Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta — Hotel in Jalisco

Overall, our 4-night stay was excellent. My family and I stayed in early March before Spring Break so the resort didn’t feel as packed and it wasn’t difficult to find beach/pool chairs. The beach is steps away from the hotels and it’s a private beach where no other resorts can access. The beach was actually swimmable compared to Cabo where the beach is dangerous to swim in.

Hotel: We stayed the first night in an ocean view room and decided to upgrade to a junior suite room in the club lounge tower. The club tower offered premium drinks not offered elsewhere throughout the resort, had a snack bar that was open from 7am-11pm. Shout out to Ivan for being our bartender a few times! The room included a mini bar that was stocked with a few beers, sodas, and waters. They restock it everyday and you can request to get it restocked any time. It was a few steps away from the beach and was next to the adult pool. The rooms were large and included 2 full beds plus 1 pull out couch. The balcony had a day bed and 2 chairs and a table. I absolutely loved the sounds of waves crashing as we fall asleep since we were next to the beach. If you’re not a fan of this, I’d keep this in mind.

My aunt got upgraded to the Presidential Suite and it was a fantastic room with 2 floors. They had a corner room with a pretty good sized private pool. We spent a lot of time here too.

Food: I’d rate the food overall 3.5/5. There were many choices but none really that stood out, though I know not to ask for much in all inclusive resorts. Dinner choices were Pureza (Asian), Melanzane (Italian), Casa Grande (Mexican). The service for these restaurants were a little bit slower, it seemed as if they were understaffed. Our last night we went to Casa Grande, the wait was long but our server Martin took care of us with a smile on his face even though it seemed as if he was the only server there. These 3 require reservations as they get booked fast. There’s a seafood restaurant called Blaze that’s available for dinner and for lunch and it has a wonderful view. Most restaurants actually had a wonderful view. The Vivaz buffet was great for breakfast. The coffee shop by the lobby was very convenient especially if you have an early morning excursion. I would say our favorite place to eat actually ended up being the Hyghlights sports bar which served bar food — it was excellent for post drinking food. Room service was open 24/7 and delivery was pretty quick I would say.

Spa/gym: I booked an 80 minute deep tissue massage which included a 1 hour pass prior to your appointment. Maria was my therapist and she was great. A guide takes you through the steps of sauna, rock walk, jacuzzi (with cucumbers for your eyes and a head massage from the guide), and finally, the spa pool. I’ve stayed in Ziva Los Cabos where they offered a full day pass and in/out privileges, but this spa only allowed for 1 hour. The service was overall wonderful. The gym was on the same floor and had nice view of the ocean.

Pools/beach: there were 4 pools available. One adult pool, 1 adults only swim up bar, 1 activities pool (for volleyball, Zumba, group water exercises). We stayed mostly in the adults only pool since it was closest to us. On our second day we rented a cabana by the beach which was next to a bar and the adults pool. Service was excellent. Shout out to Carlos for being our server that day! The cabana was ours from 9am to 6pm. It included 2 coconut drinks + they also served a tres leches birthday cake for my aunt’s birthday.

Service: All of our interactions with employees were excellent. They were all accommodating from the front desk to the restaurants to the lobby and to the pools. Shout out to Veronica for helping us out from the get go with booking our spa services and helping us with our room upgrade.

Activities: there were activities offered throughout the day and night ranging from group exercise, cornhole/volleyball games, and night time activities and shows in the main outisde area.

Overall, if I were to go back to Puerto Vallarta, I would...

Check-in: I am a Hyatt Explorist member, so upon arrival I was led to the World of Hyatt check-in desk which at the time already had a guest in the process of being checked in. I had to wait over 20 minutes before I was finally checked in since there is only one person that is in charge of World of Hyatt Discoverist, Explorist, and Globalist check-in, while the regular check in desk had multiple staff to check guests in. This is certainly the first time I don't think having status helped my check in process as I saw multiple guests that arrived after me finish their check in process at the regular desk while I was yet to be helped.

Room: I was upgraded to an Oceanfront view King Room at a higher floor due to my status as I had originalIy only booked the basic King Room. It appears that in the Club Tower all the rooms do have balcony. The room itself was very spacious and there was a beautiful view of the beach. The mini fridge was stocked with water and juice upon arrival and refilled when housekeeping cleaned. Some aspects of the room are certainly a little dated such as the sliding doors to the closet that didn't seem to want to slide most of the time. In addition, the bathroom countertop also had some visible permanent stains.

Service: I will say that almost everyone I met who worked at this resort was FANTASTIC. They greet you with a grand smile and genuinely want you to have an amazing experience throughout your stay. I want to give a special shoutout to my server Carlos at Casa Grande who was sooo attentive during my dining experience. He recommended the right food, ensured throughout the meal that everything was the way I wanted and even joked around with me about sitting down and eating with me as I was traveling solo. At the end he recommended me the right dessert and even brought me a cup of hot chocolate that I hadn't requested, but he said I had to try because it would go super well with my dessert and boy was he right! I would also like to say thanks to Rodolfo over at the Club Bar. He knew that I didn't really care for much alcohol and managed to make me some delicious drinks that were either light on alcohol or virgin that certainly were time consuming to make. In addition, a few of the nights when I was at the bar, he gave me great local recommendations for spots to visit while I was in Vallarta and without a doubt they were amazing recommendations that appear only locals would truly know about.

