Mayan Palace Vallarta

Great Place in a Great Location

My husband, my two kids, and I stayed at the Mayan Palace in Puerto during Christmas week. To sum it up, this resort is a excellent place to stay,and I highly recommend. Although we are not owners, we have stayed at two other Mayan Palace resorts in different Mexico locations, so we knew what to expect at the resort for the most part. I often read trip advisor reviews before and after I have stayed somewhere. Surprising, how different the experiences or perceptions by guests can be. Here’s few things about our recent trip that may help. When we checked in, at our request, they let us look at 3 different rooms to choose what view we liked best for what they had to offer to us. We turned down a pool view, and a partial ocean view to get our original room which was on a higher floor in the main lobby building which overlooked the Marina, the mountains, and interesting sites on the road and entrance below. (It was not noisy from the road with the patio doors shut.) The best part of that building is that there are large balconies with chairs that you can sit out on, which increases your “living” space. The other buildings closer to the pool and ocean do not have functional balconies. We had the one bedroom unit that works well with 2 adults and 2 kids of any age. The lock off unit next to us was not occupied, so no noise from there. In general, the whole place is quiet unless there are people in the halls right outside your door. Nice big king bedroom, California style bathroom (sinks inside and outside the bathroom) The living room has couches that become twin beds when you remove the pillows. There are also trundle beds in the couches to sleep an additional two, but that seems too low to the ground for me. The couch-beds and the regular beds are too hard for our tastes, but tolerable. The rooms are cleaned daily and extra touches like folded towel Swans and chocolates. The kitchenette is okay, but like others have said, it’s really a microwave, refrigerator, and sink station. But why cook when there is so much good food to be had at the nearby Marina restaurants? We had coffee, snacks, beverages and some breakfast items in our room. We had wonderful food at the resort with one exception - the special Hawaiian dinner was mediocre compared to everything else, but even that was a good experience with the entertainment and open bar. (By the way, you can drink the water at the resort since it is purified.) The expansive breakfast buffet at the onsite restaurant was 2 for the price of 1 (about $8 adult each; kids half price) every day if you got there before 9 a.m. We are early risers, so no problem for us. I especially ejoyed the homemade corn quesadillas grilled up for me and the specialty meat dishes, even for breakfast. Chicken, beef, and pork were all lean and there were delicious sauces.Lots of fruit, pastries, and many other choices for traditional American breakfasts. Many of the evening specialty buffets were also 2 for 1 (which worked out be about $12 a person).
What about time share presentations. No time share pressures for us! When you check in they route you to the “desk” where you are told about the tour for a few moments. We said “not interested”, said we have been on one before, and that “no, we didn’t want to be called later in the week”. We were never called or approached again and wore our “non-owner” bracelets all week. Owners and non-owners are not treated differently, by the way. We met some friends who were “owners” and shared experiences daily. No difference. We even had a better room with the view and the balcony. By the way, if you do the tour, it will be 2.5 to 3 hours and not 90 minutes. So plan on that. You will get 10% off your bill at the end of the week, plus other freebies. They will be pushy to try to make you buy, but you just say no.

For Christmas week, it felt like the place was half-full. Always good lounge chairs available at the pool. A mini-mart, a good pizza place, and a taco place are across the street. The Marina is a 5 minute walk where you have access to 15 or more restaurants. No need for a car. We rode the bus alot (50 cents), took a taxi once or twice, and had a pre-arranged roundtrip car ride to airport which is only 2 miles away. The resort is luxiorious and the grounds are meticulously maintained. Public areas - pool, bathrooms are kept clean all day long by staff. The poolside menu is pretty good and prices were about $6 to 9 per entree. Although I prefer to eat Mexican food in Mexico, my family said the hamburgers by the pool were awesome. I read on one of these trip reports that they thought that tips were being added to all their “charges to room” which is not true and is probably a mix up on their part because there is a tax charge of 15% on all bills. Plenty of adult and kid activities all day long. There is not a long beach to take long walks down (if this is your thing go to the Mayan Palace at Puerto Penasco). Vendors on the immediate beach are not pushy nor plentiful. They have their little stands set up, and they stay away if you ignore them.
Two tips not having to anything to do with the resort but will help you on your Puerto trip, after you go through customs at the Puerto airport, you will be funneled through a hall of hundreds of people trying “to help you with something”. These are timeshare sales people no matter if they tell you that they are your taxi service or whatever. Just get through that hall and you will be in the “real” part of the airport that has the rental cars, taxi services, hotel shuttles, etc. Also, on your way home at the Puerto airport, do not buy any liquids (duty free tequila, perfime, hot sauce, water, whatever) in the airport, even after you have gone though security. They will not allow you to bring liquids in carry-ons and they check your bags as you are boarding the plane and will take them from you or offer to check that bag for you - which is likely to be your purse or a back pack that you do not want to check at that point. Then they keep the liquids.