Hotel Friendly Fun Vallarta — Hotel in Jalisco

Honest Review - Terrible! Terrible! Terrible!

This is an honest review of the Friendly Fun Vallarta All-Inclusive Hotel in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I have great difficulties to understand any of the “positive” reviews of this establishment. In my opinion these “reviews” are simply rigged, written by friends or written by those, who don’t have any idea of civilized standards of an All-Inclusive Hotel. For years my wife and I are periodically travelling for our vacations to Mexico, mostly to All-Inclusive hotels, and mostly to Puerto Vallarta, as to our favorite place. Every time, we stay in a different hotel. This is why; we have a clearly defined comparison. This also means that we are not fresh and unexperienced travelers. We arrive to Friendly Fun Vallarta from Canada on Sunday, March 30th, 2025 around noon. We came for 11 days. We were checked in, given wrist bracelets and told by the reception to wait for our room to be made until after 3:00 PM. Having no choice, tired from the long trip, we waited. After 3:00 PM the room was assigned to us. We move in, unpacked and began our vacations. Unfortunately, in the evening we discovered that the toilet in our washroom was clogged and unusable. I called the reception. After about an hour the “plumber” arrived. Instead of fixing the problem he lectured us on how to flash the toilet. Well, being from Canada, apparently, we did not know how to do it. We struggled with the clogged toilet for two more days. On the third day, being fed up with the situation I went to the reception and as a result we were moved to another room. In the new room the toilet was in working condition, but the bathroom sink was not! One day my wife and I came tired from visiting the town at approximately 4:00 PM. Our room was not made at all. The cleaning person did not arrive at our room at that day. I called the reception. In about one hour someone has arrived to clean our room, but we had to move out from the room for the time being. Tired, we were not able to use our room but to wait in the lobby. This situation continued. During the next several days, the cleaning person was “missing” and did not clean our room at all. (Yes, I was leaving the 20 pesos on the pillow every day – as the unwritten rule suggests). Frustrated I had to go to the reception every time this happened. The reception manager asked me what time we would like to have our room made every day? I said that 10:00 AM would be fine. He agreed and intervened. For the next 2 days the room was cleaned at approximately 10:00 AM. On the third day, the cleaning person has forgotten and missed our room again. Back to the reception manager. After that our room was cleaned. Let’s talk about the food. For 11 days the food was the same every single day. No selection nor variety. Blant, tasteless, flavorless, badly cooked by people, who have no idea how to cook. No fruits or salads. (Being in the “Mango Country”, my wife wished to have mango. Well, there was none! So, we went to the local grocery store and purchased mango). Being totally honest; the quantity of food was adequate. The only problem was that for the entire 11 days the food was the same and very bad. To the point that for the last few days we could not look at that food there anymore. It was terrible! The everyday pork ribs were so hard that it was impossible to bite and eat them. Those, who write “positive reviews” about food at Friendly Fun Vallarta must have never experienced a good food in their lives, or spent their lives eating food out of cans. This was the worst food experience we had in Mexico by far! If dirty pigeons constantly walking on your dinner plate and scooping your food from it are O.K. with you, this place is for you. This hotel is a mess! As described above, the food is bad, the service is inadequate. At least one third of the hotel’s employees is just walking around, standing in groups and chatting and pretending to be working. My advice: DON’T GO THERE! After all, it...

HONEST REVIEW

This is a long, detailed review.

Location: Perfect for an all-inclusive. The beach is meters away from the rooms and the distance between different points of interest is perfect. 6 min away from the main port where you might take the most important tours.

Food: There are several restaurants. I ate in mostly one (el Palmar) since was the most beautiful next to the beach. Food was great, I might say the best from any hotel I have been. Nothing is spicy if you are wondering and they have a good variety. Water flavored options are the worst thing. Honestly, you need to fix those machines, I was getting guava water that looked pink and tasted like plain watered. Either drink soda (also from machines, or just water). The pool areas have different kinds of snacks; fruit, ice cream, pizza... They are good, not the best but good. Drinking wise, the beverages are OK. Sometimes you get more alcohol in your drinks and sometimes not. Beer is... Ok.

