Villa Del Palmar Beach Resort and Spa, Puerto Vallarta

This was our second stay. Our first stay was in a studio unit which was a little snug especially the shower. Our last stay was in a handicap room which was excellent for us. However a person in a wheel chair could not roll into the shower. Location is excellent and taxi fare is usually less than $5.00 to every thing you need. including down town Puerto Vallarta, an excellent shopping center, equal to or better than most state side centers, gambling, excellent restaurants.

Hotel is a half and half between families and senior citizens. Quit please after 11:00pm Food , amenities and activities very nice. Need more Room Clealiness. Smell a food due kitchen in the room.

It's pretty hard not to have a good time at an all-inclusive resort in Puerto Vallarta. I went with a large group of friends to Villa Del Palmar and we had a lot of fun. However, I've been to other resorts in Puerto Vallarta and Villa Del Palmar was probably my least favorite. Other all-inclusive resorts seem to have much more to offer. More restaurants, bars, activities, entertainment, etc. My friends and I are in our mid-to-late 20's, so we like to drink and have a good time. We were very disappointed when we found out that Villa Del Palmar's bars only stay open until 10:45 PM! It definitely seems like an older crowd at Villa Del Palmar, so maybe that's why the bars close so early. My family has a timeshare at Marival in Nuevo Vallarta and it has 5-6 restaurants, a nightclub, and it's bars stay open until 1-2 AM. Villa Del Palmar's two restaurants/bars that close early was a let-down. I also was not a big fan of the beaches in this area of Puerto Vallarta. My girlfriend and I wanted to take a walk on the beach and our feet were hurting within minutes because of the rough sand. It's almost like small rocks/pebbles the further away from the water you are. I also like bigger waves for boogie-boarding and surfing, which this area did not really have. Lastly, the beach vendors are NON-STOP in this area of Puerto Vallarta. Soooo many vendors coming up to you all day long trying to sell their stuff. I expect this every time I go to Mexico, but this was ridiculous. Overall, the beaches in Nuevo Vallarta are much nicer. Some things that I did like about Villa Del Palmar were the staff and the proximity to downtown Puerto Vallarta. The staff members were extremely nice and helpful to our entire group. They brought us drinks and food down to the beach all day long. They definitely worked their butts off. The location of this resort is awesome, too. You're just a short cab ride away from everything. Overall, Villa Del Palmar was a pretty nice place, but I probably won't go back. For the same amount of money (or maybe a little more) you can go to much better resorts with much more to offer.

The staff at the hotel were exceptional in all regards.The hotel was quite clean and well kept up. We'd stay there again in a minute.

they never stopped cleaning. staff was helpful. room were nice

we really enjoyed our time at this hotel. Breakfast was included in our hotel price. This was fantastic and although we are not great fans of anything all inclusive,the daily breakfast ended being something we enjoyed immensely. Sitting outside every morning in the cooler air and eating was very relaxing and a great start to our day! So thank you for this bonus!!!! Room comfort rated lower due to significant air conditioned fan noise from nearby hotel.

Our stay was from November 09th through November 24th. Please listen to the reviews left by myself and others as they are the REAL thing and not an exaggeration. We choose the VDP for our wedding party and we ended up also staying at the resort instead of going to another resort because of the proximity of our guests and the downtown area. It was our first time to PV and we were married at Lekliff (beautiful!!). VDP pretty much ruined our trip, honeymoon and embarrassed us dearly!! I wish we would’ve taken the time and effort to move resorts earlier in on our trip. How did they do this well…… first off the rooms are old and not clean at all. My Mom took pictures of the bed in her 2 bedroom suite and it had sand, dirt and hair in the sheets. When she called the front desk they said sorry no speak English. She went down to the front and showed the picture on her phone and they played dumb and said “no English”, she ended up sleeping on top of her coat she laid down the first night. The room we were promised did not happen, they stuck us in a room facing the tennis court.. When I told them I had called and spoke to ____ prior to our arrival and was promised a garden view room with a view of the ocean for our honeymoon they again played dumb and said sorry no understand you. The bed sheets and bedspread had stains and smelt of mold. Do not even waste your time with the VIP card because it’s no good and they will just find another way to charge you for any savings you may ended up getting. The resort is close to downtown but watch out if they place you in a room upfront you will have the noise of the roads and the front check in area. When we went to check out we paid in full and left our ID in order to use the towels for the pool area until we had to leave for the airport. What a mistake that was! When we went to pick up the ID’s the lady at the front desk said that they made a mistake and we owed them $650.00 pesos more and when asked why she said I can’t explain to you in english, so I said show me on paper, she could not do this either. I asked to speak to a Supervisor and told her that we need to leave for the airport. The Supervisor couldn’t not tell us why either but all she said was we need to pay. I had never wanted out of a place so bad before in my life! I told my husband to pay and let’s get out of here before they make us miss our flight or charge us more. I have no idea what the charge was for but trust me when I say it’s not worth me contacting them now over it. They are rude, liars and are only out for your money. Harsh words I know but it’s the truth. The best part of the hotel is the deli in the store, the two young men in there that cook the food were wonderful and the food they cooked was very delicious, much better then the restaurants located in the actual hotel. The price was very inexpensive. These two young men were the only ones at the hotel that seemed genuine, polite and was not trying to take you for all you had. Going in to this trip we knew that some things were going to go wrong because of all the people we had traveling to PV and the fact that we were getting married away from home. We told ourselves that we would go with the flow but had no idea that it would be the resort we were staying at that would be such a problem for us. I felt used, angry and completely helpless. They will act as if they can’t speak English if you ask for their help but watch out if they want something from you they will speak it just fine. I will not recommend this resort to anyone.

