Bill and Jackie's Puerto Vallarta Trip

Hot! Hot! Hot!

Jackie and I went to Puerto Vallarta in August, 2006. Actually, we were in Nuevo Vallarta, which is a private resort area about 20 miles north of Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific coast of Mexico. This was a trip for the two of us that was supposed to happen in May but had to be postponed, and it was already postponed from the previous November. We knew August was during their rainy season, so we were more concerned about rain than heat.

We weren't sure we were even going to get there. Our flight was the first Saturday after the ban on liquids and gels was put into effect. We had a 5:40am flight out of Boston, and when we called the evening before, the recording at the airlines said to arrive two hours before your flight's departure time. This meant we got up in the middle of the night, showered, caught a hotel shuttle to Logan Airport, and arrived at 3:45am to total chaos. The airport terminal already had about 1000 people jammed into it for several different airlines. The problem was the passengers were arriving hours ahead of time, but there were no personnel for any airline. We got into the end of a very long line for Continental passengers, and figured there was no way we were making our flight. At 4:00, the airline employees showed up and the check-in counters opened, and new passengers were arriving faster than they could process them.

I started bugging the Continental personnel who were moving up and down the line answering questions, asking if we'd make our flight. Others on that same flight to Houston were asking the same thing. They kept assuring us there was plenty of time. It didn't take them long to realize there wasn't. They decided to dedicate most of their check-in stations for that flight and formed a special line for passengers on that 5:40 Houston flight. Then when they realized those passengers were bottlenecked in the security lines, they got a separate security station opened just for the Houston passengers. We made the plane with about 10 minutes to spare, and somehow all the passengers made the flight. While the airlines deserve criticism for not anticipating these types of problems, I have to give Continental credit for finding a way to get everyone on that plane.

By early afternoon we were at the airport in Puerto Vallarta, and my first reaction was "My goodness, it's hot." Which was not a surprise at all. We caught a taxi and headed for our resort.

The resort

We stayed at the Allegro Nuevo Vallarta. If I understand it correctly, Nuevo Vallarta is all private property, chock full of resorts and golf courses. There are security gates to pass through, speed bumps everywhere, and one resort after another. There was just one small shopping center near the Allegro. Other than that, there really is no reason to leave the resort, and the only reason we went to the shopping center during the week was to use the ATM, since there wasn't one at the resort.

Nuevo Vallarta is in a different state (Nayarit) than Puerto Vallarta (Jalisco). It's even in a different time zone, but the resorts all stay on the same time as Puerto Vallarta to avoid confusion, especially with the departing flights at the airport.

Upon arriving at the Allegro, it was a nice enough looking place. The check-in desk took care of us pretty quickly, but they passed us off to a woman who took us to her desk in the lobby. She showed us a map of the resort and where everything was located. She told us about the different tours we could take. Some were out to sea, some into Puerto Vallarta, and some into the mountains or jungle. She offered us two free trips if we'd attend the meeting the next morning. At no time did she use the words "time share," but we knew that's what it was. So we set it up for the next morning.

We got to our room, unpacked, threw on our swimsuits, and debated about sunscreen. It was late afternoon. How intense could the sun be? We didn't put any sunscreen on and headed for the beach. We passed the pools. There are two of them, a toddler pool and a larger pool. Both were stuffed to the gills with kids, and it was loud. The beach was just past the pools, and it's a nice wide beach. The beach chairs are all lined up in rows under the palapas, 50 feet from the water. We pulled a couple of them towards the water, and found the sand incredibly hot. We quickly plopped into the beach chairs and started soaking up the sun. It wasn't long before I was breaking out the sunscreen.

To make it to the ocean, we had to leave our sandals on because the sand was too hot and the distance to the water was too far. Once we hit the water, it was nice and . . . warm. I wouldn't have been surprised if the water temperature was 90 degrees. Nuevo Vallarta, and Puerto Vallarta for that matter, both sit on Banderas Bay (where humpback whales come at a different time of the year). It's a large bay, so it's pretty much open to the Pacific. That means a steady amount of wave action, which kicks up sediment from the bottom, and the water isn't that clear blue or green you see in the Caribbean. In the areas where rivers that originate in the mountains empty into the bay, the water is brown.

