Hello. Here is the review I wrote for tripadvisor. Hope it can be of help to other travelers here.


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Reception:
We arrived at 11 AM, but our room was not available till after 3. We
were wearing jeans for the plane and there is no air conditioned part
to the hotel except the rooms and 2 restaurants that aren't open for
lunch.
If you are staying there, either pack an easily accessible change of
clothes/bathing suit or even better, arrive toward the evening. You'll
be miserable otherwise.

Beach:
Beach is nice. It wouldn't be fair for me to try to compare it to the
Caribbean so I will not bother. They have nice loungers, but no good
shade there except for that provided by palm trees. Catamaran,
kayaks, and boogie boards are included. The guy in charge of them has
a nasty/lazy attitude though and only 1 hr per day is allowed. The
catamaran was my favorite - only problem is that it's only available
between 12 and 4 (the hottest possible time of the day) - i wore a
T-shirt under my life jacket to protect my shoulders, but my legs got
cinged one of the days we went on it. They also charge $25 for a
lesson if you do not know how to use it. Save your money, it's not
complicated. We figured it out on our own; it's merely a matter of
physics. one day we even went far out enough to see a dolphin!!!
There are many vendors there, but they don't really bother you if you
say "no thanks".
There are jelly fish and after 4 people got stung one day I was a
little afraid to go in since you cannot see them coming with the
murkiness.

Pools:
There are 2 pools. There is good shade around them. The water did
get really hot 2 of the days we were there, but there's not much that
can be done about that. They seemed clean enough though. The adult
pool has a swim up bar and some cool areas made for lounging while
partly submerged in water (very thoughtful). The family pool had 2
nice looking slides for the children. Separate entertainment
staff/games at both too. Of course there were still kids in the adult
pool - I fault the selfish parents for that though, not the staff. The
staff made announcements to ask the kids to leave every few hours
or so.

Rooms:
We stayed on the 6th floor right at the end.
Since there is only one set of elevators only in the middle of the U
shaped hotel, we always took the stairs (it's good for you), but i
don't think walking o the elevator would have been so bad if we had
preferred that.
The balcony was great - even with a small drying rack. The view was
beautiful - we could see the other side of the hotel, the ocean, and
the mountains. AC worked well.
Minibar had a dispenser with full sized bottles of Vodka, Tequila,
Gin, and Rum. Then also a mini fridge stocked with Pepsi, 7-UP,
Tri-Soda (best mineral water I've had - this was my favorite), and
Coronas. Restocking occurred every 2 days.
Safe was in the closet. Someone complained that the same safe key
works for multiple rooms - I think this is False. What actually
happens is that you get a removable lock with a key. This is why
you could possibly take the same given lock and key to a different
room if moved.
The room also had a TV with a sufficient number of English channels
and a good sized bathroom.
Sound carries very strongly there. We had a family with a baby next
door for 2 of the days there and were not only able to hear the baby
crying, but also the squeak toy the parents used to calm it down.
The worst part was the bed. It was not only hard, but also lumpy. The
sheets are not cotton - they're polyester, and the bottom sheet has
some sort of plastic lining. This feels absolutely disgusting!!! And
when I got sunburned, it was unbearable. Felt like I was getting a
friction burn every time I tried to turn in the night. The small
lumpy pillows we had smelled like mildew - I was more comfortable
using a towel instead of a pillow. Overall, did not get one good
night's sleep there. The good thing is that we were able to get up
early in the morning to catch the best time to swim at the beach since
there was no desire to stay in that bed at all.

Restaurants:
Food was mediocre. Comparable to a college cafeteria at best. the
claim to 4 restaurants is misleading. Don Emilliano and Donna
Adelita, right across from each other have the exact same food and
only differ slightly in decor - it's really just 1 buffet restaurant
with 2 rooms. It's also the only one (or 2) with AC. They serve
breakfast and dinner only. The breakfast there was actually my
favorite meal of the day - nice omelet/eggs station, small selection
of fruits, and a cappuccino machine was all I needed to be happy.
Not much to be said for dinner there.
Nayarit - the restaurant between the hotel and the beach serves a
buffet lunch and reservation only for dinner. It has no AC and lunch
has really poor choices. We never really enjoyed lunch there - just
ate enough salad or pasta to not be hungry and moved on. The first
day we arrived to the hotel was actually our 5 year anniversary. I
had e-mailed in advance to ask for a reservation at Nayarit as an
exception (usually you have to get up at 7 am to ask for one the day
of). That request was lost, but we were obliged anyway when asking
nicely at reception. We dressed up and went for our 6:30 reservation.
With no AC we sweat through our clothes before we even got our salad.
However we really knew we were in for disappointment when we got the
bread basket. It looked like nice hot buttered bread nice wrapped in
a napkin like at most nice restaurants but first taste didn't seem
quite right; upon inspection I can say I'm 95% certain the bread was
cheap hamburger buns cut into strips and dripped with butter. When
they say it's a-la-cart too, they actually mean that you eat what they
bring you, not that there's a menu of choice. so they just brought
out the meat on scuers in an attempt at Brazilian style like meal -
you got a small piece of chicken, sausage, beef and ostrich. the
chicken was the only good one. The dessert looked very pretty - like
tiramisu - but tasted like something completely synthetic and
horrible. We ate very little and went to the buffet afterwards - and
were surprised to find normal bread there!!! We never bothered with
the reservations again.
La Botana, the "steakhouse" by the beach, had average hamburgers, hot
dogs, and pizza as well as a soft taco station at lunch. The corn
tortillas were good, but the meats were nothing to speak of. At
dinner, they had steak which tasted okay, but only if you got it
straight off the grill as it was cooked and pretty good chicken. They
also have a guy with a pretty good voice and a keyboard providing
entertainment in the evening there.

