Barceló Puerto Vallarta reviews
9658 TripAdvisor reviews
Family of 5 for spring break, an honest review from a mom????
ambersewczak (Erie, Colorado) on Mar 23, 2024
Just returned from a 5 day stay. Past reviews made us VERY nervous. Take reviews with a grain of salt. Our trip was wonderful! Here is ours????: Transportation: We are a family of 5, 2 adults 3 kids under age 12. We had a wonderful say!! What a beautiful location. Starting with transportation from airport to hotel, we booked online through TPV it was approx. $61. We were picked up in a very nice large, clean SUV. Approx. 1 hr to resort. Hotel: At the hotel, check in was quick. Adults got cold champagne! We were given bracelets that worked as your room key, very convenient. We booked a Premium Family Suite. We did not have very much luggage and opted to walk to our room vs use bellboy. We were given very little information i.e. amenities, restaurants, how to book , but quickly figured it out ourselves. When we arrived to our room we thought the power was out, however my husband figured out you needed an actual room key to insert right on the wall, when you walk in to keep the lights on??. Our room was spacious 2 bedrooms , both with a king bed in 2 bathrooms. Nothing special about the rooms could definitely use some remodeling for cracked tiles etc. but we don't spend very much time in our rooms. It did the job. Some rooms include 2 twin beds, ours had a king for kids which worked fine The 3 kids easily fit in the king bed. The balcony view is amazing! One of the bests views I had staying at a resort! The grounds are beautiful. Well taken care of, lush. We enjoyed the smaller hotel vs. the larger ones in cancun. You could easily walk around the resort and not get lost! Pools: There are 4 pools: a small children's one that is well shaded with a small water slide that my kids enjoyed, even though they are not small. Then there are 2 large pools. One adults only (there's no swim up bar) And 1 large family pool with a swim up bar (because you need that with kids????) and pool entertainment. The pools are heated! The 4th pool is small, very warm and has a volleyball net. All the pools, with the exception of the children's pool are deep, maybe 4-5 ft, so if you have smaller children or children that cannot swim you may need floaties which you can purchase there at gift shop or on the beach or bring your own. There are a large amount of people and families that get up early to reserve chairs. We would grab chairs before breakfast around 8a every morning and had no issues. The day we left we slept in and did not get chairs until 9a, they were mostly taken. Drinks/Food: We arrived in the evening so ate at the buffet the first night. There were many options, everyone found something they liked. The next morning after 9am, we booked reservations at ala cart. Even though we were premium, we could not book more than 2 nights at a time. This was not a big deal as I went back the following morning and booked our third night. But don't advertise premium can book all reservations day 1 if you can't??. We booked reservations at Don Cojite (spanish), Los Arcos (Steak and seafood), and Capri (Italian). The earliest reservations available all nights was 8:30pm. That worked out okay for us as we would get room service before dinner as a snack, so no one was hungry. Room service is included for premium and you can order alcohol. Room service came quickly and was good. For lunch , we ate at Los Arcos everyday. We would order off of the menu and when we were waiting for our food go to the taco bar. Al pastor tacos are delicious, we had them everyday! There is self serve ice cream for dessert or a snack! Overall food was pretty good. Better than reviews I have read. We enjoyed the Italian and Steak and seafood restaurant the best. If you can't find something you like, just ask and they will find something for you??. Sickness: No one got sick!!! We were really worried about this based on past reviews! We ate steak, seafood, chicken, pork, buffet, ice cream, and drank alcohol. We drank the water from the restaurants, brushed our teeth with faucet water...just don't drink faucet water. Entertainment is kind of lacking at the pool vs other resorts we have stayed at. The music is extremely loud if you are on the side by the beach and the speaker. So if it's too loud , go to the other side?? Since our reservations were at 8:30 PM every night, we unfortunately missed most of the evening entertainment as it starts at 9 PM. Beach: The views on the beach are spectacular. The hotel is nestled in a little cove. The ocean is colder then Cancun, which is expected based on the location of PV, but the kids did not mind. There is no sargassum like In Cancun/Riviera Maya. Do explore the beach, make sure you apply bug spray or purchase some and you'll be fine. We made our first trip down to the beach and got bit quite a bit. Someone recommended buying bug spray across the street from the hotel at the local pharmacy, it's only $5 vs $30 at gift shop. You can literally see the pharmacy frontier hotel, very close! They also sell sunscreen if you need some. The family just wanted to relax and were not interested in excursions. But Jack Sparrow is the way to go if you are looking for something to do. He is so nice and so knowledgeable and not a sales person. Very reasonable prices because we did check. When you walk down to the beach by he is located in any little booth there, you can't miss him. We talked with him each day. We were lucky to see wales right from the beach. They migrate soon. There are several places for massages on the beach if you are looking for that. I got a massage $30 for 1 hr. It was great. Just look for the signs, there's at least 3 of them on the beach for different places. Staff: The staff is all lovely. If someone does a great job don't be afraid to tip them.They all work very hard. We tipped in US because that's what we had. Sometimes you may have slow service , but your on vacation , so just enjoy it. Safe: We uses the safe and had no issues. It is apparent, there are a lot of people having issues, that's truelya bummer! Back to the airport: The day before you leave go to the bellman up front. They will reserve a taxi for you, for the following day to airport. We had 5 people so we got a van. It was $50. Over all we had a great trip for our family of 5. The rooms are a great layout for a family and the separate living spaces is nice. The food and drinks were pretty good. Sure some things were better than others. The location is beautiful. Enjoy your vacation. Tips: Bugspray, lots of sunscreen, stay hydrated. Don't get burned the first day. Bring tubes/floaties or purchase from beach.
Would Not Recommend!
