Vidanta Nuevo Vallarta final bill: 32,971 pesos for 21 nights, and a 240-peso car wash
Our 21 nights at Vidanta Nuevo Vallarta ended on 27 July 2026 with a stack of paper at the front desk. Everything here goes on the room — every taco carried back from a restaurant, every case of beer from the supermarket, the state lodging tax — so a long stay prints out as something you read standing up. Ours ran to seven pages and 32,971.11 pesos.
Most of it we recognised. One line we did not: Servicio Autolavado, 240 pesos, dated 13 July. Car wash. We never got into a car.
The car wash was our laundry
Laundry here is not free: you get a card from the front desk, put it in the machine, and we had been told it cost around 120 pesos a go. What we could not work out was whether that money was a deposit. We kept waiting for it to come back, and after 21 nights it had not.
In the middle of the bill, dated 13 July: Servicio Autolavado, 240 pesos, a wash and a dry at 120 each, done twice. We did laundry exactly twice on this stay, so the count matched. It was never a deposit: it was the price, and the price does not come back.
Still. Car wash.
Three waters we did not drink, three donations we did pay
Seven pages of Spanish line items is more than either of us was going to read at the desk, so we photographed the lot and asked ChatGPT one question: anything odd in this bill. The answer came straight back — mostly fine, but the water is charged three times and there are three donations.
The water was Agua GLX, 87 pesos, on 6, 13 and 20 July: 261 pesos for water we had not drunk. We said so, and the front desk took it off.
Donativo was harder: 300 pesos on the same three dates, 900 in all. The explanation was that it goes on by default, for children and for the resort itself, and could be removed if we wanted. We didn’t. The word donation did its work on us and we let it stand.
My wife asked Gemini about it afterwards and was told this is a common thing at Mexican resorts, not obligatory, and that they will take it off if you say so. Having it added automatically does not sit right with either of us. Next time we find the nerve and ask.
What 21 nights printed out as
| Line on the bill | What it was | Pesos |
|---|---|---|
| Food, drink and shopping, 36 receipts | restaurants and the supermarket | 26,079.68 |
| ISH Nayarit | state lodging tax, per night | 261.45 |
| Agua GLX × 3 | room water, 6 / 13 / 20 July — taken off | 87.00 each |
| Donativo × 3 | default donation, same three dates — paid | 300.00 each |
| Servicio Autolavado | the laundry, 13 July | 240.00 |
| Printed total | before the water came off | 32,971.11 |
The 26,079.68 across 36 receipts is the shape of how we travel: we hardly left the grounds and spent it on eating, drinking and groceries. Those receipts have their own posts — the restaurants we ordered takeout from and the supermarket inside the resort.
The one number we cannot give you is what we actually paid: the waters came off after the total was printed and we have no copy of the corrected bill. So 32,971.11 is the printed figure, and the real one is a little lower.
Late checkout here was 11:00, twice
Our flight out of Puerto Vallarta left at 19:30 — ANA had moved its Mexico City to Tokyo flight from around midnight to 06:00 after we bought the cheapest, unchangeable Aeromexico hop north, and had we known, we would have gone up early and slept at an airport hotel instead. So the day had a hole in the middle of it. The evening before, we asked to stay past the 10:00 checkout. Eleven was as far as that person could go; anything more was above their level, and we should ask someone else in the morning. So we asked again in the morning, this time for 16:00. Same answer: 11:00, because the room was already booked for the guests coming in. We had told ourselves 13:00 or 14:00 was realistic. Both of us were flat about it.
The morning was a scramble; the packing was not done either. We fetched the free coffee and ate fast: the last of a 272-peso box of blueberries and a 72-peso yoghurt from Mercado Gourmet, bought on 16 July, the chocolate that was left, and a biscuit with chocolate on it that had come as a free snack the day before — crisp, good, a new snack on the last morning. Packed, showered, out at 11:00.
Then four hours to fill. We had scouted the spot in advance: a seating area beside the front desk that nobody seems to use, with sockets.
Taxi to Puerto Vallarta airport: 340 pesos
Bags to the transport area, then a taxi; the ticket they hand you has the fare on it.
An OXXO slid past the window; we were at the airport at 16:12, bags checked, through security.
Airport prices: Carl’s Jr burgers from 126 pesos
For 21 nights we had looked at resort prices and called them high. Past security we had something to measure them against, so we walked around photographing menus.
