Mayan Palace Vallarta

Great hotel, great location

We came prepared to dodge any timeshare solicitation. We firmly said no and they did not bother us again after check in. That took care of any unpleasant experience that influenced the negative reviews in this website. Nonetheless a lady placed wristbands on us stating that we needed to wear those to be allowed around the premises. Baloney. As soon as we got to our room, we cut those, kept those in our pockets to avoid looking like tourist dorks. No problem. Tip: at the airport someone will hustle you to waiting taxis for a $15 fare which you will pay at a toll booth. Listen to other reviewers who walked straight to the curb and got the ride for $5-8, depending on the zones. Taxis have no meters. You negotiate the price.

Other than the heat and humidity, the mosquitoes, a mild earthquake one night and timeshare salespeople hustling everywhere, our vacation was just dandy. Mayan Palace was clean and beautiful. We got a big 6th floor suite at the second building near the beach, with the balcony overlooking the expansive pools, part of the beach, the adjacent Westin Regina, the lush mountains and the city center in the distance. What a sight. The suite had one bedroom with a king size bed, two separate vanities, and a fully supplied kitchen (no dishwasher) plus really nice furniture and tiled floors. Bed was firm and OK. AC worked well with ceiling fans, a welcome respite from the heat outdoors. The suite was cleaned twice daily with turndown service on some nights (Thanks to Aurelia.) Safe was available for a fee (was it $25?.) Balcony did not allow seating but you can plop a chair with the sliding door opened.

Downstairs by the elevators were the convenience store/internet cafe (no DSL in the room but you can connect your laptop here, rate was $5 an hour), the nice Bakal restaurant where they offered 2 fo1 buffets, the gym (did not go there as we sweated just by standing), the self-service laundry ($5 per load, you get the detergent from the pool booth) and a jewelry store. We ate only once in this resort, a 2 for 1 seafood buffet at Bakal that was good (it worked out to about $20 per person with drinks.) On the second day, we went to Walmart and loaded up on groceries for $40 that lasted for the entire stay including all breakfasts as we woke up late every day. There are plenty and good variety of places to eat in PV, mostly reasonable ($8-12) unless you want to go gourmet or trendy and willing spend over $20 a head.

The cool thing with this resort is its location. The bus stops up front and for 50 cents or 5 pesos you can go to Malecon/Centro and everywhere else. It is a 10 minute leisurely walk to the marina where they have plenty of restaurants and shops (go visit Kim Moore at PV Charter Dreams and book your tours there. We did the San Sebastian tour for $55 per person and got the chance to visit an authentic old mining town with a coffee plantation and the Agave mountain. Lunch was provided and that was good.)

The hotel was well kept and we saw the staff cleaning all the time. The grounds were immaculate and the foliage were just huge and thriving in the heat and humidity (same plants in our backyard in Northern Cal are stunted dwarf equivalents.) They were even repainting the building. I posted pictures here and plenty more on my blog (washynilly.blogspot.com).

Other stuff, there were pools for kids and for adults only . The staff held daytime activities by the main pool but those were sparsely attended. (Tip: don’t lounge under the coconut trees, I saw a large coconut fall.) The resort’s beachfront was not that large but adequate and not crowded at all. Staff was courteous and friendly as were people in all of PV. However, if one appears too friendly on the street, watch out! (timeshare.) Check out channel 40 (?) around 10 PM, it shows mild porn. TV had 50 or so channels and several were in English. Re shopping, there’s an upscale mall in Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta. For groceries and medications (Viagra, guys), we found Gigante (located along the main boulevard) cheaper than Walmart. Avoid Bucerias. We were told the flea market was cheap but it turned out a bust.

All in all, a fun vacation and we will not hesitate to come back here after first checking out the Mayan in Acapulco, maybe next year.