The Entertainment:
I thought the entertainment was good. The staff worked hard. There
were pool games for both adults and kids, some beach volleyball and
soccer games and rifle shooting for the adults too. There was live
music in the evenings prior to the shows - that was nice. Prior to
that there were some kid shows for kids to get on stage and do
something cute - i didn't watch but it seemed like it was good for the
children. The evening shows were good - nice costumes and good eye
candy, but nothing spectacular as far as dancing is concerned.
Tuesday night had the best show. The animation team is very lively
and good looking - you'll get extra attention if you're young, blond,
and female.
The disco is a sad sad place. the entrance smells twice as bad as the
bathrooms that are next door. the music is mostly hip hop and
riggatone. the DJ does not know how to make a transition between
songs and most of the "dancing" is just drunk booty shaking/grinding
from sad drunk people pretending to be teenagers.

The bars:
Bars are good and bartenders there work very hard. It took me a
little while to figure out that the mixed drinks tended to come
without alcohol unless specified. A lot of kids enjoy the virgin
daiquiris and pina coladas though so that's nice for them. No drinks
are served on the beach and if you take one out there you need to take
care to bring it back.

The spa:
My husband won a 15 minute massage at a pool game and gave it to me.
Deep tissue massages are done under a canopy on the beach. I got mine
from a guy named Miguel and it was HEAVENLY! He worked some sort of
magic on my shoulders and repaired all the knots that were formed from
the uncomfortable bed. Best back massage I've ever had. Made me wish
we had booked a full session, but it was the last day of our stay.

The service:
We never once got anything that we asked for from the lobby. The
closest we got was when we asked for more mineral water in the mini
fridge and got beer. Extra towels never came - had to hunt down a
housekeeping cart for that. Our shower never drained properly the
whole time we were there. I called about it every day and nothing
happened. Mid stay, I complained to the funjet representative who
told us that he will take our complaints to a manager and that the
reason we've had nothing answered was that we didn't talk to him. That
led to no results as well.
The funjet representative was also a disappointment in another way.
The one day we had actually relied on him being there to ask for a
favor, he was gone with no prior notice, no replacement for the day.
Absolutely useless to us.

Other:
Money exchange is available but no ATM anywhere near. Take care of
that at the airport. Internet didn't work when i needed to use it one
day. And the girl working in the computer room doesn't even know a
thing about computers. There is a $4 connection charge if you want to
try to make a call and it's not guaranteed to work. We had to go
across the street from the hotel for a public phone to call home.
Luckily we brought a phone card.

Overall, I think this place is not 4 or 5 star quality. Part of the
problem I had was failed expectations. You can have a better time
there if you only expect between 2 and 3 star. If possible, I suggest
staying at other hotels in this price range.


Tours:
Rhythms of the Night tour was the highlight of our vacation. It
started with a boat ride across the bay right at sunset. . .very
pretty and we saw dolphins jumping along the side of the boat!!!!
Then we got to a private secluded beach you can only get to by boat
that was once owned by john houston, i believe. We had dinner on the
beach - food was excellent and there was no electric light - only
torches and candlelight after that, there was a tribal show with the
costumes, body paint, good dancing, and fire twirlers then, on the
boat ride back they had open bar and music and they turned down the
lights so that we could see the stars and we
danced on the boat.
It was very romantic.

A simple link to the original would have sufficed.

wiseguy1100 said:marianna - I enjoyed reading your post!

Thank you for taking the time to write it and share it with us!

LINK>>

Good review. Make sure to get out of your hotel if you go to PV. Spend at least one afternoon in downtown.