We just returned from Grand Luxxe, Vidanta resort at Nueva Vallarta. We are both HGVC premier elite and DRI platinum member. We went for the Grand Luxxe presentation. It is high pressure selling.
At first, they offer to buy our HGVC ($300,000) and DRI ($260,000), to offset us buying Grand Luxxe at $800,000. We rejected. I told them that I love both my HGVC and DRI and I am not going to trade it for Grand Luxxe. Any way, after 5 hours, we rejected the offer of a studio at Grand Mayan level under $10,000. They let us leaving and get us to get our promised gift. At the place to sign out, the rep there just found some forfeited inventory, and offer us two bedroom at Grand Mayan, 5 weeks a year. No MF, Pay MF when we decide to go for the same price. Guess what, We were too tired and told them we like Grand Luxxe, they said that we can request for upgrade to grand luxxe with grand Mayan. So we bought it. When we stayed in Grand Luxxe, we saw lots of owner from Grand Mayan or Mayan Palace upgraded to Grand Luxxe. I guess you need to pay a upgrade fee.
It is a high pressure sale. I met another HGVC elite member, she was so happy that she sold the HGVC to Vidanta and bought Grand Luxxe. I did not ask her how much she paid. Another person after talk to me, she went to presentation, she told to the sales that someone got 2 Bedroom Grand Mayan for 10,000. She want Grand Luxxe for $20,000 for Grand Luxxe and she got it. It seems they could come down to your price. Don't give up any of your good timeshare since I am not sure Grand Luxxe has any resale value. They did tell me that I can let any of my family or friend use my 5 weeks per year. the restriction is I can reserve only 150 days (5 month in advance.) for any unit. We usually take vacation from May. We ski in the winter and did not want to go anywhere but the ski resort in the winter. May is not the peak season. It was very comfortable when we were there, temperature was in the 70's and low 80's. Plug pool was too cold. The swimming pool was not cold. I notice no one went to ocean.
The deal we got is almost like a travel club. We could have free II and RCI, SFX...., We can reserve 5 Vidanta weeks per year 2 bedroom in any of the Vidanta resort 150 days in advance. We can have up to 15 weeks in any of the exchange company without paying membership or exchange fee. We can also roll over our unused week to up to 5 years in the future. It is pretty generous. We did not use the any of them yet. Did not receive our package in the mail yet. I will report when we do. They also issued us a check of Vidanta money of what we paid. It is good for a year. We could use that check toward buying Grand Luxxe within, if we want to upgrade to Grand Luxxe. I hope it is a good deal. As someone earlier mention, it is easy to exchange into it if it is not peak season, so for us, we really did not need it. This was our first time ever being here, and we most likely will return within a year since they also offer us one free week and a free round trip airline ticket for two with this deal. I guess they really want us to upgrade to Grand Luxxe.
We do love Grand Luxxe. We exchanged into it. We got upgraded to three bedroom presidential suite in Punta Tower in the first week. We got 2 Bedroom loft in Tower 4 the second week. It was beautiful. The whole resort with luxurious rooms, they do not have dishwasher and oven in my three bedroom huge penthouse unit. I asked the other Grand Luxxe Tower. They just said if i was in the presidential three bedroom Punta tower and not having dishwasher, non of the other would have it. When I went for the sales presentation, I notice all the beautiful villa, none of them have dishwasher or oven. I asked the sales person that I did not see dishwasher or oven. The sales person just said that none of the unit had it. But my second week in the loft, there was dishwasher, oven, wine cooler and washer/dryer in the unit. So I am not sure. The concierge told me there is only 16 loft each in Tower 3 and Tower 4 on the 3rd floor. So the entire complex only the residence tower and the loft unit has those essentials. It was a heck of lots of works if you have a big group in a 3 or two bedroom trying to cook. I don't know why they don't add it to the unit.
We have SFX exchanges to grand Bliss RM next spring for less than $1000 per week. If we wanted to use one of our 2-bed GL units and split it into a 1-bed and Master Suite, the cost would be more. We are counting down to Sr. Certs which are not offered any more and some have changed from the original Sr. Cert.