Even warm, the water was refreshing and cooled us off for a while. The beach wasn't nearly as crowded as the pool area, but there were still a fair number of kids on the beach and playing in the water. After a few hours, we were hungry and headed off to the restaurant for dinner.

Eating and drinking

The restaurant the resort was open extended hours for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a buffet restaurant, which a different type of cuisine for every evening. We could find something good each time, with plenty of fruit for breakfast, salads for lunch, and fish or different types of meat at dinner. Being an open air restaurant meant we could enjoy the breeze, if there was one, and enjoy looking at the bay. It was still incredibly hot and noisy. The restaurant is very large to accommodate the many guests at the resort, most of whom appeared to be families. Like the beach and the pool, there were children everywhere, from crying infants and toddlers to others scampering about while you ate. We learned that this was the last week before school started, and it was a popular time for Mexican families to take vacation. School was about to start back in the States too, and there were a fair amount of American families at the resort.

We made a point of trying to get tables on the edges of the restaurant, closer to the breeze and far enough away from families so Jackie and I could carry on a conversation. For the most part, we got used to the noise in the restaurant or on the beach. We usually picked beach chairs towards the southern end of the resort. They were less crowded there, and closer to the beach bar and restrooms.

Being an all-inclusive resort meant plenty of food to eat and drinks to consume. With the heat, we consumed a fair amount of drinks. As the week progressed, I tended to try to stay in the shade while Jackie edged her way into the sun for a while. We've been mastering how to kill a week on a beach for years. Our beach vacations are a means to relax and enjoy each other's company away from our kids. We spend a most of the week doing nothing in particular, chatting together on the beach, reading our books, cooling off in the water, and exploring up and down the beach.

The beach in Nuevo Vallarta is a long, wide beach. It's great for walking in either direction, passing other resorts or time share condominiums in the process. The beach is heavily used, though, so you won't find much in the way of shells or sea life. Between the beach, the food, and the drinks, we had plenty to keep ourselves occupied.

The room

Our room was nothing spectacular, but we don't typically need anything extravagant. For the most part it met our needs. It was clean, roomy enough, decent bed, and a shower (Jackie took hot showers, and I took cold ones to cool off). The room had air conditioning, but we couldn't control it. It was kept at a certain temperature and while there was a switch to control the fan speed, it didn't do anything. The room wasn't hot, but it wasn't cool enough for our tastes either. Each night we'd throw the blanket and bedspread on the floor and just sleep under the top sheet. Other people complained the beds were hard, but we didn't find it too uncomfortable.

The worst part of the room was the noise. The resort is built in a U-shape with the hallways running down the middle of the U. The hallways were tile, not carpeted (not that you'd want carpet in the tropics), and it amplified any noise. Unfortunately, there was plenty of that. At just about any hour from early morning to late at night, there were kids playing, running, screaming, hollering, crying, or adults calling after them, conversing loudly through doors, or coming back drunk after a night out partying. With our door closed, we could easily understand normal conversations in the hallway. If we were sleeping when someone yelled down the hall to someone else, we were jarred awake. The mother walking her crying baby up and down the hallway near midnight had to be my favorite.

The time share presentation

This wasn't as bad as I expected it might be, but we went in knowing we weren't going to buy anything. They don't call it a time share, they call it a vacation club, or something like that. If I was interested in buying one, this wouldn't be the resort I'd choose. They were obviously disappointed we didn't purchase anything despite their full court press. It did have two benefits, though. One, they didn't bother us the rest of the week. Two, we got two free tours from wasting 90 minutes with them.

