Back from Paradise

[mhahn]

Another great vacation in PV. We tried something different this time, 3 nights at the Premiere Resort and Spa and then back to our all time favorite hotel, the Crown Paradise, in our wrap around terrace room with an outside jacuzzi. The Premiere was a top notch resort, the food was excellent and the foot massage was to die for. The pool area is small but has super thick padded lounge chairs. You can go accross the street (very close) to the sister Hotel the Buenventura that has more pools and a relaxing pool, (a pool that has chairs and tables built in the water, have never seen anything like that before.) We relaxed and enjoyed three days there, we did meet friends from our area that were staying at the Vila Del Palmer and had a good visit with them. The beach front of the Premiere only had a couple of chairs and umbrellas set up, I don't know if during "high season" if they put more loungers on the beach or not. There was only one bar at night and it was very small, about 10 chairs. During the day a small bar next to the pool and beach was the only one open. Onto the CP, we were greeted with open arms and familiar faces. Pauli got promoted to "Captain" and is rotating between the restaurants. He did get married but their official church wedding is in Feb. Aldo is still at the bar, he is was working differnt shifts and even working at the pool bar. Ana Ramirez as usual was her very friendly self along with Mariana at the front desk. Everyone was wonderful as usual, the staff at this resort makes it the best. The drinks are good brands, the food although not gourmet is very good, the beach area is the very best. We hired a driver (Mario) for $15.00 an hour and he took us exactly where we wanted to go. There were some areas we wanted to revisit and others we had never been to in a total of 9 trips to PV. The jungle area where the Predator was filmed (in honor of the Governor elect of CA) was on our list, it was beautiful up there and the cool temperature compared to downtown was much appreciated. The waterfalls were gorgeous, the road was amazing, hard to beleive the tour buses could make it there, but they do. The Mismoloya area was as usual beautiful and provided some great pictures. The view from the Concha Chinas area was picture perfect. A quick stop at a tequilla factory was also on the agenda.

We saw the most amazing lightening storm, the whole sky was illuminated in bright white, not just streaks but the whole sky as far as you could see, that reflection on the water was amazing. The storm went on for hours, I got up in the early Am to watch it from the terrace, it was still pitch black out so was pretty astounding to watch. Of course the accompanying thunder was deafening! There were still sand bags around the hotel from preparations for Hurriane Olaf, we were told the water did come up to the beach bar and first floor of rooms where the sand bags were. No damage was apparent, and we only experienced a very few rain drops a couple of evenings. The Krystal Hotel a few feet down the beach has its new expansion of rooms (3 stories) almost completed. There is construction going on at the nightclub on the corner, Christine's. The walking bridge going over the river downtown to south side looks almost complete. For what it is worth the rumor from the locals is that the Sheraton time share units are to open next week (now it would be this week) and the other units in December.
We will be back to the Crown Paradise in May 2004, this time we are bringing our friends smoked sturgeon that is caught, smoked and canned from our home town. Got our pictures back today, we enjoyed them over a few cocktails tonight, and of course are already talking about next time at the Crown Paradise!

[tojol57]

Isn't it great... Glad to hear you had a great time... Lorrie and I will be leaving in just over 15 weeks (Feb 14th - 28th) and this will be our 7th time to CPR and out 14th time to Puerto Vallarta... We started staying 2 weeks last year... and now that isn't long enough... would love to stay there longer and longer.... it is great.... We visit with Ana via e-mail all the time... and while we are there, Nacho (general manger) and I get together every day to go over the things "about" the resort... i bring him up to speed on what the "newbies" are saying as well as some of the returnee's we have breakfast before his staff meetings... it is great.... and you can see each and every improvement as the days go by.....

see you down there sometime....