We’ve just come back from a 5-night stay at the fabulous Hilton Vallarta Riviera All-Inclusive Resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and wanted to share a few details with our friends.
Where were we?
For those not familiar with the gem that is Puerto Vallarta, it’s in the Southwest portion of Mexico in the Jalisco state. Many folks are familiar with Cabo San Lucas, on the extreme southern point of the Baja Peninsula off the West Coast of Mexico; Puerto Vallarta is even further South (and somehow still in the Central time zone). More folks are probably familiar with Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum on the Yucatan Peninsula on Mexico’s Southeastern seaboard; Puerto Vallarta is essentially the same latitude as Tulum, just off the West coast rather than the East.
To get to the resort, we took a 2-hour flight from Springfield to Houston, a 3 ½ hour layover in Houston (hello airport lounges!), and a 2-hour flight from Houston to Puerto Vallarta. From there we took a roughly 45-minute cab ride through the heart of Puerto Vallarta to get to the more secluded area where our resort was along the riviera. So, all-in-all, not too bad of a journey each way.
How’d we pay for it?
We’d been looking for an all-inclusive resort to spend a week just relaxing somewhere in the Caribbean region, but the eye-watering prices were well beyond what we were wanting to spend on ourselves. On a whim we looked at Hilton since we have a pile of points with them and, low and behold, discovered they have a handful of all-inclusive resorts, including the Hilton Vallarta Riviera where we stayed, accepting points.
The nice thing about this being a Hilton property is that we got to enjoy many of the same benefits as with their other hotels. Specifically, because we have diamond status, we’re eligible for complimentary room upgrades (if available), access to the club lounge (better drinks and snacks, and unbeatable views of the coastline), and discounts when they run specials.
For us, we were able to book our regular room completely with points and no resort fees. Also, because they were running a special, our 5th night was free; we only had to pay (again, with points) for the other 4 nights. Nice. When we got to the resort, we asked about room upgrades and were happy to find out they did have better rooms available. While we did have to pay a slight fee for the better room, it was discounted due to our diamond status. Beyond that, we paid for the upgrade using our Hilton Aspire American Express card, meaning we earned 12x points for each dollar we spent in addition to the other benefits our status earns us. Not too shabby, eh?
About the resort.
The resort itself was nice and we enjoyed our stay. If you’ve stayed at other all-inclusive properties, this isn’t that. In other words, this definitely has the look and feel of a Hilton property, just in a much better location than we normally find ourselves. This isn’t to say anything bad about the property, but many of the other all-inclusive resorts have over-the-top luxury everywhere you look; this resort didn’t, but we were still plenty happy with our stay. It is family friendly, so there were a lot of kids running around, but for the most part, they had their own areas (pool and kids club) and it wasn’t too distracting. However, they sure did love to scream as they ran into the ocean in the middle of every night. We slept with the balcony door open to listen to the waves, so this was rather disruptive. Are we old? We might be old. 😅
The entire resort, or at least the part where the rooms are, is only a single room deep. This means that all of the rooms face the ocean and none face inward to the jungle at the back of the hotel. Our room had a comfy king-size bed, small couch and dining area (table and 2 chairs), a dresser and closet, and a spacious bathroom with a rainfall shower that we nearly tried to bring home with us. Oh, and we had a full balcony with two chairs and a small table; perfect for morning coffees and evening glasses of wine. Our dresser also had the minibar, which was stocked daily with beer, water, sodas, juice, coffee, and a few snacks – included in our stay. I’m also fairly certain there was a large TV on the wall, but that’s not usually something we touch on vacation, so we didn’t take note.
Food and Drinks
Though the resort was all-inclusive, the dining and drinks were a little tricky at first. True enough, all of the restaurants and room service were included in the all-inclusive package; however, most of the restaurants had a small portion of their menus that cost extra. Anything costing more was marked, both noting that it cost more and the price you’d later find on your checkout bill. If you’re like us and didn’t want to spend more on things we’d already paid for, we just avoided those items and picked from the plenty of other options on the menus.
We found the food tasty, though in some restaurants the portions were a little on the smaller side (relative to American-sized portions, that is). This is me giving you permission to order two appetizers, an entree, and a dessert. The first morning we ordered room service breakfast and it was WAY too much food – we had overordered after the previous night’s dinner portions were too small. Oops. Drinks were similar; most of them were free, but at some of the restaurants you could pay for either a top-shelf beverage or if you wanted an entire bottle of wine. Again, we weren’t interested in spending more, so we opted for a glass of wine (at a time), rather than buying the whole bottle. And if we wanted better quality spirits we’d head to the Club Lounge for our drinks. That said, we found most of the bars throughout the resort were serving spirits that were at least as good as what we’d buy at home, if not better.
