My hubby and I traveled to Puerto Vallarta in June for our 5 year wedding anniversary. We stayed at Villa Premiere Hotel and Spa in PV. It was glorious!
It's about a $20 cab ride from the airport. The hotel is located north of the main drag, south of the airport. It's about 1 mile from downtown.
When we showed up we were handed champagne as we checked in. We were asked what pillow we would like. There were 6-7 options ranging from type of material, down, cotton. Firmness etc. Then we were to choose our scent of the room a selection of our seven exquisite essences, Basil, Cinnamon, Java Citronella, Eucalyptus. A scent they would spray in there daily. After our check in, while they set up our room with scent and special pillows, we were given a 5-minute neck/back rub. Awesome!!
Our room was gorgeous. Every room in the hotel has an ocean view. We got the premiere room which included a jacuzzi tub in the room and a king bed. Robes and slippers were also in the room. Though the slippers were super tiny on us. We also had a fridge stocked with sodas, water and beer. (We did the all-inclusive package.)
The room was very clean and roomy. I loved it. We were on the 7th floor (top floor) and we had beautiful views. The only funny thing about the room was the jacuzzi tub looks into the room, it has shutters to close it off from the room/bathroom. But the shutters aren't fully sealed so when people are doing their business in the bathroom, people in the bedroom could hear everything.
The two pools were nice. Everyday new towels were set out, each lounge chair was covered with new towels. The towel cart had books/magazines and sunblock. There was shade if you wanted it, swim up bar, beds in shade or on the beach or held up by rope like a swing. So many options to layout/relax. I loved how we were located a decent ways away from downtown that the beach was empty, it was nice to be alone in paradise. The bonus is that if you stay at Villa Premiere, you can go to the sister hotel next door and use their pools/restaurants there. Next door is the family hotel while Villa Premiere is the adult only hotel. 16 years old and up. We only tried one pool next door but perhaps if we stayed longer we'd have checked out that hotel a little more. Part of the reason we didn't hang out much next door was because we were doing this trip without our kids and seeing kids for me reminded me of what I missed.
Spa at the hotel. There was a spa on the 2nd floor of the hotel. I was expecting great prices. I was hoping for Thailand massage prices but got prices higher than massage prices here at home. Just an ie. 50 minute massage was $118. At home at my favorite spa/bath house Watercourse Way a 60 minute massage + 60 minutes in the hot tub/steam room/sauna of my choice is $120. 2 hours for same price. Totally not worth it to us.
Gym: I used the gym 2 times at the hotel. Well air conditioned. Views were beautiful. Very clean. They had cool bottles of water. Clean towels on all of the machines. Cool damp wash clothes in the fridge. So great! I used the treadmill both days. And only a little bit of weights on one day. I'm gonna say it's the best hotel gym I've ever used.
Restaurants: Because we were all-inclusive we ate all but one night at our hotel. The food was good. Of course we were limited to only one menu because we were at a down time. I would have liked other options not that there weren't enough choices for me to have a different meal each night, but funny enough the one night we go out was the night they opened the other restaurant. I wouldn't have changed my all-inclusive though. I loved being able to order drinks all day at the pool. I loved ordering snacks by the pool or in the middle of the night from the 24-hour room service menu.
The one restaurant we tried out was Cafe de Olla. It was recommended by a friend. One thing to note about the restaurant is that it's cash only. We ended up only ordering 2 margaritas and shared a meal of fajitas. I could tell the margaritas didn't have much alcohol at all. The fajitas were good, nothing to brag about but good.
Vallarta Adventures:
Not having kids on our trip we decided to live it up a bit. We booked a trip with Vallarta Adventures, we did the Outdoor Adventure package which meant speed boating, ziplining, rapelling and mule riding. SO MUCH FUN!! I totally recommend it. It's a 6 hour trip and I enjoyed every minute of it. FYI for the photos they take of you during the adventure, for one photo it's $15. For all photos of you it's $29, but if you're in a couple for all pics of both of you turns out to be $29 each: $58. We bought our pictures because there were a lot of good ones. The photographer did a great job.
