FIVE DIAMOND VIDANTA MEANS FIVE DIAMOND DAVE?

 

 

Five Diamond Vidanta is my first five diamond resort. Until then I was a four diamond guy.

 

Did I need an upgrade? Who doesn’t.

 

I’m a basic one diamond guy in real life, but when needed I can fit in.

 

I explained this to my wife. She started pointing out our house. Not a one diamond place, she says. And she’s right. Sort of.

 

The real question is, should we rate our own choices by the AAA Diamond standard?

 

Why not? I’ll start, but first:

 

AAA Diamond ratings for hotels represent a combination of the overall quality, range of facilities, and level of services offered by the property. The descriptive ratings are assigned exclusively to properties that meet and uphold AAA’s rigorous Approval standards.

	Budget-oriented, offering basic comfort and hospitality.
	Affordable, with modestly enhanced facilities, decor and amenities.
	Distinguished, multifaceted with enhanced physical attributes, amenities and guest comforts.
	Refined, stylish with upscale physical attributes, extensive amenities and a high degree of hospitality, service and attention to detail.
	Ultimate luxury, sophistication and comfort with extraordinary physical attributes, meticulous personalized service, extensive amenities and impeccable standards of excellence.

 

The onsite gym is my personal standard of excellence. If it’s better than my garage gym, add a Diamond. Better than a squat rack, bench, incline bench, barbells, dumbbells, bands, and a treadmill in front of a TV?

 

If the gym isn’t up to those meager standards, remove a diamond.

 

Vidanta could be a six diamond resort based on their gym. Loads of weights and machines in one big room, a variety of cardio choices in a separate room, a spin room, and a dance/stretch studio room.

 

A big plus is meeting new gym people. One of the gym guys was a baseball player, a pitcher from Oklahoma going to school in Arkansas. Mid-90 mph fastball looking for a shot going pro.

 

Few newbies in the Vidanta gym. Instead it was populated by fitness people who stayed on schedule. I could tell they were well trained by the sequence of exercises they followed. All gym people need to be constant learners to keep their momentum.

Five Diamond Vidanta is packed with motivation from local food, trails, and the expectation of seeing something extraordinary around every bend.

 

From catered pools, a huge Mayan room with statues three stories tall, to live music, Vidanta exceeded the AAA criteria of “Ultimate luxury, sophistication and comfort with extraordinary physical attributes, meticulous personalized service, extensive amenities and impeccable standards of excellence.”

Ultimate Luxury?

 

My standard of ultimate luxury is sharing the common feeling of, ‘everything will be fine.’ With a facility as enormous as Vidanta there’s a good chance of someone losing their patience either checking in or checking out.

 

Even though I watched for the most benign conflict, nothing showed up. What’s that mean?

The staff is so well trained and rehearsed that nothing phases their goal of ultimate luxury. We were all on the same page of smooth transitions.

 

Sophistication and comfort with extraordinary physical attributes?

Guests like me who have only been up to AAA Four Diamonds have a lesson to learn: Hospitality professionals want to show the difference a diamond makes. To a person, workers at Vidanta were comfortable behind the scenes while being prepared to step up on request.

 

No questions went unanswered, no request unfulfilled. Maid service called on my first day and I said no thank you. I didn’t know the routine of daily maintenance on Five Diamond Vidanta.

 

Even if my room was sparkling, and it was, I may have a question I needed answering. What better time to ask, and who better to ask, than during maid service. And they had every answer. For back up, each floor had a concierge.

 

Meticulous personalized service?

My last name starts with a G. How much more personalized could Five Diamond Vidanta get with the G everywhere I looked.

 

Extensive amenities and impeccable standards of excellence?

 

The G shots are worth a few thousand words. And a Five Diamond Vidanta kiss.