Pools: The pool areas are great. I was traveling with my family so I did not visit the adult-only areas but from afar they looked great. The main area is good, big enough for the people, but do not expect to get any place to sit... EVER. If you do not wake up super early to get a seat you will not get it at any point during the best hours. Walk to the beach, rent a tent (300 pesos) and enjoy the beach.

BEACH: The beach area is big enough so you are not next to other people. There is a volleyball court, and other activities you can do near the place. The coconut and mangos you can get from the vendors are EXPENSIVE, believe me, they are expensive. Buy them If you really want want.

STAFF: The staff is either friendly fun; they guide you the best and make you feel super nice. Or... super negative; man! It was sometimes painful to deal with some people. One guy and a girl on the beverages stand were bitterly awful: I almost felt I needed to apologize for asking them for a drink. Other are smiley and all but some are awkward to interact. Tip only the ones that deserve it, honestly.

ROOM: Oh man! The rooms. I can not speak for all the hotel, I can speak for the 4th floor on the 2000-2500 rooms. I was specifically on the 2519 room. I ask other guests on the same floor and all they mention the same: FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON the rooms have a double wooden door in the middle of the room that kinda links two rooms. It is obviously closed and you can not open it but you can hear your neighbour guest. You can hear them like there was no door. You hear them even when they whisper. Luckily, our neighbours had kids and we're a family. They woke up twice super early and seemed to have fascination for the snooze button for over two hours. But I thank God they were a family and not a couple. I could have probably hear every single sound if it had been the case. Seriously, Friendly Fun, either you build the missing concrete wall or you warn guest prior. The rooms are ok. Beds are not the best but they are good. Pillows... I have had better. They have AC and for some reason if you do not use it the room get this humid aroma... :S

MISCELLANEOUS: You get water bottles when you arrive that you can refill with water or drinks. Nice idea. They work perfect. What I didn't like was the plastic cups you can use and you should technically leave near a food or drink station. But people seem to just use them and leave them everywhere. They make the hotel look like an after...

We could not be happier with our stay at Friendly Vallarta Hotel in Puerto Vallarta. We, along with about 150 friends and family celebrated our marriage at the hotel. Most stayed 3-5 days and have wonderful things to say about the hotel and the whole experience!

Hotel: The hotel was great as a whole. It is not a luxury hotel, but was perfect for what we wanted. The rooms were simple and comfortable. All rooms had AC, but the rest of the hotel did not. Wifi was great where it reached, but we stayed on the top floor and couldn´t connect. The adults only pool was a favorite of mine with beautiful views. The beach was not huge, but very nice. They had a volleyball court, and many guests took advantage of the kayaks. The hotel had a lot of fun activities like Zumba, dancing, pool exercise, etc., and made it a fun environment to be in. One thing to be cautious of is that if you are on the first few floors and want to go to bed early, it can be noisy because of all the events. They had great food, and my favorite was at the international buffet, at the grill, Rosario made delicious food, and was very friendly. I did not get to go to Frida, but heard the food was great.

Wedding: Our wedding turned out more wonderful than I could have imagined, due in large part to Adriana! She was so wonderful to work with and not only was she organized, but very personable, and really cared about making our special day, special. Our wedding was during the rainy season, and at first I felt pretty strongly about having everything outside, but after discussing with Adriana, we decided it was best to hold the reception inside, which turned out to be great. We were able to have the ceremony outside, but it was quite hot, and the reception inside was great because it was cool, and private. The food was delicious, the DJ was great, and room looked beautiful. We wanted to have a dance performance during our dinner, and Adriana did all the work in finding a WONDERFUL group and coordinating it all. Everyone was so pleased with the performance. The dance floor was great, and the service was exceptional. We are so happy with our wedding day and could not be more grateful to Adriana and the whole Friendly staff.

If you are thinking of having your wedding there, feel free to reach out and I´d be happy to share about my experience.

Biggest Pro: The biggest pro of Friendly is exactly as their name says - friendly! The staff is wonderful and so personable and kind and warm and it just made the stay so enjoyable.

I also want to mention the cost, and that for everything we got, on the wedding day and throughout the weekend, it was a great price!

Biggest Con: I have never seen rain like I did in Puerto Vallarta, and we were staying on the top floor, and the first night the hallway was flooded. It was not very safe.

Overall we are so happy with our stay and would love to return someday...