Vidanta Riviera Maya and Puerto Morelos

As we mentioned in our introduction, we own timeshares and used them during our time in Colorado last August. When we deposited our Marriott into the exchange company, Interval International, we were given a free (if we paid the exchange fee) week of travel. We ended up locating a week at Vidanta Rivera Maya on Mexico’s east coast between Puerto Morelos and Playa del Carmen. We had previously spent a week at their property in Nuevo Vallarta (north of Puerto Vallarta) and enjoyed our experience. With the free week including our exchange fee, it would come out to $219 for the week in a fully equipped one bedroom unit. We decided why not live in a little luxury, especially considering that we were in high season and would expect to have to pay a premium for other accommodations.

Isla Mujeres to Vidanta Riviera Maya

Since most of these resorts are geared towards people arriving by air and getting a transfer from the airport to the resort, traveling from Isla Mujeres to the resort turned out to be a little tricky. After some digging, we put together a plan: taxi from WorldMark Isla Mujeres to the ferry dock (70 pesos*), ferry to Puerto Juarez (160 pesos each), taxi from the ferry dock to the ADO bus station (100 pesos, note we had to walk outside the ferry port to get this price, inside the ferry dock it would have been 1 ½ times as much), full size ADO motor coach to Puerto Morelos (45 pesos each), and finally taxi from Puerto Morelos to the resort (270 pesos). The next day, we discovered that we could have used the local Playa Express to go directly from the ADO bus station to the resort and saved the 270 peso taxi, but that bus (actually another large van) didn’t have much room for luggage and we would have had to get our suitcases across six lanes of high speed traffic.

Vidanta Riviera Maya Resort

The beach in front of the resort is not really swimmable, very rocky, nor is it a pleasant beach to walk along, the sand being course and the kind where you sink down when walking on it.

So we decided why not enjoy the pool, which is what we did for the rest of the week. We would head out in the morning, hang out by the pool, midday we would either have a sandwich at the pool or go to the breakfast buffet that we got 2 for 1 because of attending the sales presentation (more about that experience later).

Then in the late afternoon, head back to the room and have dinner in the room. We ate only two dinners in the resort restaurants, French and Spanish because of perks for attending the sales presentation. (We went through it, why not make the most of it?) All in all a very relaxing and not too expensive a week. Plus the daily maid service and evening turn down, including Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses on the bed, added a bit of pampering. Actually, the service at the resort was quite good, with all staff greeting us with the right hand over the heart as a sign of welcome and hospitality.

Vidanta, i.e., Latin America idiosyncrasies – We are not providing this list to gripe but simply to give examples of the types of things that drive some gringos up the wall, and to confirm their existence even in at least one upscale resort (in no particular order).

• No sign to put toilet paper in the large wastebaskets provided in each stall in the bathrooms by the pool even through the toilets kept backing up (a non-issue in the units and restaurants, where the toilets could handle the paper).
• Got the happy hour list from the concierge, second one we tried didn’t have happy hour anymore.
• Because of going to the timeshare presentation, we got a discount for brunch at Havana Moon, but when we went there, we were told it had moved to different restaurant.
• We were going to the front gate, the shuttle driver dropped us off and told us to walk 5 minutes, within 50 feet of a sign that said no pedestrians.
• Stretching class, listed in both the activities brochure and on the resort app. When Ann inquired at the gym, nobody seemed to know much about it.
• Lovely signs all over the resort, often accompanied by confused looking lost visitors – yes, the signs didn’t work too well for us either.
• Marquee-type sign on the resort grounds advertising Taco Break restaurant, try our delicious tacos. The restaurant is now called Green Break (it’s on the golf course), serving Mexican food, but with no tacos on the menu.

Just to mention a few…

Sales Presentation

When we arrived, we went through the check in and got the usual sales pitch to attend a presentation. Normally we just say no, keep repeating no, and are done with it. However…when we stayed at the Vidanta property in Nuevo Vallarta, we were able to purchase a meal plan with 6 breakfasts and 6 dinners for a discounted price that we were able to stretch and bring our meal costs down, and that is what we were planning on doing this time. Tiny problem: the meal plan wasn’t offered. We don’t know if that’s a policy change or if that’s always been the case at this particular resort. Uh oh, now what? Punt! Well, we found out that we could save $150-300 (dining offers and reduced daily resort fees) if we attended the sales presentation. So we signed up. We would get breakfast at a great buffet and then it was supposed to be an hour presentation.

We know many people have probably heard of how in Mexico the sales people hold you captive for 4-5 hours, etc. Well, our experience was a bit different.  We had a 15 minute initial discussion with the sales rep, then our free buffet breakfast, then came the pitch, with the rep repeating canned lines, spouting all sorts of information about timeshares in general that wasn’t true. Ian ended up getting into a heated discussion with him, even though we had both promised before we went that we were just going to nod and get out of there after an hour. A more experienced salesperson would have changed tacks and moved on to what Vidanta was offering (about which we were actually a bit curious), but we never got to that point; the rep just got up and walked out. A young man approached us and said he’d take us to get our gift, which turned out to be another salesperson. This one, however, was more experienced and sent us on our way in less than 5 minutes; the whole process took less than an hour, more like 30 minutes.

Since we got out of the sales presentation early, we decided to head out to Puerto Morelos, which we wanted to check out, and we needed to do grocery shopping. We researched local transport and figured out that we could take the Playa Express for 30 pesos each, we just needed to get ourselves to the main gate. Vidanta doesn’t really want customers to leave the property once they arrive, but we were able to find our way back to the front gate and were given instructions about how to get the local bus to Puerto Moreles.

Puerto Morelos

Puerto Morelos is really two towns: the first by the main highway and the second, the historic fishing village next to the sea. Where the shuttle let us off (by the main highway), we picked up a colectivo (shared taxi van) for 8 pesos each, which was good since it wouldn’t have been a pleasant walk, along a busy road. A short 5 minute ride and we were in the old fishing village. We wandered around town and met many friendly people, a much quieter town even than Isla Mujeres. We enjoyed a quite lengthy conversation with a tour promoter who shared his experiences living in Puerto Morelos and a family vacation to Holbox, complete with photos of his wife and two daughters. It was interesting observing yet another difference between Mexico (actually all of Latin America) and the US. After a few minutes, this man could tell that we weren’t going to be buying any tours, so there was going to not be a sale. In the US, the conversation would have ended there. In Mexico, we spent the next 15 minutes talking about his family, their trip to Holbox, etc. A person-to-person connection with someone who no longer was trying to sell us anything. The flip side of the Latin America we pointed out above.

After wandering around town, with its requisite square and church,

we headed off down the beach, a great long beach, one of the best we have seen for walking.

We probably walked for at least 45 minutes before we decided to turn around. A surprise, right before we turned around was going past Desire, a clothing optional resort so we saw a little extra scenery.

Coming back to town, we had lunch, 200 pesos for two margaritas and three fish tacos.

We took the colectivo back to the main highway and did our grocery shopping. We were able to purchase the special solution which with a few drops added to tap water in the prescribed proportion allowed us to wash fruits and vegetables. The one we got was My Brand Microbicida, but similar products are available under different names. We made our way back to our resort, ending up crossing the 6 lane highway, doing a reverse imitation of the sign on I5 in California. Puerto Morelos has been added to our list of places to revisit.

*The exchange rate at time of writing was 18.5 Mexican pesos to the US dollar.

Next Up: Tulum

Ian & Ann