Expert says NDAs more common after Mexican resort pressures sick family to sign one

Allison Field holds her son Henry Yackulic-Field in an undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Allison Field,

A Saskatchewan woman wants popular resorts to show basic decency after she says she was pressured to sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to receive medical help at one in Mexico.

“It’s in our best interest to treat people with humanity,” said Allison Field, a communications consultant in Saskatoon.

“After this experience, I don’t think I’ll do resorts again. You’re treated like cattle. It’s not really my cup of tea.”

Field says her family’s vacation turned into a nightmare on Dec. 15, a day after she arrived at the Royalton Splash Riviera Cancun.

“I woke up violently ill in the middle of the night. I vomited every 20 minutes.”

She said about four days later, she had slightly recovered from the illness but her husband and four-year-old son started showing the same symptoms.

“I went to pick up my son up at a kids club. He had been there for an activity and he had vomited everywhere,” she said.

“At the exact same time, I got a text from my husband (who) was out golfing and he said, ‘I’m vomiting at every hole.’”

She said by then she had already heard from others at the resort that they, too, were feeling sick.

“They were closing the pool because there was vomit or diarrhea in it and so I was like, ‘OK, this is an outbreak and we should probably go.’”

Field said a doctor came to her room hours after she had called for help and told her family to immediately go to a hospital.

She said she was requesting a concierge in the lobby to send someone to her room to bring their bags downstairs when a resort manager began asking her to sign an NDA.

The NDA stated Field would not be allowed to share details about the outbreak publicly and sue the resort for any inconvenience.

Field said after she refused to sign the form, the manager began offering a refund for the activities her family participated in that were not included in her vacation package.

The manager continued “pestering” her to sign the NDA and ignored her requests for help for nearly two hours, she added, as her husband and son continued shaking and vomiting in the hallway.

Field said when she became desperate and asked other vacationers in the lobby to help her bring her bags from her room, the manager “finally sent someone up” and called her family a cab.

At the hospital, Field said a doctor gave her son and husband antibiotics and medication to help them with their nausea. They were also given fluids by intravenous because they were dehydrated.

She said the doctor told them they had food poisoning but needed to wait for their test results for a confirmation.

She said they went to the airport from the hospital the next morning.

Since then, Field said she has been in touch with others she met at the resort who told her they signed the NDA so they could receive urgent help.

“What I really want more than anything is for them to change that policy,” she said.

“We only got like two days where no one was feeling ill for a whole vacation.”

Royalton Splash Riviera Cancun did not immiedately respond to a request for comment.

The director of the Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Research at Toronto Metropolitan University says NDAs have become increasingly common at some popular destinations like Mexico and the Caribbean in recent years.

“You’re starting to see it because of the pressures related to online reviewing,” said Wayne Smith.

He said he is disappointed to hear how Field’s family was treated in Mexico.

“Hospitality is based on trust,” he said. “So when you erode trust, you’re eroding trust in the industry as a whole.”

He said if people at the Cancun resort were getting sick, the resort should have apologized, provided them with immediate care, explained the cause of the problem and how it was rectifying the situation before possibly compensating people for the inconvenience.

“Vacations are very precious to people … so you have to treat it like that.”

He said people need to also do their own research before booking their tickets and hotels by reading a destination’s reviews, for example.

“If they have all positive reviews, it means the reviews are all being curated or they’re fake.”

He said people should also eat only cooked food while on vacation.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 14, 2025.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press