So you may notice a theme from these reviews. For people who are used to staying at Four Seasons/Ritz Carlton caliber hotels, this hotel really just isn't up to snuff.

We generally do a few extravagant vacations a year and a few budget ones. We own timeshare and so generally those locations are expected to be more economical and less luxury. We booked this particular vacation through RCI and normally we wouldn't have very high expectations for RCI resorts, but with all of the reviews and awards, we expected something on par with the Four Seasons. That being said, the reason for my low rating is that this hotel touts itself as equal to a "5 star" resort and so we went into this with certain expectations that were just not met, which led to quite a bit of disappointment on our part. My guess is that if we were expecting a bit less, we would have rated this resort better, so my rating is very subjective.

The hotel itself was beautiful outwardly. Rooms were very clean and well-appointed. Maid service was very good. They service the room twice a day (regular cleaning and turn down).

First impressions were great - check-in came to you and you got to take a seat and they brought drinks and cold washcloths. Bellman service gave us a tour of the resort and brought our luggage to our room.

We had a parlor suite, which I'm guessing is the smallest room type. It was plenty big enough for us and the balcony was beautiful with cushioned lounges on either side. The only thing about the room that bothered me (but wasn't a huge deal) was the bathroom. The shower/commode area was tiny with a small tub and there was only one sink. Generally with a 5 star resort, I would expect a separate shower and large tub and a dual sink, even in their smallest rooms. Also, all advertismenets I read advertised robes in the room and there were no robes (also not a huge deal for us, but still...). One problem with the shower - the shower curtain was too short and so water sprayed all over the floor. It looked like this was causing some leaks because there were crews out patching leaks the entire time we were there. It also looked like they never solved the leak problem so big water stains would continue to show up after they patched.

The first night there was a wedding and the reception was outside in a courtyard behind the hotel, so we could hear music all night long and then drunken singing over loudspeakers started around 4 am... for a "5 star" resort, I would think that they would try and prevent this kind of disturbance by having the reception area further away from the hotel. Also, our room was on the second floor and almost right above the night club, so every night, we could hear the music coming from the club until about 2am. Luckily, we aren't light sleepers, but if you are, this could be pretty annoying.

The hair dryer in our room didn't work and there was no pen in the room (which I found odd since they had pads of paper to write on), so I called down to get a new hair dryer and a pen. I called in the morning. I called about 3 hours later, and I called about 3 hours after that, but never got the pen or hair dryer. Finally, I went down to the front desk and they gave me a pen and I asked to just stand there and wait for a hair dryer because we had dinner reservations in an hour and I had to blow dry my hair and couldn't afford to wait any longer. They assured me it was on its way. Finally, it arrived. I found this unacceptable service for a "5 star" hotel.

Since this was an all-inclusive resort, they had a minibar that they were supposed to restock daily. However, we went two days without a restock. On the second day, I called to have them restock. Then I called again a few hours later and the woman who answered the phone didn't understand what I was asking for. Granted, this is in Mexico, but the hotel obviously caters to Americans (I would say that 90% of the guest were American or English-speaking), so I would kind of expect the person answering the phone for suite service to understand English or to know enough to tell me that she didn't understand English. Instead, she just said "no" to every question I asked. Finally, she put me on hold and got a manager. He said someone would come by sometime that day to restock the mini bar. I asked if there was any way he could give us a specific time(we wanted to take a shower and didn't want someone barging in on us). He gave us a three hour window. Nice. Again - NOT "5 star" service and there was no apology for not stocking the mini bar for two days.

The pool was very nice and the one nearest the bar was heated, which was actually very nice, even in 85 degree weather. Lounge chairs were cushioned and they had terry cloth lounge chair covers in addition to towels. One pet peeve - I noticed that people would go down at 7am and put books on chairs to reserve them and then not show up at the pool until noon. Many hotels have "no reserve" policies for chairs. I think they should instill a similar policy because I find this kind of thing rude. Some families "reserved" 6 to 8 chairs only to leave them empty most of the day.

They had cabanas on the beach, which was also very nice. (Note about the beach - if you're looking for white sand and blue water, this isn't what you'll get, so don't let the picture on their website fool you. They kept the beach clean and the water was fine and there's nothing the resort can do about the color of the sand or water, obviously, but there was clearer, bluer water in PV proper.)

Food and drink service at the pool was very good, but it seemed somewhat understaffed. The attendants were practially sprinting around all day long to attend to everyone.

The exercise room opened at 7AM and closed around 8ish. These hours seemed somewhat limited. The exercise room itself was very nice - all Lifefitness equipment with treadmills, bikes, elipticals, and weights. It was never too crowded. Also - there is plenty of beach to run/walk on in Nuevo vallarta, so some mornings I got in about 6 miles on the beach and easily I could have gotten in a 10 or 12 mile run if I had wanted to. The beach itself was quite uncrowded except for in front of some of the larger resorts.

The food was decent. We liked the French restuarant the best, but the others were also good. They really tried to focus on being "gourmet" so don't expect "traditional" Mexican or Italian. I would guess that most kids wouldn't find much on any of the menus that they would like. The service in the specialty restaurants was by far the best service we got at the resort. The main restaurant (Azul) always had a buffet and you could order off the menu. The service here was hit or miss. Sometimes it was excellent. Others it was just adequate. It was never "bad".

One issue I had was when we were told to pick up our "welcome" packet. Since we stay at many timeshares, we know this is code for "come be harassed to buy a timeshare". However, being a "5 star" resort, we gave it the benefit of the doubt, so we went to pick it up. We were given the option to listen to their "not a timeshare" sales spiel which would in return net us a discount on excursions. We decide not to waste "just 90 minutes" of our time, but you could almost taste the disdain when we said we'd rather pay full price for our excursions. When we went to book the excursions, they told us we'd have to pay cash - who keeps hundred of dollars of cash in their wallet? I asked why we couldn't charge it to our room. She said she'd have to make a "special" request for that, which seemed fishy to me - like it was another reason for them to push the "discount" we'd get if we did their sales deal. In the end, it seemed they could tell we were a lost cause and were NOT going to do the sales tour, so we were allowed to charge it to our room. Even though I've been places where the timeshare pitch is much pushier, I would expect a "5 star" resort to be a bit more subtle. When we stayed at the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole, there were subtle signs around about their "partial ownership" program, but never were we directly approached and harassed about it and never was it presented as anything other than what it was (at Grand Velas, they said - it's not a timeshare - we just want to show you how you can stay here and other nice resorts at cheaper costs... yeah - sure.) The way Grand Velas went about it kind of cheapened their resort in our eyes.

So after all of this:
-Did we have a good time? Yes we did.
-Was the hotel relatively nice? Yes it was.
-Was it 5 star caliber? No it definitely was not.
-Would we ever consider returning? Probably not, but this is mostly because we didn't really fall in love with Puerto Vallarta and don't really have a desire to return to this part of Mexico again.
- Would we recommend it to anynone else? If they got a decent price and were looking for a good beach/lounging vacation, sure. I would just say that they should know what to expect.

One last tip - try the Mojitos.