Category: 2021_11 Puerto Vallarta

We’re in our room waiting for our private transport to the airport. We had a wonderful time in Puerto Vallarta but are ready to go home. It’s beautiful and the resort is amazing but we’re not “pool sitters” even if someone is bringing us delicious, fruity drinks whenever we want. We prefer to be out and about. There were other day trips we could have done but the ones that don’t involve “adventure” activities are basically the same trip we did last week but to different destinations.

Yesterday was a repeat of Sunday….hang by the pool, swim and try as many different drinks as possible. Well, I was the one who did the latter; Peter stayed with his Pina Colada. After doing quite a bit of testing, my favorites were the Blue Hawaii and the Miami Vice (I wonder what time the bar opens. Maybe I can squeeze in just one more before the car comes to get us at 10:30.) Over the last week we’ve met many nice people including quite a few Canadians. The ones here were from Vancouver and Calgary as Canadians from the middle and east of the country go to Florida.

We had a delicious dinner last night at the French restaurant…Bordeaux. Peter didn’t bring long pants and this restaurant has a dress code. But, luckily, they have loaner pants so we were able to enjoy a romantic dinner on our last night. I had duck confit and Peter had beef bourguignon and both were delicious.

Last night was casino night in the lobby but it didn’t start until 9pm and we were ready to head back to the room to pack by 8 so we didn’t hang around for it.

We had a lovely time here and highly recommend the resort to anyone considering a vacation in PV. The accommodations were very nice, the resort is lovely and the staff is amazing. The food in the buffet style restaurants was good but the food in the specialty restaurants was delicious. All in all, a wonderful way to spend a week away from home.

We thought about checking out Tulum Mexico in the spring but decided to save all our travel dollars for our next trip to Europe, which we’re calling our Epic European Adventure. The plan is to leave for London (the only place we can get to Europe from Phoenix nonstop) on July 23. We will spend 8 weeks in the UK before flying to Paris. We’ll spend 7-8 weeks in France, Belgium and the Netherlands before flying to Bologna Italy for 2 1/2 weeks. After spending a few days in Rome, we’ll head to Civitavecchia where we’ll pick up a 16-day repositioning cruise on 11/27. We loved the one we did in 2016 so we’re looking forward to this one. Here’s a link to the cruise on the NCL website. Hopefully it will be in English as most websites are translating everything into Spanish…very irritating. If it does come up in Spanish, the price is probably Mexican Peso. We are not spending $49,000 pp for this cruise. :0

https://www.ncl.com.mx/vacations?cruise-destination=transatlantic&date=nov-2022

The cruise ends on 12/13 in NYC. We’ll spend one night there and fly home on the 14th. This will be our longest trip ever but we have plenty of time built in to rest so it should be a leisurely trip. We’ve already started making reservations (so far just the trip to London and the Airbnb for our 9 nights in London) so we can spread the cost over the next 9 months. It’s going to be an amazing trip.

But that’s a trip for another blog so I’ll sign off for now. Thanks again for taking the time to follow us on our Mexican adventure. We’ll talk with you again in July. Have a great holiday season. Love from us to you. Lynn and Peter

It’s Monday morning and we had a very quiet weekend. Saturday we hung out at the pool all morning and, after a light lunch at the pool, we took a walk back to the boardwalk. Even with stopping for ice cream along the way, it was only about a 40-minute walk. But since it was getting very hot, we decided to take a cab home.

After resting for a few hours in our room, we headed to the seafood restaurant for a leisurely dinner. The staff here is amazing. Our server, Jocelyn, not only remembered us from dinner on Wednesday, she remembered our drink order. Given how many people she sees in a day that’s pretty impressive.

After dinner we strolled around the pool area listening to the music from another wedding at the gazebo. We hung out in the Dreams lobby for about 90 minutes waiting for the evening’s entertainment to start. The group was the Three Tenors of Vallarta and they were very good. It was a little irritating because they performed in the lobby and there were a few large groups who were more interested in making noise than listening to the music. But, we enjoyed the concert anyway. Here are a couple of videos of their performance.

Sunday morning we slept crazy late, not getting up until almost 8:30!! Peter still got in a few laps before a very late breakfast. Then we did absolutely nothing for the rest of the day until it was time to go to dinner. Well, I shouldn’t say absolutely nothing as I did water aerobics at noon. It was a pretty easy workout (unlike Lois at Robson Ranch who runs a killer session) but at least I was moving.

After a quick clean up we went to the Mexican restaurant for dinner. It was our first time there and we enjoyed it. Peter had fajitas and I had the Mahi Mahi with Pastor sauce. I don’t know what was in the sauce but it was delicious. After an after-dinner walk around the pool areas, it was back to the room for the night.

This morning we started the day by getting our rapid Covid tests on site. It only took a few minutes to get our negative results. So, we’re all set to head home tomorrow. This is our last day at this beautiful resort and I expect that today will be a repeat of yesterday. Not sure where we’ll go to dinner tonight as it’s Peter’s turn to pick. But every place we’ve tried has been very good so no matter what he picks we’ll have a good dinner.

Here are a few pics from the inside of the resort.

