the second bedroom, but was told that we had to see what was availalble when we arrived. When we arrived at the resort we were told we were in Tower #4. We rode by golf cart to Tower #4 and were seated at a desk for check in. Our room had already been assigned to us on the 8^th floor. When I asked if the second bedroom had two beds I was told no and he acted like he didn’t know that I had requested it. To get two beds in that room we would have had a unit on the first few floors and wouldn’t have a view. Fine… one bed but not a good way to start.
Our room was beautiful! We waited and waited for the bellmen to bring up our baggage but they didn’t come. I finally called down, twice, and they arrived. We were stuck in our room for an hour waiting. In retrospect I would have pack bathing suits in a different bag and kept it with us – but who knew!
The resort is HUGE. We are active and planned to walk everywhere while there. No way… it’s simply too big. To get a cab it’s two golf cart rides! This is the main reason that we don’t see ourselves going back. Having a lot to offer is great, but this is ridiculous.
We did a lot of our own cooking. Having a full size refridgerator was great as was four burner cook top. (Grand Mayan & Mayan Palace have small fridge and two burners.) However, we had the same disappointing cookware. There is an ice maker in the freezer that I turned on right away. It never worked… after a few days of listening to it cycle through, I guess without water, I finally turned it off. We weren’t given a sponge in the unit when we checked in. I asked for one the next morning and it was brought to me. (Don’t they have a check list?)
Housekeeping was very disappointing. There were days where no bath towels were left for us. Another where there was no hand towel. And I never knew where she was going to put the bath mat! Turndown serivce was sporatic. This is not a big deal as we can turn down our owns beds, although the chocolates were a nice touch, but one night she came at 10:40!!!
Tuesday morning at 6:45 is aparently the time to clean the floors in the hallways. The staff seemed to not care at all the guests just might be sleeping. I actually stuck my head out at one point and asked them to please quite down. That didn’t help at all. The noise was awful. Hallway noise was actually an issue a lot. People leaving early or coming in late, and perhaps intoxicated, were always loud.
The free internet was awful. We finally broke down and paid for it. It’s the same price whether you order it one day #1 or day #6!!! And premium is only good for two devices. The premium was absolutely no better than free.
The pools were all great. And was service while were were there. You can choose from very active to very quiet.
Two of us had massages. They were nice. A lot of attention to detail and they definately wanted us to feel pampered.
Oh the ocean… the hotel is right next to the river. So this is probably the worst beach in all of PV. The water is brown and murky.
Our concierge, Eduardo, was great. He suggested taking care of our charges the night before check out while it was quite and no rush. What a great idea!!! I found an error, a bar bill was charged to our room that wasn’t ours. It did take some time, but he took care of it. Had I been trying to get to the airport and run into this it would have been awful.

