Fwiw, I just stayed there with a reservation through SFX.
I was charged a $75 resort fee total for 8 people, 6 adult plus 2 kids. We got a 2 bdr unit in the riviera maya Mayan palace.
I found I didn't get $75 worth of amenities. It seems to me that management is trying to make foreign customers pay for management's bad investment, and it might work if we allow it.
For example:
*There are plenty of all inclusive resorts that have their all inclusive starting at $70 pp pd inclusive of all taxes and fees. Look at trivago dot com. At vidanta you don't get any food included in your $75 resort fee, and a $1050 resort fee gets you about $250 of over priced food.
*If you are looking for a non all-inclusive, there are plenty of more centrally located luxury resorts in Cancun and Playa del carmen for the same price or less. Again trivago will point you in the right direction. Vidanta riviera maya is in a town called Puerto Morelos, a good 40 min from cancun and about 25 minutes from playa del carmen. It's like staying in New Jersey when visiting new York city or Philly. Not exactly in the middle of nowhere, but inconvenient to get to the actual place you came to explore.
*the so called amenities are not what they used to be (this is not my first time in this resort). This resort, like others, seems to have a higher price for foreigners, and another much lower for locals. The difference though is that it seems to me that the locals are paying a resort fee closer to what I paid, meaning about 1/10th of what foreigners pay. I found that the facilities are getting plenty of use by locals, and it shows. For example,
-in the mayan palace lobby I saw a toilet that seemed to be unrepaired for the length of my 7 day stay.
-The bathroom in their central lobby seemed to be missing caulk (great for insects to hide).
-Their main pool seemed crowded, the water cloudy (possibly from over use).
-I saw plenty of missing tiles and cracks in this pool , signs of a pool that needs repairs asap before it has to be closed.
Side notes:
- their wifi is 3g speed at best, and limited to 3 devices (we took turns using the wifi because we were 6 adults and no one wanted to pay extra, that was fun).
-their transportation is outsourced to a company that picks up passengers going to different resorts, so you first wait for this company's 7 passenger minivan to arrive at the airport. Then you wait some more for the minivan to fill up, then you wait for passengers to be dropped off at their respective resorts, and usually last on the list is vidanta. My experience was that it took this company about 3 hours to drop us off from when we left the airport.
In conclusion:
My experience is that, like so many things in Mexico, the appearance the business wants to portray is not the reality. This resort's business strategy seems to me to stay afloat with local guests and to stick it to the 'gringos' when possible.
Since I know spanish, I know this is usually not a viable long term business strategy, because foreigners eventually catch on that they are subsidizing local people's vacations. But if customers allow it, the business can get away with it for a relatively long time.
And in vidanta's case, the riviera maya resort is so sprawling that they need tons of people to visit just so they can pay their expenses.
This is on top of the fact that Sargazo algae has made much of the beach unbearably ugly and stinky throughout the whole region.
Of course, the Sargazo problem is not vidanta's fault.