Guess that’s it for now. It’s almost 9am but the pool area is still pretty quiet. Peter may get in a few laps before the crowd starts to arrive. Talk soon.

It’s Saturday morning and another beautiful day in paradise. Peter is in the pool doing his laps and I’m hanging out in a lounge chair listening to the waves crash on the beach. Yesterday we did absolutely nothing except sit by/in the pool. We even had lunch by the pool. It was wonderful. We plan to do the same this morning but then head out of the resort this afternoon. We’re not going to do anything special, just walk down a few blocks to check out the neighborhood.

Yesterday there were four weddings at the resort. Here’s a short clip of the one that took place in the gazebo near the pools. It was taken from the balcony of our room so it’s everyone is a bit small but it was fun to watch it all unfold.

The second wedding was on the Dreams side of the resort and looked very festive with balloons decorating the site. You can it if you look in the top right corner of the video.

The third one was a same sex couple who had quite the party. Not only was there a sit down dinner but music and dancing as well. Then at about 10:30 we heard fireworks and watched from our balcony.

I don’t know where the 4th wedding was held, maybe someplace inside as we didn’t see anything else on the patios.

Since we didn’t do much yesterday to report on, here’s a little info about the resort. There are actually two resorts here, Secrets and Dreams. We’re on the Secrets side which is adults only (yeah!) while the Dreams side allows children. Between the two resorts there are about 10 restaurants/cafes and too many bars to count. We’ve gone to the Dreams side a few times for dinner and on Thursday night for the Mexican dinner/show. But for the most part we’ve hung out on our side. Here are several pics to show you the resort.

As I said there are about 10 restaurants/cafes between the two resorts. We can pick from Italian, French, Mexican, Asian, Seafood as well as 2 buffet style restaurants and a couple of small cafes. Since this is all-inclusive we can go to whichever one we want. The good news is that the people on the Dreams side can’t come to the restaurants on the Secrets side….yeah! No screaming, running kids at meal times.

I’m working my way through the drink menu and found a couple of new favorites yesterday…a mini beer and a Blue Hawaii. The mini-beer is a combination of Licor 43 (a Spanish Vanilla Liqueur) and heavy cream. It is sweet, which I love, and absolutely delicious. The Blue Hawaii is rum, vodka, blue curacao, pineapple juice and sweet and sour. I’ve never had one before and it was quite yummy. Yesterday I saw someone with a Miami Vice that looked pretty good. I may have to try that today. Neither Peter nor I drink much so even just the 2 drinks/day we’ve been having is a lot for us. We’re going to need to detoxify our livers when we get home.

There has been a cruise ship here since we arrived and it’s just sitting out there. We got fairly close Thursday on our day trip and saw that it was the Westerdam from Holland America. I looked it up and it’s due back in LA on the 14th but it hasn’t budged since we’ve been here. We wonder if they had a Covid outbreak and are quarantining off shore. Can’t find anything about it online but hopefully everyone is OK.

Well, not much else to report. Peter just finished his laps so we’ll head in for breakfast. Have a great day everyone. Love from Mexico.

I didn’t post yesterday as we had had a very long day and I was too tired. So, it’s now Friday morning and I’m sitting by the pool waiting for Peter to finish his laps before heading to breakfast.

Yesterday we took a day trip to Yelapa & Majahuitas with the Vallarta Adventure tour group. It’s the group recommended by the resort and it was very well done. We took a cab to the Maritime Harbor which was very crowded with people leaving for day trips. At about 8:30 we finally boarded our catamaran for our all-day excursion.

On our way to the village of Yelapa we passed the Los Arcos de Mismaloya National Marine Park which is a group of beautiful granite islands and islets just south of PV. In 1975 they were declared a Refuge Area for the Protection of Marine Flora and Fauna.

Our first stop of the day was a short distance from the National Park and a popular snorkel spot. Luckily our group was the only one there so it wasn’t too crowded. We spent about 30 minutes snorkeling but weren’t terribly impressed. The water was very refreshing but the snorkeling itself wasn’t much. The water was a little murky and there weren’t many fish. I guess we’re getting a bit jaded as we’ve had several beautiful snorkeling experiences (Maui on our honeymoon and Key West in particular) but it was still fun.

Our next stop was the tiny fishing village of Yelapa. There are no roads in/out of the village so it was developed with materials brought in by sea. One option here was to hike up to the waterfall and the other was to hang out on the beach for 2 hours. Guess which one we chose??

After lunch (and an open bar) on the boat, we headed to our third stop, the village of Majahuitas. This is where we could paddle board, kayak or take a ride on a banana boat. Since it hurts my knees watching people kneel on a paddle board went for a short ride in a kayak. They only had 4 kayaks available and there were quite a few people waiting so we only went out for about 10-15 minutes. We spent about 20 minutes hanging out in the big beach chairs until I went out on the banana boat. I had never done that before and began to question the wisdom of doing it when I realized I was going out with 11 drunk 30 somethings. The good news was that when I fell into the boat during the ride (which I guess is better than falling out of the boat), the guy behind me was strong enough to lift me back on to the seat. It was fun and something I can now check off my list of things to do.