Me and my wife both thought the experience here was absolutely amazing. Really can’t say enough.
As a background, we actually booked a room in the Grand Mayan and upon check-​in were upgraded to a room at the Grand Luxxe. Both are owned by the Vidanta group and along with another 4 – 5 hotels are all on a massive property on a peninsula in Nuevo Vallarta about 10 – 15 miles north of Puerto Vallarta.
Customer Service — 5-​star, everyone in the staff is amazingly attentive and friendly. They are always willing to answer questions and help for any purpose and are very pleasant. I really can’t say enough about how great the service was from room-​service, concierge, and service at all bars/​restaurants. It clearly showed how much the staff is trained as they always greeted, asked which language we wished to speak (spanish/​english), and had clear training in proper etiquette in meals. There were also tons of service attendants and we always could find someone if we needed help. I travel 2 – 3 times a year for pleasure and this was one of the best experiences I have ever had.
Facilities/​grounds — 4 – 5 star very expansive. The property is just massive. There are pools everywhere, numerous hotel buildings, and restaurants all over the property. They property had 2 wave pools, a lazy river, water-​slides, huge beach front property, 2 – 3 gyms, at least 10 – 12 restaurants and all of them were maintained extremely well. Everything was top-​of-​the-​line and in great condition. The only issue we had initially was that because the grounds are so big, it was very confusing on how to get anywhere and how the transit/​shuttle system worked. Also, due to the complicated logistics and above average walking required to get from place to place, it might be difficult for people who have difficulty walking a lot. Every floor has their own concierge as well, so it was easy to ask any questions about what to do, how to get there, and any logistics/​costs involved.
Rooms — 5 star. Attention to detail. Everything in the room was new and modeled extremely well and flowed very well. The room was gorgeous and had all the new amenities and seemed to spare no expense. The balconies were huge, the bathrooms were massive, spacious, and ultra-​modern. The bed was a king bed and had a pillow menu for different styles of pillows to order. There were about 20 different lighting fixtures for any kind of mood lighting desired. Wi-​fi free more or less, but they did not want people to stream and highly tried to guard against it.
Food — 4 – 5 star. Every restaurant we tried was great. We went to about 5 of them and all of them were very good and a great value for the quality of food provided. We did a package deal of 6 breakfasts and 6 dinners/​lunches which averaged to about 20−22/per and initially thought it might be really be too much. However, we soon found that the breakfast buffet was amazing and compared to similar places in California would be almost 2 – 3 times the cost in equivalent places here. For dinners all the appetizers, entrees, and desserts were exceptional! I know it sounds unbelievable but I had one of the best burgers of my life at the Custom Burger. Service here was always exceptional as well. We loved all our waiters at every restaurant and noticed that they were so well trained that they always served from the right and took dishes on the left side even if it was more painstaking. They also always spoke both spanish and english making it easy to communicate. One thing though was that we typically enjoy to have local food wherever we go and because the resort was so difficult to get off the property, it took a lot more to find and get to local spots and try the cuisine off the resort.
Overall, I really can’t say enough about this experience we had here. We really felt we got the best bang for our buck on a vacation we have ever experienced. We were able to live like rich kings/​queens for an affordable price and really felt like we got tons of bang for our buck. NOTE: we did not do the timeshare pitch, which they were okay with, so do not know how that experience was.

Excellent, Excellent, Excellent. I am all about service and being surrounded by luxury. This is the place to be. The staff is top notch. Just don’t, don’t do the timeshare presentation.

If anyone knows the truth about room reservations please post. We are owners but have not been here in a few years and were told rooms are not pre assigned before we arrived. Upon arrival we were placed on the ground floor with no view! Now we are told you can’t move because rooms are pre assigned. Grand Luxxe Management I am not happy please fix this! My time is valuable.

This is my 2^nd time here in 3 years… And this place is top-​notch when it comes to comfort, luxury and amenities. I’ve been describing it to people as a chance to see «how the other half lives». However, I was corrected by my dad, who is with on this trip, as «this is how the other 1% lives». It really is that nice. And if you ever get invited or have a chance to visit, take advantage of the opportunity.
My only knock on the property, is the constant sound of construction… But this place is booming, so it kinda comes with the territory. In my opinion, it’s easy to escape the noise. But I can understand why those that want to stay and relax in their rooms most of the day, would be annoyed. After the construction noises subside, this place will get a 5-​star.
I would suggest skipping the time share presentation. The perks they give you for attending at first seem worth it. But trust me, it’s not (unless, of course, you really are considering buying one).
FYI — this review applies to the Grand Luxxe. From what I understand from other visitors to the resort property, not all of the other condos are as spacious or luxurious.