Danielle E (Calgary, Alberta) on Mar 23, 2024
Was disappointed by our stay and definitely wouldn’t go back. I’ll start out by saying, like many others that have left reviews, myself, my husband and our 2 year old ALL got sick while on this trip. Throwing up and spent at least 24 hours each stuck in the room & bathroom. Other family members that were also on the trip with us and arrived a week before us for a 2 week stay also suffered from this. After seeing all the other reviews with this same issue it unfortunately seems less likely to be “travellers tummy” and more likely an issue with the food at the resort. The positives: the staff! They were all 10/10 and so friendly! Cesar in the premium lounge was amazing as well as our server for most of the week, Sarah. The pool areas were gorgeous and we loved that there was an adult pool, family pool and also a pool for the little ones. The rooms are very spacious! We upgraded to a family suite so our 2 year old could have his own room and we had tons of space! Even the regular rooms were huge. We had stunning ocean views and the sunsets were gorgeous! The negatives: terrible wifi everywhere on the resort, food was just average (not very much variety), not much happening after dinner for nightlife or entertainment so it got a little boring. We paid and upgraded to premium and were SO disappointed with that. It is not worth the money to upgrade unless you’re picky about premium liquors because that’s basically all you get. We didn’t get half the things on the list we were supposed to - we never once during our week stay did we get turn down service, we didn’t get premium level check in, no swimming towels in the room, no “surprise for children”, etc. Was most definitely a waste of money! The location of this resort has pros and cons - it’s definitely a longer distance so if you like to go off resort it’s a trek! We didn’t so it wasn’t an issue for us. We liked the fact that it’s more in the mountains than Nuevo Vallarta and Bucerias but unfortunately that came with the consequence of bugs! We all came home covered in itchy bug bites that bug spray didn’t help fend off. We were excited about the resort being tucked into a bay and thought this would make for calmer waters and better ocean swimming! Unfortunately there are tons of boats docked, the beach is so small, and the water comes up all the way to the top at times. So the beach was less than ideal. Unfortunately was not the trip we hoped for and for the price we were disappointed.
The good and the not so good
Skinner1224 (Austin, Texas) on Mar 22, 2024
As every review here has said (accurately) the staff is absolutely the best (Cassandra at the front desk was amazing), and the food (dinners) and drinks are absolutely awful. The "specialty" restaurants were lovely and the food was presented beautifully, but in every instance, was just not good, as in, we didn't eat more than a few bites. The meat was over-cooked (Sitting under heat lamps). We could not cut our steak at the Spanish restaurant, and at the steak house, we asked the waiter if the ribeye was tender and he smiled and told us to go with the shrimp or chicken. Shrimp was good at the Los Arcos restaurant (but they do not de-vein the shrimp, so that grossed me out). The view of the sunset from that spot, however, was wonderful....everyone there is so very nice, and the breakfast buffet was great, lunch in the grill was fine, all dinners were just such an unnecessary disappointment. The drinks all have an aspartame after taste to them (some cheap mix they use so that all drinks mostly taste alike), and the "juice" in the drinks was a Sunny D type con syrupy beverage. Again, if you are not VIP, you will not get a good drink, I just sort of gave up, and I love a good cocktail! Our room was lovely, the balcony was lovely, and the bed was comfortable. The pools were great and well-maintained and we always found a chair but did have to put our towels out on the way to breakfast. The beach was way too small and not really swimmable, so that was also sort of a bummer. We did enjoy hiring a boat to take us snorkeling to Los Arcos. We would likely not come back to this property, just because some of the joy of vacation is enjoying nice food and drinks, and this place could easily do so much better in both departments.
Skip gift shop
R1574JZsimonn on Mar 22, 2024
Very good resort. Hoping to see variation in the shows.. ie magic, acrobat shows etc instead of all dance. Great job to Anahi, Alonso from entertainment, Edgar from bar, Adan who served us at buffet and snack bar. Bad service from 2 VERY rude gift shop workers, who seem hard done by everytime we ask for the pingpong paddles and pool balls. I will not mention their name and let you investigate for yourself.
Beautiful resort, food lacking
Kmhill1000 on Mar 22, 2024
Overall we had a wonderful stay. The location and views were beautiful. We even saw a whale from the beach! The view from the buffet restaurant was wonderful. The entertainment staff work hard and were very friendly and engaging. Alonso, Anahi and Mario were very fun as were Nicole and Wendy! They were always smiling and energetic. The night shows were wonderful but maybe more variety would be nice. A lot of them were twirly dances. The gym was ok but way too much equipment in a very small space. The rooms were surprisingly large and ours was cleaned very well every day. One downside is we found the beds to be very hard but they could improve this a lot with a soft mattress topper. In terms of food we found the selection to be quiet low compared to other Barcelos we've stayed at. More vegetarian options would be nice and maybe even just a cheese platter in the evening would be helpful. Another suggestion would be to have more options available to make sandwiches at lunch as this was very limited. There were many meat options, just not a lot of other protein sources in the buffet. We found a lot of the dishes to be a bit too heavy on the grease or too creamy as well. Other Barcelos we've been to had streamed vegetables as an option. The servers were very friendly and we particularly noticed Adan as he was always very friendly and gave great service and was very fast. My son noticed Ricardo at the pool bar was always very fast and friendly. The service at the Cantina was great, especially from Edgar! He was always so friendly and made great drinks that we would often skip the lines at the pool bar and go into the Cantina to get our drinks. Not the resorts fault but the mini mosquitos are very nasty ... Bring bug spray. I had over 20 bites on one leg from the knee down. (Apparently only 1 in 4 people are allergic to these bugs ... My husband was fine for the most part). Captain Jack and his crew were amazing! The snorkeling about 5 min from the resort was perfect.