Puerto Vallarta

The free tour we selected was the day trip to Puerto Vallarta and points south of there. I expected the usual "shop at these souvenirs stores" and "eat lunch at this restaurant" where I'm sure the tour company or guide get a cut. I'm ok with that. Our guide, though, was very friendly and knowledgeable. While he showed us the obvious tourist spots, he also was insistent that we see "the real Mexico." We wandered up the narrow streets, alleys, and staircases that wind through private home in the hills above the waterfront, and he took us through the areas where the locals shop and eat, not where the tourists shop and eat. While the waterfront was beautifully done, I enjoyed being up in the hills. Looking back north across the bay towards Nuevo Vallarta, we got a good idea just how big Banderas Bay is.

From there we headed south of the city where the jungle comes all the way down to the waterfront. There's a tourist area where the movie Predator was filmed. We thought if the kids had been with us, they'd have enjoyed that. There was a place with an aerial ropes course. We ate at a little restaurant off the road near a river. I really can't describe it more than that. What I found there, and we've found in our other trips to Mexico, is that the local restaurants serve much better Mexican food than the resorts do.

We passed several resorts during the day. They were all pretty close to the waterfront. Some were closer to the city (if not right within the city) while others were more secluded. It was hard to tell what these resorts looked like. The resorts were between the road and the beach, so we only saw the back side of most of the resorts. One very nice place we saw was south of Puerto Vallarta in Mismaloya. I believe this resort is Barcelo La Jolla, and it looks beautiful looking down on it.

Evenings

We're not huge party animals, so we didn't spend our evenings looking for nightlife in Puerto Vallarta (I think there might be one nightclub in Nuevo Vallarta). We were content to take a late and lazy dinner, watch the sun set into the Pacific, and catch the evening show put on by the resort's fun club. Some of these were more entertaining than others, and most were geared towards families. As with everything else, tons of children were present, even though these shows ran until 10:00 or later.

Once the sun set, the mosquitoes came out in force. Not a fan of either swarms of mosquitoes or the bug repellent we'd have to slather on, sometimes the only recourse was to head back to our room. Usually we stuck it out and caught the show, because returning to the room meant putting up with the hallway noise for a few more hours.

Going home

I would have liked to stay longer in Puerto Vallarta, done some more tours and more exploring, and even spend more time at the beach. Just not at the Allegro. It's not that we didn't enjoy it. The beach was nice, the food was good, and the staff was very friendly and helpful. It was just too crowded, too noisy, and it had too many children. We didn't leave as relaxed as we usually are when we go away together for a week.

I'd also like to try a place closer to Puerto Vallarta, preferably where we can walk to shops and restaurants that aren't on the resort.

Getting home proved to be interesting. Too many of my airline travels are too interesting for my tastes. We had a 12:30 flight on Continental, and when we didn't hear anything about boarding as noon rolled by, I suspected everything was going to go as planned. It turns out the plane had a mechanical malfunction, and they towed it away to a hangar for repairs. They booked some of the passengers on the 2:00 flight. When we weren't one of those, they said everyone else would be booked onto the 3:30 flight. They told us to go to lunch (and they gave us a voucher for it) and when we came back, they'd have boarding passes for us for that flight and our new connections in Houston.

When we came back from lunch, they had boarding passes for some people, but not us and a few others. That's when I pointed out to Jackie that our original plane was back in its place on the tarmac. They rushed those who had new boarding passes to the 3:30 flight and rushed the rest of us back to the original plane. They assured us that boarding passes for our new connecting flights would be waiting for us in Houston. It turns out that our flight had 9 people on it. Pick a seat, any seat. The flight attendant had nothing to do. She kept asking if anyone wanted anything. Both the original flight, which we were on, and the 3:30 flight arrived in Houston at the same time. As we cleared immigration and headed to baggage claim, sure enough, there was a Continental representative waiting for us with new boarding passes. Kudos to Continental for dodging another bullet and getting us home.

I'm not sure we'd return to Puerto Vallarta any time in the near future. I wouldn't go back in the August heat, that's for sure. As for it being the rainy season, it rained one evening and that was it. The problem is the Pacific coast of Mexico is a long day of flying from New England and the tickets are expensive. I'd like to go back, someday, though, and explore more of the area and enjoy the beach.