Occidental Nuevo Vallarta - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

11161 reviews

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  He would converse with us and became friendly with us throughout our time.

  Rony Martinez had amazing service all weekend while we were here. He made the experience at this resort 100 times better.

  Feb 14, 2026
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  Bar Service

  Rony Martinez took care of us all week. The service was incredible. Highly recommended!

  Feb 14, 2026
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  Best Bartender ever!!

  Rony Martinez was the best! Best bartender. Will come back!! Fast and SO friendly!!

  Feb 14, 2026
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  Wonderful Place, can't wait to go back

  Fantastic Staff, very good food, nice activities, beautiful beach, i left my glasses in my room after checkout and they helped me. gracias. :)

  Feb 14, 2026
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  Great resort and we are going back

  Was at Occidental Nuevo Vallarta (Barcelo chain) Jan 18 - Feb, 2026 via Costco travel (Canada) and WE ARE COMING BACK NEXT YEAR. We give it a 4*. If you use Costco, I definitely would recommend you book the transportation Greyline service between the airport and the hotel. It is super cheap compared to the $50 USD the taxi charges each way. You just walk out of the airport lobby and they are on the left waiting for you. RESORT: It is a smaller resort (360 rooms) which gives you the opportunity to make friends and have great conversation. Beautiful beach, you can walk for hours, the sun is almost guaranteed, no Sargassum algae and the staff is super friendly. Many tourists mentioned they are coming back year after year because of this. Super clean hotel. Free WIFI everywhere. We appreciated the wrist bracelet that gives access to your room instead of a chip card. We stayed on the 5th floor in the middle section of the hotel (room 532. This section of the hotel does not have any balcony. Kind of surprising at first but was not a show stopper as we spent most of the time outside the room. However, when we go back, we will request a room in the NEW SECTION ($) (room 510-529, 562-575) and they do come with a balcony and are further away from the shows and the lounge bar. All in all, the room location was still very acceptable. Many patrons told us that the upgrade to Royale was not worth it. The hotel is wheelchair accessible however, from the lobby and elevators, it is a bit of a detour to access the restaurants, the buffet, the shows and the pool. Plenty of lounge chairs everywhere but if you want to guarantee a specific location around the pool, I would suggest to go early to reserve a chair. LOCATION: The resort is in beautiful Nuevo Vallarta and is within 5 min walk of an hospital and a shopping centre that has a bank (pesos!), pharmacy, grocery and a useful laundromat. It is super safe for tourists. There is a flee market behind the hospital every Tuesday. However, if you go to the village of Bucerías (20 min), the flee market is opened 7 days/week. Puerto Vallarta is about 30 min. Cheapest way to go is local bus transportation that many tourists use. Uber is a good option and is always about half the price of Taxis. FOOD: Buffet is good and offers lots of variety. We tried the 3 ''a-la-carte'' restaurants and the Italian and the Japanese were our favorites. Japanese restaurant offers 2 choices: hibachi Japanese show for small groups OR Sushi. Both were excellent. Restaurants require a reservation and don't worry too much about dress code. Restaurant reservation kiosk, located in the front lobby, opens daily at 9:00 AM. On Sunday AM, you can book for the week (Sunday to Sunday) maximum 3 restaurant reservations for the week. Unfortunately, they don't offer an on-line registration. We went before our reservation time twice and the restaurants still accommodated us no problem as long as you have a reservation. ACTIVITY: The usual activity around the pool and on the beach. They do have activities for kids too. Pickleball and tennis are available and courts are in the shade in the afternoon. We played volleyball all week. I would bring water shoes next time as I cut myself on a small shell. There is a lifeguard on site and beach security at night. We did reserve a whale watching excursion ($) and it was well worth it. AIRPORT: In our case, we found that the Puerto Vallarta airport was CRAZY busy for flights leaving Mexico during the weekend. They are building an extension to the airport but it won't be ready for a while. Next time, we will try a flight during the week. Finally, I would suggest to either bringing food with you before you get to the airport OR buy the meal on the plane. A burger and fries (no drink) at the airport is $32 USD which is ridiculous.

  Feb 14, 2026