Another deal from AppleVacations.com, $800/pp for a 7 nights all-inclusive in Puerto Vallata; plus $200 discount per booking so total cost for two adults and one 2-year-old child is $1,545.00 which I think is a pretty good deal considering free round trip airport transfer (30 minutes driving from airport to the hotel)

The Grand Palladium Vallarta Resort is about 45 minutes driving from the PV downtown; it’s easy & cheap to take the bus to get to the downtown from the hotel; but if you rather take taxi, it’d cost about 420 pesos and up ( this is the price from the hotel but from downtown the taxi driver may ask for more so be prepared to negotiate: I paid 450 pesos to get a taxi from downtown back to the hotel).

This hotel is isolated on the hills so there’s staircases everywhere (there’s no elevators or escalators): 30 steps to go down to the pool from my room; 15 steps to go up to the main buffet; more steps to get to the beach, etc. After the 1st day, my legs are tired of walking up the stairs or up hill!

The hotel has 3 pools but they’re rather small: family pool, kids pool with some slides and infinity pool for adults only.

The food at the main buffet El Bosque is OK: same thing everyday; mostly Mexican foods. However I like the foods from the El Portofino (Italian food) and Bamboo restaurant (Asian food). The steaks at the Ribs & More restaurant is bad: very dry. We especially enjoyed the view from the Viva Mexico restaurant which sits on the high hill that we can see the beach below. Sitting outside in a hot summer day and feel the breezy wind, eat Mexican food and listen to Mexican music is the best. Guacamole is prepared at out table; I had some tequila and Fajitas for dinner. To me the food at this restaurant is ok but the scenery is beautiful.

The drinks from the lobby bars are much better than from the pool & beach bars. The lobby bar is also the place I got the big box of milk almost every day for William to drink.

William was scared of the water for the first few day: he’d hold on to me all the time, he would not want to be in the pool unless I hold him and stand in the water with him. 2 days before we left he started to like the pool and would run the the pool to play by himself.

One thing that bothered me the most is the sale reps.  They were trying to have me sign up for their Travel Club. They would stand around on the main roads every morning to try to talk to you.  On our very first day, after check in,  the hotel desk told me to talk to this lady so that she could show us around.  I had no idea she’s the sale rep from Travel Club.  At first she did talk about the hotel map, where things are but then she went on and on about the benefits of the Travel Club.  My 2 year old boy was crying because he was tired and hungry after 3 hours flight.  I had to told her to cut it short, and finally she let us go.   Personally I don’t think it’s good time to convince people to buy  stuff when they’re tired!

Overall this hotel with natural settings is not as beautiful as the other ones that we stayed in Cancun but it’s a good place to relax.