Barcelo Puerto Vallarta

This is our second straight year staying at the Barcelo Puerto Vallarta and we LOVE it! We got an excellent package deal via Cheap Caribbean (non-stop flights to/from Seattle on Alaska Airlines, shuttles to/from the airport, and then a great stay at the Barcelo Puerto Vallarta), the weather was wonderful (sunny and 82 degrees every day, with only a bit of clouds the day we arrived and the day we went home). Wonderful pools, an excellent beach, beautiful and comfortable rooms, a great Kid's Club (for ages 5-12... Great activities every day!), and great food. What more could you ask for? The Puerto Vallarta Zoo is just about 1-mile up a dirt/concrete road through a small town, and it a lot of fun. Make sure to purchase a bag of food to feed the animals. Also, if you are up for some "adventure", make sure to sign up for the Los Veranos Canopy Tour! You can register online before you leave home. Then, on your scheduled day, you take a taxi from the front of the hotel about 5-10 minutes south to the Le Kliff restaurant (80 pesos/ $6-$7 dollars as of April, 2012). That's where you meet the Los Veranos shuttle to whisk you up into the jungle to their property on a great river there. The staff is warm, funny, and welcoming and VERY focused on safety. This was a great first experience for our family at ziplining. My wife and I really enjoyed it, and our 6-year old son LOVED it (you have to be at least 6). They bring you back to your hotel for free. We definitely recommend the Barcelo Puerto Vallarta resort and Cheap Caribbean!

The beach was very nice, close to Los Arcos and other awesome beaches, the food was good, the hotel was nice and seemed to be well maintained but the bedbugs messed up everything. We checked in on 3 suites and all had bed bugs. The odd thing about bed bug bites is that you wont see the symptoms right away. It starts showing up a few days before you are ready to leave and gets worse by the time you get home. We were there for a week.

I recently stayed at the Puerto Vallarta Barcelo resort. I wanted to try something different because I usually stay at the Rui Resorts.Pros is it is a beautiful resort. It is clean and the drinks are strong. Cons: Don't plan on snokeling on site. They will take you to a place for $35. There were two old looking kayakas and no one used them while we were there. The evening entertainment and the food was not that great. Not much food selection. Children are allowed in the pool with the bar even though they have their own pool. I didn't think children should see how stupid some adults act when they drink to much. Take insect repellent. There are little bitting bugs. We were suppose to get two nights in the speciality restaurants. However, the only choice available was the steak restaurant. We got one night because nothing was available for the rest of our stay. We ordered rib eye and they brought us something that was flat and looked like flank steak. It was very fatting tasting so one bite was it for me. However, their desert was good. I reserved a room with two double beds and got one with a king size bed because there were no double bed rooms available. Which I didn't understand. The hotel knew we were coming and had reserved and payed for a certian type of room. I won't be booking at any more Barcelo Resorts. I am going back to booking with the Rui Hotels. Matter of fact , I'm going to stay at the Rui in Costa Rica in a few weeks.

This place is really nice. There are 4 pools, a swim up bar, waterfalls, a water slide, and water volleyball. The room was really nice too and well maintained. The suite was huge for the two of us, you could easily fit a family in there. The buffet was just okay. Beautiful views but the food was just okay. Their restaurants though were really great. We learned a little secret while there, if you go to the reservation desk after 3pm you can make a reservation for a nice dinner without using one of the coupons they give you. This allowed us to eat well 3 nights even though we only had two coupons. The negatives...even though they say tip is included, plan on tipping. If you don't, do not expect good service or any attention. We spent about $300 tipping over the course of 5 days. Also, this is really far out there from town. This was nice for our romantic honeymoon, but made it difficult to go to town. Also, it's hard booking excursions, I think probably because you are so far from town. We booked snorkeling through the hotel and the tour guides never showed up. There are plenty of people on the beach offering to take you out, but it was hard to know who to trust. We ended up just lounging by the pool instead.