Our wonderul trip from January 2 til January 9, long

Report on your Puerto Vallarta trip, hotel, restaurant, tour, etc.

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minrose
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Our wonderul trip from January 2 til January 9, long

Post by minrose » Sat Jan 19, 2002 2:15 am

We arrived in Puerto Vallarta, Jan 2, 2002. I see beautiful mountains all around. We get our hotel, we have a nice ocean and mountain view.

We walk the beaches around the hotel zone, we must have walked a few miles. There are rocks dividing the beaches up from one hotel to the next but the rocks do not go all the way back so you can get by just fine.

We walked to downtown the following day by the way of the beaches. The Malecon (boardwalk) was neat with all the different sculptures. I really like The Seahorse, Los Arco, the outdoor theater and the dolphin one. We went around to some shops and did a little shopping. After that we just laid around the beach, soaking up the sun.

The next day is our tour. First we sail to Los Arcos, little rock islands in the bay. They were pretty neat, some people snorkeled there but the waves were pretty rough so it was not too good of snorkeling that day. After that we sailed to Las Animas to visit that beach. It was a pretty nice beach but we only got to stay there about an hour. The one bad thing was, getting from the boat to the beach and back to the boat from the beach. We had to go in these little boats, which hold about15 people, so the wait to and from Las Animas was a little long. When everyone was loaded up, we took off for Quimixto for our horse ride up to the waterfall. What an experience that was!! I did not realize that the paths would be so steep, dusty, and narrow plus these horses had to walk up some step also, needless to say it was a little scarey. Especially since the last time I rode a horse, was about 30 years ago. Plus my horse had his own agenda, he was thirsty, so when most of the other horses were going across this stream to go up the mountain, my horse was going downstream, getting a drink. Anyways, eventually we get to the waterfall, it is very pretty. Luckily a guide, led my horse all the way back down so it was not so bad. I really think you should be a little more experienced than I was, to ride a horse to this waterfall.

We just did the beach scene the next day to rest up from our big tour. The next day, on the advise of Alfredo, we went to Pitilla to shop, suppose to be better prices there. We took a taxi ride out there and then walked the streets, looking at all the shops. Lots of toy shops, it seems like to me. Steve stopped to take photos in this butcher shop, they were so friendly, they had Steve put on a hat and they took a photo of him in the shop. We did buy a few things, Steve got a good price on the well made belt, and we got some other trinkets. After that we went to the Marina and looked around there, it was around 1:30 pm. I wanted to go up the Lighthouse but it was closed, I guess it must only be open in the evenings. We got back to our hotel and lounged around the hotel, then we went back to downtown Puerto Vallarta.

We went by Casa Kimberley, the bed and breakfast place(used to be Elizabeth Taylor’s home that Richard Burton bought for her) and checked out the infamous pink bridge, connected their two houses, it was kind of neat. We decided to check out Isla del Rio Cuale, the island in the river. There were many tourist shops here,we did a little bit of shopping but we had to hurry, we wanted to catch the sunset.

On our last day, we went to Destiladeras beach near Rancho Banderas up north of Puerto Vallarta, about a 30 minute ride. This beach was great, powdery soft sand, and the waves were not so rough. In the hotel zone, the waves could get rough and drop rocks on your feet and make them bleed a little bit,but not here. It was great walking from one end to the other, looking for seashells, and there were a lot of sea shells. There were even some rocks with seashells embedded into them.

To sum it up, it was a wonderful trip, we had a lot of fun. I would love to come back someday.

tlippy
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Re:Our wonderul trip from January 2 til January 9, long

Post by tlippy » Sat Jan 19, 2002 4:11 pm

Thank you for taking the time to write a report! I never get tired of hearing about how people experience their vacations. I learn something from each posting - and next week I get to put all your tip to use!!!

mddfire
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Re:Our wonderul trip from January 2 til January 9, long

Post by mddfire » Sat Jan 19, 2002 9:53 pm

What hotel did you stay at?

minrose
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Re:Our wonderul trip from January 2 til January 9, long

Post by minrose » Sun Jan 20, 2002 4:28 pm

We stayed at the Holdiday Inn in the hotel zone. It was a nice hotel, nice rooms. The staff was very friendly and helpful. We went all-inclusive, the buffet food was good, except it was barely warm most of the time.
They did karoke a couple of nights at the bar, which was fun to see.
I have photos at webshots from our trip. As soon as I figure out how to post a link, I will do that. Anyone have instructions on how to do that, thanks.

GettingMarriedInPV

Re:Our wonderul trip from January 2 til January 9, long

Post by GettingMarriedInPV » Tue Jan 22, 2002 7:43 pm

How much did you pay for the waterfall tour?
Did it include lunch on the beach?

We did that tour a few years ago and we are leaving on the 26th to go back for two weeks with a bunch of firends and family and think they all would like it.

Thanks!

minrose
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Re:Our wonderul trip from January 2 til January 9, long

Post by minrose » Thu Jan 24, 2002 12:14 am

Well we paid $30.00 usd for the two of us but that was cuz we got snagged into a timeshare presentation, that is how we got our discount on the tour. We originally was trying for the Yelapa tour (which has waterfalls too) but there were not enough people for that one, so we went on the boat to Quimixto.
We had lots of different fruit served to us when we first arrived on the boat. Lunch was served on the boat not on the beach. We had some kind of chicken meal which was actually pretty good.

minrose
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Re:Our wonderul trip from January 2 til January 9, long

Post by minrose » Thu Jan 24, 2002 12:18 am

I forgot to mention that we paid $26.00 usd to rent the horses to ride up the waterfall.

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