Puerto Vallarta - An awesome birthday trip

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

Filed Under Travel

Finally, I have sorted through tons and tons of photos, uploaded to smugmug, and am ready to write about the trip. As I mentioned before, the trip was my birthday surprise, but since Siv knows me too well, he knows that I need to do my shopping and do my own packing before any trip, he didn’t want to keep it a surprise till the day we left. So he told me two weeks in advance, plenty of time for me to buy stuff :). Thanks baby!

The flight

Our flight was on Jan 31st morning at 8:30 am, as usual we finished packing at 2:00 am that morning. Cab came exactly at 6:30, and we dragged our half awake souls out of the house into the car. After a relatively non-descript check-in process (they didn’t even check our green cards!), we were inside the flight at 8:15. But typical Alaska airline way, they kicked us out of the flight at 8:30 due to an equipment failure, and the flight was delayed till 10:30! I don’t know why we keep going back to Alaska, the last four trips we took with them, we always had some trouble or the other, including my lost baggage. Anyway, we reached PV at around 5:00 PM, immigration and customs were a breeze. Mexico has this strange customs system of pressing a button, if the light turns green, you are free to go through without any checks; red light - your bags will be opened. Luckily, our light was green. As soon we got out, somehow we ended up at the travel desk, where they started the conversation as if they work for Westin, but slowly started pitching the timeshare presentation, and free transportation, free dinner etc. Siv had booked the Alaska vacation package for the trip, and had purchased transportation between the airport and hotel for $21 per person. The travel desk person told us that the bus goes around town through all the hotels before it will drop us, and offered us free VIP transfer to the hotel, but needed a $30 deposit so that we will attend the presentation!We ditched him and took a $5 cab to the hotel. Lesson learned, never book transportation with your travel package, cabs are more convenient and much cheaper!

The Resort

Siv had booked us an ocean view room at the Westin Spa and Resort, a beautiful resort, one of the best in PV. As our taxi was pulling into the resort, we were really impressed with the landscaping , there is a beautiful waterfall right in front of the lobby, the rooms are lined with swatches of hot pink , which makes it distinguishable from anywhere in the city!

Outside the resort

The lobby is so colorful, whoever designed it was not afraid to experiment with bright colors, the accent walls are hot pink, the ceilings are bright yellow, and there is color everywhere, it is so cheerful! The well decorated lobby has a table with lemonade and some ginger drinks for guests to self serve and some snacks and fruits as well.

Westin Lobby

After check-in (without any sales pitch!) we went into the room pretty tired and hungry. As soon as we opened the door to our 10th floor room, we were blown away, the view was amazing!The resort has 4 swimming pools in the midst of palm trees and we had beautiful views of the ocean and the downtown and the mountains.

Day time view from our room

The room was ordinary, regular size room, white walls but with bright yellow ceilings! There is AC, ceiling fan and a humidifier. The bathroom was pretty big, with a separate shower and tub, the shower with double jets. The room looked pretty old, but very clean!The private balcony was furnished with a two chair dining set, where we had some great meals with the great view.The view from the room in the night is amazing too. The huge cruise ships are a great sight in the night, and some local dinner cruises that lights up fireworks right in front of Westin! And the downtown all lit up is very pretty too.

Night time view from our room

The Vacation

Both Siv and I are not into the touristy stuff, we are not the type of people who wants to see as much as we can in the few days we are at a place, waking up at 6:00 am to catch the tour bus. We are both very laid back, sleep without an alarm clock, wake up and take our own time getting ready, and get out of the room at our own time. We mainly spent our time in downtown and the Marina. Malecón is the seaside promenade in downtown Vallarta, where there is a lot of hustle and bustle, with the street vendors, sidewalk restaurants and tourists and locals walking around on the beach. It is about 20 minutes from the resort and costs about $6 for the taxi. Westin is at a walkable distance from the Marina which is home to hundreds of yachts and some very nice restaurants and bars and shops and tons of bookies trying to get you to buy a condominium or take a whale watching cruise or charter a fishing boat, We had some nice Mexican food at the Marina and looked at the yacht I am supposed to buy for Siv on his 40th birthday :). One day we spent entirely in the resort at the spa and the pools and got a nice sunset couple’s massage right on the beach, the most relaxing massage ever!

Siv, next to his dreamboat Siv & I at the Marina Me, at Malecón

The food

As usual, the most important part of any our vacations is the food. The first thing we research on is where to eat. This time we did eat a lot at the resort, the restaurants at Westin are, well just what they are, resort food, over-priced and average. Westin is home to the hippest spot in town - the Nikki Beach restaurant, with their white-draped beds with oversized pillows in the beach lounge, originally started in Miami, Nikki Beach is famous for the nighttime action, they are open till 3 am - great drinks and average food and beautiful people. We spent an evening there, lounging on the beds, but I have to tell you, it is kind of uncomfortable to eat while lying down! So, after the drinks, we had to move to a table. El Palmar restaurant was average, and the lobby bar served some nice marlin appetizers during happy hour. Siv tried a great Mexican dish for breakfast with dried beef and scrambled eggs and that was delicious!

A sampling of the Resort Food

We tried some authentic Mexican food at some of the downtown and Marina restaurants. Las Palomas in Downtown had a great view of the bay and the Malecón and some great strong Margaritas, and really authentic food. They are famous for breakfast, but we never made it there for breakfast! Fajita Banana in Marina Vallarta was okay, 2 for 1 Margaritas and very friendly service, and great fajitas.

Some local food

We also tried some true local food, fresh oysters in a beach front stall, which they just caught and they break those open right in front of you. The biggest oysters we have ever had! I’m sure they had at least 10 health code violations, but it was just so tempting!

Roadside Oyster bar

And we had the most memorable meal ever, at the Cafe de Artistes, which was so great it deserves its own blog entry!

Conclusion

Well, we had the greatest time in PV, even though it is supposedly high season, the resort and the town were not that crowded… may be because it was the Superbowl weekend? We had the most relaxing time, though I think PV is best suited for groups, the nightlife was just amazing, from what we saw while returning from dinner downtown, the crowd was wild! It will be great fun renting a house with a group of people, going out and getting rowdy.

Check out more pictures at http://sigsiv.smugmug.com/gallery/2437057

Technorati tags: Vacation, Travel, Puerto Vallarta Travel

Comments

2 Responses to “Puerto Vallarta - An awesome birthday trip”

Dave says:

February 19, 2008 at 12:39 pm

sounds like an awesome trip…I will be going to puerto vallarta on holiday in a few weeks.

Reply
amber says:

August 4, 2008 at 3:22 am

Thanks for posting this - very helpful !! My second time going to PV next week and got some great tips from you plus the pics were helpful too!

I love PV

Reply