This is my second time staying at the Grand Luxxe in Nuevo Vallarta. My family and I loved it so much at Christmas we purchased in the Grand Luxxe Spa Tower and returned in June with another family. I have to say, this is the nicest resort I have ever stayed at. The finishings and the details both in the units and around the resort are second to none. The employees are super friendly and you can tell they love their jobs. My only complaint and the only reason I did not give it a 5 is because the resort was not very forth coming about the construction taking place. Prior to our arrival we called and spoke to a gentleman in the Sales office that stated that at the time we were visiting there would be no construction taking place anywhere near us. This turned out to be completely false as there was construction in both building 4A where we were staying and building 4B next door. I actually loved visiting in the summer because it is much slower than in season. It is very easy to get into any restaurant or get a chair at any pool. You must understand, however, that this is also the time that they do most of their renovations so several buildings had construction taking place. It was not a major inconvenience, and definitely one I am willing to put up with, but they still should let you know prior to arrival everything that could potentially cause inconvenience. Good hotels do this all of the time and I think the Grand Luxxe should as well. All in all, I loved this resort and will go back often.

My view of this place is from a Time Share perspective — they say it’s not a timeshare — but it’s just called something else under a different law. Beautiful places — really outstanding rooms, I would say the only place better is Velas Vallarta — plus they don’t want you to spend money anywhere else outside of their property — they make it physically difficult to get off of the property without answering a bunch of B.S. questions as if you cannot think for yourself.
I had a chance to talk to the Time share people or let’s call it ‘Private Residence’ people and they are a bunch of wheeling dealing — most pressure I’ve ever experienced Douche Bags. Especially the head sales guy named Dean. He’s that guy in L.A. that gives everyone a bad name. The guy is just a direct abrasive piece of sh*t.
And I also dealt with a guy named JiJi — he took a new name on JiJi-​The-​Jackass. There bullsh*t spewing out of his mouth for 4 Hours!
AVOID at all costs — unless you can get in there and never want to get off the property (because it is beautiful — even though there weren’t many people there — they talked as if they were packed by the pool and I saw about 10 people in a pool as large as 5 blocks long).

I can personally never see the value in purchasing a timeshare, but I do love friends who have made the leap and are willing to share a week with me!
We stayed in Grand Luxxe Tower 1, on the top floor in the large master villa. We brought friends with us, so we had plenty of room for the 4 of us between the 2 adjoining suites.
The shuttle at the airport was easy to find and to jump on. Thankfully, we convinced our driver to stop at Walmart before going to the resort so we could stock up (which I highly recommend to control costs if you like to drink and eat like we do). It cost about 400 pesos, but the savings was well worth it.
We were impressed with the security. After getting dropped off by the shuttle, our luggage was placed on a card which was secured with a zip tie. I liked the small step to ensure our bags would not be rifled through.
Check in was fairly simple, although everything was in our friend’s name as the timeshare owner, so getting past that part was easy thanks to the fact that I had everything printed.
The timeshare sales are aggressive, but they heard us when we said we were not interested.
Our rooms were stunning. We loved the view, the rooms were extremely clean and well appointed, and the service was truly outstanding. We loved our cleaning staff and the recreation staff at the pool (Antonio, Fatima, and Edgar) and the wait staff at the pool (DANIEL!!).
The pools are excellent, although I wish they had been a bit more clean the day after a storm had come through. We went off season, so it was slow and we had plenty of room everywhere we went. They played the same music everyday at the pool, so on the first day listening to U2’s Joshua Tree album was a lot of fun, but after day 5 I was listening to my own iPod.
We ventured over to the Grand Mayan to check out their lazy river on one day, and there is definitely a difference in the pool quality between the two locations.
We had only one hiccup in our trip, and that was requesting late checkout. We asked the night before we checked out, and were told no problem, and then the next morning it was a problem. We were able to be moved to another room until 1:00pm, which was great. We were moved to the 7^th floor of Grand Luxxe 1, and I would say this view totally topped our penthouse view. You could see a majority of the hotel grounds and pools, and it was really stunning to look at. Up on the top floor, you really just saw the ocean.
We are looking forward to going back next year.

Bookmark for review to post. Wonderful over. the top 5 star accommodations mind blowing