On our way back to Puerto Vallarta, some of the crew put on a rock concert for us. It was quite the hoot. Pablo (aka Jagger) was the cruise director. He was very enthusiastic and a lot of fun.

We chatted with some very nice people on our excursion including one guy who is the spitting image of former Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta. He told me that he gets that a lot.

Once back at the resort cleaned up and rested before our evening Mexican Dinner Show. It was at the adjacent Dreams resort and was very nice. The show highlighted dances from 4 different Mexican states. This one is a dance from Jalisco, which is were Puerto Vallarta is located. The dancers were very good. https://youtu.be/kGj44NTljp4.

It was a very full, fun day. Today we plan to just hang out at the pool and maybe take a walk along the beach so I may not report back in until tomorrow. Have a great day everyone. Love from us.

This morning after our buffet breakfast, we hopped into a cab and headed to the “boardwalk” of Puerto Vallarta. It was only about 10 minutes from the resort and is lined on one side by the ocean and the other by a million shops. We skipped most of the shops except to look for a pair of dressy sandals for me. No luck. 🙁

The Princess cruise ship Majestic Princess pulled into port this morning so the streets were jammed with visitors from the ship. But unlike some places, there was enough space to spread them out. In 2016 we visited Kotor, Montenegro as a day trip from Dubrovnik and were in a very small Old Town area with thousands of passengers from 3 large ships. It was so jammed we could barely move and left after just a couple of hours. Today there were lots of tourists but we still had room to move around.

Apparently this week is the Day of the Dead celebration so we saw lots of sculptures and statues of skulls. Not being fans of skulls, we took a pass on buying anything but we took a few nice pics.

Near the end of the boardwalk we saw a group of young street entertainers. Here’s a link to YouTube video I took. https://youtu.be/84-8EwOaA6M

We also passed Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Noon mass was going on so I only stood in the back for a few seconds.

After walking around for several hours we headed back to the resort for lunch and an afternoon by the pool. It’s now almost 6 pm and Peter still down there swimming some laps. He loves to swim but needs to go either early in the morning or later in the afternoon once the pool has cleared out a bit.

I’m not sure what we’re doing for dinner tonight, either Mexican or the seafood restaurant. We’ve heard good things about both so we should be OK either way. Which ever one we don’t do tonight we’ll visit later in the week.

Tomorrow we heading off on a day trip to the other side of the bay to do some snorkeling and kayaking. It should be a ton of fun. I’ll let you know.

Before we get to our latest travel adventure here’s what we’ve been doing since we last posted from our September vacation.

At long last our backyard is done!!! When we got home from Colorado it was finished except for the pergola and that was installed two weeks ago so now our backyard is beautiful.

In early October we went to the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit in Phoenix. It was really amazing.

I continue to work on my stained glass projects. The last couple of weeks I did on a 3-sided Christmas tree.

Peter is continuing to work on his pickleball game. He’s getting better and is hoping to “graduate” out of the novice group very soon. He’s also busy working out and swimming almost every day. The golf course just opened this week after being closed for over seeding so he hasn’t gotten back to that yet.

I’ve been sidelined from all sports activities once again because my right shoulder flared up a week or so after we got back from Colorado. I had another cortisone shot a few weeks ago and an MRI yesterday (11/1). I’ll get the results of the MRI and start back to PT once we return from Mexico.

Last Friday (10/29) my girlfriend, Kathy, and I saw Renee Elise Goldsberry in concert at Symphony Hall. Peter wasn’t interested so we had a girls’ night out and we thoroughly enjoyed the concert. Renee is best known for her Tony award winning role as Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton. She has an amazing voice and sang a wide variety of pop and gospel songs. Near the end of the second act she sang this opening line, “A toast to the groom…” and the place went crazy. Anyone who knows Hamilton recognizes that as the start of what will always be her signature song, Satisfied, or as I call it…the how to win a Tony in 6 minutes song. I was surprised she sang it as it has many parts but she pulled it off beautifully. She followed that with her solo version of Schuyler Sisters. It was remarkable. Here’s a video of her singing Satisfied in Hamilton.

Finally, on Halloween Peter and I went to a party with friends from the community Democratic Club. We dressed as a flapper girl and her gangster honey. Peter has lost so much weight (he’s up to 28 pounds) that his suit was gigantic on him. It worked well for his costume but we need to get him a new suit before the holiday parties start.

That takes us up to our current travel adventure, a week at the Secrets all-inclusive resort in Puerto Vallarta. Yesterday (Monday 11/1) we discovered that our flight time was changed from 1000 to 0730 so we decided to head into the Valley and spend the night at an airport hotel. This morning we were on the 5:30am shuttle for the 10-minute trip to the airport. That was much better than leaving the house at 4:30 for the hour long drive to the airport.

After an uneventful flight (the only kind I want to have) and an easy trip through immigrations and customs, we found our private shuttle to the resort. It was only noon and our room wasn’t ready so we headed to the pool for some sun, swim, lunch, and of course, Pina Coladas. Now in our room, which is beautiful, we’ll get settled then head out to explore the resort. Not sure what we’re going to do this week but I’m sure we’ll find something to do to stay out of trouble. I’ll keep you posted.