This is my 5th stay at the Villa and boy has it gone downhill! Front desk staff are rude, not helpful, lose reservations and do not honour packages that have been purchased online. When trying to voice concerns or have problems fixed, we were ignored and lied too - being told the Manager was in meetings or busy when he in fact, he wasn't even on the hotel property. Time share people and their "gold card" hawkers are plain annoying and do not stop. Room cleanlinessneeds to be addressed - who wants to see mold on their sheets? GROSS!Would not recommened anybody stay here.

When you look for a resort, you're looking for a nice refuge from your everyday, hectic life. You want good food, drinks, kind staff, beautiful premises, and above all else you want to trust the business. So please go anywhere but here. The staff are inattentive at best, but for the most part they are all too eager to prey on your money. They will do anything to scam a dollar from you and this is obviously from the top-down. Wi-fi at $12/day. Hidden fees. Overcharging. Double-charging. You name it! Some guests we travelled with couldn't even get Villa Del Palmar to honour their All-Inclusive status. They were forced to eat Ichiban and go WAY over budget because VdP was unwilling to fulfill their service agreement and completely unwilling to work with the guests in any customer service capacity. I, myself, was faced with a situation where staff was discussing how to scam me for more money right while I was listening (they thought I didn't speak Spanish). Also, my sheets had mildew on them; you had to do your own dishes; and the water filters in the room had never been changed. God forbid you lose your beach towel! ($25 for a sweat-stained rag if you do) The beach is overrun by people pushing their wares and while that’s not unique to VdP, there was almost nowhere near the ocean that could be described as peaceful. It’s best to avoid the area entirely unless you want to play beach volleyball and whack it at them. Now the good: The drinks were priced ok for those without all-inclusive. Sadly, that was many people including several who had paid for it (there was also a lot that was NOT covered by all-inclusive). The food was fine even at times excellent and no one had any digestive issues. The main pool area was clean and pleasant with activities throughout the day. At night there were a few activities you could pay for but expect to have another hand too deep into your pocket for those experiences. My vacation was good because of the people we met and the friends we made. But there's always an asterisk i have to add anytime I'm talking about my trip. I always have to explain how terrible this resort was and how it cast such a dark shadow over my time in Mexico. I wish this wasn't so because I needed a vacation and what I got was stress near a pool. Last thoughts: We were given notice on our last day that we had to be out of the place by 11:00 sharp and if we were still in line for checkout we would be charged another day’s stay. Knowing that this place was a con-artist’s dream we decided to play it safe and line-up at 8:00. We found that they strategically cut front staff to 1 just for the checkout time and the line-up was epic. They must have found that was another nice way to weasel money from guests… We checked-out on time and were nearly pushed to the doormen who ordered us a cab at twice the rate it would normally have been and pocketed the kick-back.

This was our fifth visit to Villa Del Palmar in Puerto Vallarta -- we were very much looking forward to our trip -- it was for a wedding and we were there with 26 others from Oct 29 to Nov 5, 2011 and it was so disappointing. I am not sure what has happened to the hotel that we knew and loved but the whole visit left us with a bad taste. From check in there were issues -- luckily our room was fine but when you are arriving with a large party you expect some continuity. Of the 28 of us that travelled down -- only 2 rooms were okay. Some had booked rooms and were given accomodations that were seriously in need of review and the common excuse was that they were full -- which was laughable as this is a slow point in their season and the hotel was only at 50% capacity. Several of our guests had booked 1 bedroom suites that are depicted as an apartment style -- certainly not what you get in reality -- apparently those photos are time share units. Those using the all inclusive bracelets certainly weren't happy with all of the hoops they had to go through -- in fact -- when one of our group who was all inclusive went to dinner with a member of our party who wasn't all inclusive -- they were charged for their meals -- after arguing with the front desk it was taken off but the hassles that were given were ridiculous. The front desk was rude -- quite often argumentative and speaking Spanish deliberately when they felt people wouldn't understand. When faced with a problem -- they were unwilling to help and gave the impression that they didn't care. The service at the restaurants was spotty at best -- one evening it took us over an hour and half to get our meals even asking twice what the delay was and being told they were ready. At one point I was told that it was my meal -- stuffed chicken holding up everyone's meals -- when my meal arrived it had obviously sat under a lamp for a while and was dried out. My husband's dinner was cold ...and we weren't impressed. The waiter realizing how ticked off we were did offer free desserts but it was too little too late --all we wanted was hot food and good service. Service at pool side is definitely not what it used to be -- the food is okay at best and the service really doesn't shine like it used to. They seem to spend more time hounding you to sign your bill than anything else. We were fortunate that our housekeeping experiences was a good one -- too many of our party had atrocious issues. No towels, no cleaning, bathrooms were filthy upon check in, mildew on the comforters .... Check out was difficult -- we were given hassle about not asking for coupons for a credit that this website had been running -- when it was clear on the website that it was to be taken off at time of check out. (In one instance one of my daughter's was their credit at time of check in but isn't wasn't explained clearly and was contrary to what was on the website and she had to fight to get them to honor it -- she did try and use it at the pool but was told that they would not take it -- if it's a hotel credit why wouldn't the take the coupon? It was if the resort wanted to make it difficult to use and have people figure it wasn't worth the hassle ....). We did take our concerns to hotel management both in person and by email but unfortunately it seems that once we paid the money they weren't interested in us ...which is a shame because we used to rave about this resort. We will NOT be going back and will NOT be recommending the Villa Del Palmar to any of our friends and family.