Burgers on their own were 126 to 163 pesos and combos 221 to 258, with the Big Angus line above that. At Starbucks the drinks were mostly in the 100s. We ate none of it: comparison, not lunch.
Airports are tourist-priced everywhere, we know. Even so: it is not only the resort. Mexico is expensive too.
The VIP Lounge, on Priority Pass
There is no Star Alliance lounge at Puerto Vallarta. There is a Priority Pass one, called, plainly, VIP Lounge. App and boarding pass at the desk, in at 16:30, boarding about 18:45 — over two hours.
We have used this lounge on every trip to Nuevo Vallarta and never eaten in it — water here, food later in Mexico City, or a meal at the resort before leaving. A first meal in a room we have sat in many times.
It was already fairly busy. What we hunt for is a seat with a socket, because we eat with a phone and a laptop in front of us; the one free seat with power sat directly opposite a couple who were asleep. Power won.
The socket was behind the sofa, which had to be nudged before anything would reach. Then the thing that happens every time we are in Mexico: the plug goes in, but it does not grip. It looks less plugged in than propped up, and our slightly tall Anker adapter is heavy enough to ease itself out. A Mexican traveller who sat down later had a flat, wide plug that looked like it would hold. Homework for next time.
A waiter came to take drinks. The beer here is three: Dos Equis, Tecate and Tecate Light. No Modelo — which at the resort ran about 10 pesos above Tecate at 30 and Corona at 33, a gap big enough that we never had one all stay. So Dos Equis, the one we had not tried.
The food was two chicken dishes, more or less, plus salads under plastic wrap that you take yourself. We took salads, ordered the hot food, and it came while we were still eating. Plated up, it looked like the very plain breakfast at the Embassy Suites at Niagara Falls in Canada we have joked about for years. Then we ate it, and the seasoning was good. One dish was vegetables under a pale sauce; the other had potato in it and tasted like the stir-fried vegetables we once had by room service from the resort’s Asian restaurant. The buttery one, with corn, got a second round.
“It really is the best, getting food like this for free,” my wife said, looking genuinely moved. Maybe that was 21 nights of resort prices finally letting go. Two beers and two glasses of red wine each, and we left full, with nothing to pay beyond the Priority Pass.
What we would do differently
Say no to the Donativo. It is 900 pesos over 21 nights, it goes on by default, the desk removes it on request, and we paid because of the word on the page. That is a bad reason to pay anything.
Stop expecting the laundry money back: 120 pesos a load, a fee, and on the bill it wears a car’s clothes.
And ask for a copy of the corrected bill. Photographing the pages is how we caught the water; leaving without a printout is why the number here is what we were charged, not what we paid.
There will be a next time — we have used that airport lounge on every trip here — and the plan for it is short: refuse the donation, bring a plug that stays in the wall.
Practical bits
- The bill: everything goes on the room and comes on paper at checkout — seven pages for 21 nights, line items in Spanish.
- Room water: Agua GLX, 87 pesos a bottle, July 2026. Removed when we said we had not drunk any.
- Donativo: 300 pesos, three times across 21 nights, added by default. The front desk told us it can be removed.
- Laundry: a card from the front desk, about 120 pesos a load, printed as Servicio Autolavado. Not a deposit.
- Lodging tax: ISH Nayarit, 261.45 pesos a night, July 2026.
- Late checkout: 11:00 both times we asked, on 26 and 27 July 2026, with the next guests given as the reason.
- After checkout: the seating area beside the front desk is quiet, with power.
- Taxi: 340 pesos to Puerto Vallarta airport, 27 July 2026. Whether anything cheaper exists, we didn’t check.
- Lounge: no Star Alliance lounge at Puerto Vallarta; the VIP Lounge takes Priority Pass, and food and drink cost us nothing extra. Beer was Dos Equis, Tecate or Tecate Light.
- English: the lounge sign was in English and Spanish. How much English is spoken at the resort front desk we didn’t check.
On the cheapest fare you do not pick seats, so ours were 26F and 27F, a row apart, and we had made our peace. Then the passenger in 26 turned around: do you two want to fly together, shall we swap, I’m fine over there. We swapped. After a day that opened with seven pages of charges, the nicest thing that happened to us was free.
Facts checked 2026-09-20. Prices, hours and menus are what we saw on our visit; they change. Nothing here was sponsored or comped.