As for food options, there were plenty of restaurants included in your resort fees. These included Asian, Sushi, Mexican, Italian, seafood, a steakhouse, and more casual beach-type restaurants. The steakhouse did require reservations, but otherwise, you could eat at any of the restaurants whenever you liked for dinner (5.30 – 10.30 pm). Breakfast was from 7 am–noon in two different restaurants and was buffet-style with tons of options; lunch was available in the open-air beach-type restaurant just off the main pool, a couple of food trucks near the pool deck, and at a grab-n-go shop near the lobby. Room service was available 24 hours each day, with 3 different menus (breakfast/lunch, dinner, and late night).
If you deal with food allergies, you will be happy to know there were plenty of options. In each restaurant we walked into we were asked about food allergies by the host, however, I don’t think those were transferred to the kitchen. We had to patrol the menu and ask a lot of our own questions. Only the Asian restaurant sent the waiter back to tell us when something contained an allergen. The gluten-free options were quite tasty and while the dairy-free options were a bit hard to find in the dessert department (I hope you like sorbet) and at the Italian Restaurant (hello creamy cheese!), there was still plenty of regular food to be had. Vegetarian, doable. Vegan? You may struggle a bit. I hope you really like salad greens and chips and guac. Pescatarian, you’re set. There’s so much seafood! Yum!
Beyond the food options, there were various bar options – the Mojito Lounge and the Martini Lounge, as well as the Sky Bar (adults only) that sits atop the middle building of the hotel. Sky Bar offered amazing ocean views, two hot tubs, and a bar staffed with their most talented mixologists. We spent most of our time there relaxing and creating drinks with the very talented mixologist, Gerardo. There were also bars in the lobby and a swim-up bar at the adults-only pool on the ground floor. All that’s to say, we never found ourselves hungry or thirsty during our stay. We tried every option, except the Steakhouse – we ran out of days!
Excursions and Things to Do
The resort has a handy app you can download from a link you’ll receive via e-mail as soon as you check in or from the QR-code on your handy microchipped resort bracelet (we loved the bracelet because your key was always with you and was wood – no skin reactions to sweaty plastic). The app gives you information about all the restaurants, a resort map, and a host of other kinds of information, including information about the different excursions you can book. There were an impressive amount of things to do, from food tours to swimming with dolphins and diving, ATV tours of the beach and surrounding areas, and zip lines over the jungle canopy. All were at an additional cost, and usually between $100 and $250 per person, depending on what you wanted to do and how long you’d be gone. Plenty of great options, but we opted to relax at the Sky Bar soaking in the hot tub or reading a book, walking on the beach, whale watching from our balcony, and just hanging out at the resort, so we can’t give any reviews of the excursions.
The resort also boasts the Eforea Spa, which you can book in the app as well. Plenty of the usual treatments (massages and facials, for example) that will run you about as much as the excursions. There were plenty of times we thought about scheduling a massage, but relaxing at the bar/pool just takes up so much time that we never got around to it. Maybe next time.
Oh, and speaking of the beach, the one the hotel sits on is nice, though it’s a bit small. It takes about 5 minutes to walk from one end to the other. On the one end, you’re prevented from going much further than the hotel property line, as it ends in a rock cliff. The other end of the beach is pretty rocky and difficult to navigate, and so you’d need good shoes to be sure of your footing. Beyond that, the huge waves that constantly crash on that end of the beach make the rocks look awfully slippery, so be careful if you tempt the fates. But, the section of the beach immediately in front of the hotel, while small, was very nice. They’ve placed a few sections of rock not far from the shoreline that create 2 different beach lagoons that most people swam in. Start getting too close to the rock piles though and the lifeguards jump into action and start whistling at you (not compliments). Those waves were dangerous and could slam you into the rocks before you knew what was happening. During our stay the beach wasn’t overly crowded, so whether you wanted to go for a swim (the water was cold at first, but you quickly got used to the temperature) or a walk around the beach, there was plenty of space to do so. The high tide did completely cover the beach up to the wall for the pool deck, so you need to time your walk accordingly to find the sand at low tide.
Overall Thoughts
Overall, we enjoyed our time here and would go back again. As we said at the start of this post, it’s important to keep your expectations in check when going to new places. If you compare this to other Hilton hotels, it’s a great experience. If you compare it to other all-inclusive 5-star properties you might have been to in the past, this resort likely won’t quite live up to that expectation. Still, the location is great, the views are spectacular, the food and drinks were plentiful and tasty, and the staff was very friendly and helpful. All-in-all, a pretty great place to spend a few days before getting back to the grind and returning to winter.