Amenities: The pools and jacuzzi were great to have for lounging around, but what certainly stands out about this resort is that there are activities such as the Kayak Tour and the Jungle Tour that are also included in the price of your stay. I went on the Kayak tour and the tour guide was informative, although on that specific tour we didn't see too much wild life, he did mention that sometimes they would see whales, sting rays, turtles, etc. You can also check out a kayak or paddleboard on the beach to use.

Dining: This is afterall an all-inclusive resort so I did not go in expecting amazing cuisine. I wasn't wowed by any of the food at any of the restaurants, but it is certainly decent food. If you are looking for great food, do not stay at an all-inclusive resort. The best dish I tried was the Chamorro at Casa Grande and the dish with the biggest shortcoming was the Shrimp Pad Thai at Pureza. I made it known that the flavor of the shrimp pad thai was purely that of soy sauce and saltiness. The waiter even brought out the chef and had me tell them what should go in, which the chef proceeded to confirm that he had used those ingredients. Now, I'm no food critic, but I have been to Thailand and I have tried a fair share of pad thais around, so I have to say if they did use those ingredients, then their ratio is horrendously off or I just had a bad dish that night. They asked for me to return the next night to "make it up" to me, but I already had reservations for a restaurant in town, so that didn't happen.

TL;DR: Great secluded resort with fantastic staff and activities and...

We had a lot of ups and downs here. We had a swim up room in the regular building, stayed 6 nights. Let me start with the reasons we did enjoy our stay.

The resort is TINY compared to other all inclusives. We love that, we love that everything can be seen from the beach and is a short walk to food, entertainment, and our rooms. The privacy is excellent. The small beach isn’t full of randoms. We actually love the swim up room - we were in our own little pool every single day eating our civiche, drinking, swimming, and only saw our neighbours a small handful of times. 4.The food is really good. Although I’d like to see more vegetables to the meat ratio. The fruit is fresh. The coffee is good. All the waters and juices are delightful. We ate tuna ceviche every day. We got coffee at the cafe every day as well. NOTE: we visited family who stayed at another resort in the area and this resort is truly all inclusive compared to others - there is NO limit to how many times you can visit the non-buffet/ a la carte restaurants. It was bizarre to hear other resorts limit your restaurant use. Despite issues with the room, it was large and very comfortable. The view is amazing. We saw whales and dolphins just from our first floor room! The vibe is also just good. Lots of areas to just sit and enjoy the sun and ocean and vibes. The people are very nice and the entertainment although extremely limited, was very fun and engaging. The couples massage and spa treatment was INCREDIBLE. An amazing massage, so much attention to comfort and details, and the hydrotherapy was amazing and staggered so we only saw one other couple while we were there. The service was great except for at the steak house. We loved interacting with everyone but our favourites were the waiter at our romantic dinner and the red hair lady at the concierge desk! We did a private dinner which was very romantic and the food was amazing.

Now let me tell you why we are considering NOT returning.

There was undisclosed construction happening on the floor above us, which while the noise wasn’t awful, ruined all of our videos and occasionally disrupted in room activities and sleep. Most importantly our room and hallway smelled STRONGLY of acetone I thought I was going to pass out a few times. Our room was not ready when we arrived. We had to wait for 45 minutes in the lobby and when we got to our room the floor was dirty, carpet dirty, tile floor full of wall dust. The bedding had stains, one robe was FULL of blood stains. Took them two attempts to replace. Our rainfall shower head didn’t work. We turned it on and it sprayed out of the pipe and caused the ceiling to swell. So we had to use the regular shower head. The shampoo holders were taped to the wall or not attached at all. Barely full of product. Housekeeping regularly would take our towels and not replace them. I had to call the front desk a few times. The Mexican food was horrible and undercooked or missing key ingredients. We get better Mexican food in Canada. The service at the steak house was weird. We got way less interaction and regularly had to flag down our waiter even when it wasn’t busy at all. It seemed to be because we were two women as every other couple and group got very attentive service. We were pressured to learn about the Playa Collection from multiple people multiple times in the first few days of our stay. Which is basically a hotel time share for like $15,0 00 up front. The worst part is they did this immediately upon check in while we waited for our not ready room and we had just travelled 12+ hours. Absolutely insane. But nice people. Daily activities were strongly lacking and were often cancelled. So the entertainment here is sorely lacking if you like that stuff. But the stuff they did do was fun and decent quality.

As a side note. There was a lot of weddings happening while we were there. We enjoyed seeing the various set ups at the various venues.

This was our first all inclusive...