Fiesta Americana Riviera Nayarit — Hotel in Nayarit

I am writing to you on behalf of our family of 4. We have recently traveled to Puerto Vallarta for our Spring Brake vacation. We have chosen a hotel via Apple Vacation’s recommendation and rating. We were told that Dreams Hotels have better standards than the previous one that we stayed at last August, which was Riu Dunamar in Cancun. We like to choose Apple Vacation agents because we trust that the recommendation and Apple’s standard is superb. At least until the last time. We arrived at the hotel to find out that they have prepared a room with one bed only for our whole family. Of course that was our first disappointment since we knew that our agent requested double beds. We were told that they cannot get us a room with double beds due to being fully booked. The personel was rude and did nothing to make this stay better. We were approached by another personel member who offered us a 1.5hr tour to the nearest, newest hotel and timeshare, she was so pushy that she would even approached us while waiting in line to the buffet. Thank god we did not fall for this like other guests did and they ended up waisting their whole vacation day for that and returned to the hotel at 3pm! This type of sales approach should not be acceptable! When arrived at the room the thing that stroke us was very strong smell of mold. The shower was connected to the toilet with the glass wall, and while one person was taking shower the other one sitting on the toilet would have their feet wet due to the leaking wall at the bottom. The room would have 2 sometime 3 bath towels never 4 and it was 4 of us. You would have to wait the whole day the towels to arrive at the room if you were lucky. Another thing that I would like to point out is lack of fresh towels by the pool in the morning. They would let you wait 30 minutes or more since they had none cleaned up. The advertised kids club was non existent. Bar was closed at 12:30 am. Lack of non-speaking personel was sometimes hard to communicate. One day we ordered taxi to take a trip in a van to Puerto Vallarta. The person by the gate called our room to confirm that so we knew they were there for us . However, one of the concierge guys stole that taxi for another guests. Our driver confirmed that with our friend that spoke Spanish and ordered taxi for us. When I approached him, he was so rude and cursed some words towards me. The experience at the buffet was no better. The choice of food was very poor. If you would see the oat mill you would puke just by looking at it not to mention the tasteless dishes. The stuff at the buffet was very slow and rude. Also noticed one of the servers stealing the tip money we left for another one from the table. By far the worst was the Al’Carte Mexican Restaurant that we tried one evening. In fact when asked for shot of tequila Hornitos we were told that they would charge us for it, even though this Tequila was on the bottom shelf served at the bar without a problem. When finally we receive our shots and requested another round, server came over and poured tequila from the bottle straight into the dirty shot glass where the used lime wedge was placed. Simply unacceptable behaviors and lack of training. The food in that restaurant was disgusting. My husband and my daughter ordered the same meal from the menu to receive two totally different meals with one being undercooked and served 30 minutes later. The food at this hotel was so bad that we were dining outside of the hotel and spend at least $700 just for that. Even our local taxi driver said that this hotel is known for poor quality food and recommended another hotel not so far from ours. At the last day of our stay there was a huge human poop on the beach that no one from the personel bothered to clean up. This was a quintessence and summary of our stay at this place. This is definitely not the type of service we expected from Dreams Hotel and are extremely disappointed with this place and Apple Vacation’s rating of this hotel. If we knew what we know now we would have never chosen this hotel...

Let me start by saying that this is about my perspective based on my experiences at resorts, some all-inclusive and some not.

WHAT WENT WELL The rooms were nice. Since we purchased suites, we were considered VIPs, which we didn't know until we got there so that was a pleasant surprise.

The people who served us our food were pleasant.

The swimming pools were beautiful, although we use them because duh, we had the ocean! :-)

The beach is one of the best that we have been on! You can walk 40 yards with it up to your ankles, another 40 yards with it up to your calf, another 40 yards up to your knee, etc. It was amazing!

The hotel will probably not like this but the massages offered by the people working the beach were absolutely amazing and were only $35 for an hour!!! I got two during my stay and my hubby got three! I think I heard another guest say that the hotel charges $125 for an hour.

We used their photography service for our son's surprise marriage proposal. The photographer was good and the photos came out well. The price was reasonable.

IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES (listed in no particular order): The website says "Choose from eight dining experiences, including four gourmet à la carte restaurants, an international buffet, a snack bar, a sushi lounge and a café. Enjoy international and domestic top-shelf spirits, fine wines and ice-cold beer at any of our four bars." The seven dining experiences are a two-in-one! Meaning it's one restaurant that they give different names to when it's lunch vs when it's dinner (LOL). So there are four dining locations! And not all are open every day! Two of the four bars are a small area within these two-in-one restaurants (LOL). The top-shelf spirits and wine were NOT top-shelf brands AND their version of top-shelf was only available to VIPs. All wines had a screw off top, nothing corked. They had only one option for Cab, one option for Pinot Noir, and one option for white. The best available Vodka was Kettle One, which I like BUT after five days of it being an option on the VIP list, I was told it had been removed from the list and was not going to be added back.

On day two of our six day trip, my husband and I got stuck in the elevator with another guest. The elevators are small and hot. We were stuck for one hour and 21 minutes. Upon exit, we were presented with a bottled water and a cold towel, which felt glorious at the time. They did have a medical person present to see if we had any medical needs, which we did not. At no time during our stay did management check on us, apologize for the experience, explain what happened, offer something for the inconvenience, etc.

We didn't know the hotel sat on a public beach, which would have been nice to know since people like myself are traveling to be on an beach! There were beachside lounge chairs and umbrellas down the hotel steps, which we assumed belong to the hotel. Whether they do or not, since it's a public beach, the public also used them. One day was really bad because there were several, different groups of people having their own private parties with loud music and loud conversations/laughing. Even when another guest asked them to turn their music down just a little they say no and that it was a public beach. While this is NOT the fault of the hotel, they should make mention of this.

The 'nightly entertainment' only had entertainment one of the five nights we were there, the other four nights were a DJ or band playing music. Sadly, pretty much no one showed up or participated when it...

We would not recommend this resort.

Throughout our stay different sections of the resort were closed for either painting or photoshoots. The photoshoots were to take picture for advertising on their website. We were not given any notice that this was scheduled during the time of our stay. As a result, half the beach was blocked off at one point, and every day a restaurant and/or bar would be closed. Repeatedly the adult only restaurants would be cramped with hungry guests and screaming children because other areas were closed.

Upon arrival, we were told that there was a mandatory orientation the following day where someone from the hotel would have breakfast with us and tell us about what the resort offered. We were excited to learn about the activities as we hoped to participate in a dance lesson. However, the orientation turned our to be a a 2+ hour high-pressure sales pitch that left us feeling guilty and exhausted on our very first day. I can’t overstate what an unpleasant experience this was. Other guests commiserated about this experience, and shared that they had been able to avoid the pitch but were harassed every time they went through the lobby.

Our room was repeatedly not cleaned by 4pm when we returned for a cold shower and siesta.

We were also sold a "private dinner". The food was good but very similar to what was served at the all-inclusive restaurants, and the dinner itself was not private at all- there was another table right next to ours. There were tiki torches but they would not light and we were left in the dark.

The bars are rarely manned by more than one bartender, leading to long lines and waits. This issue was made worse as a result of some bars/restaurants being closed for painting or photoshoots and so a ton of people would crowd around a single bar with a single bartender. The bartenders themselves appeared overwhelmed and rushed (although always had a smile). With respect to the 24-7 food service, the menu is extremely limited and the food itself was poor. One afternoon we ordered in pizza to our room to escape the hustle and bustle of the restaurants and it was undercooked with the dough raw and the cheese unmelted (this was not a unusual experience- we ordered room service a couple of times to avoid the busy restaurants, the various photoshoots, and to enjoy some privacy and the quality was always moderate to poor). We were not permitted to order alcohol to the room (which is maybe understandable, but when we would go to order a drink from the bar to bring to our room to enjoy, the line would be such that we’d give up).

We got dressed up on our last evening to have dinner at the elegant Italian restaurant and were re-directed to a different spot due to more photoshoots. The restaurant we ended up in was stuffy and warm, and my husband’s seafood Canneloni was full of sharp shells. When each of us went to the restroom at different points we saw behind the scenes the messy kitchen area and the bathrooms themselves were a mess.

However, we can not reiterate enough how lovely the serving staff were. At dinners, the staff were attentive and funny. Despite being overwhelmed by guests ordering drinks, the bartenders were warm and accommodating. A number of staff members took the time to teach us some Spanish and would consistently joke around with us and make us feel welcome. They were an enormous highlight!

Unfortunately though we were ultimately underwhelmed with the quality of the food and were completely put-off by the high-pressure sales pitch early on which had been misrepresented as an orientation. I have stayed in different resorts before, and although they don’t always have the same fancy appearance at first glance, the food is much better, and the lack of high-pressure sales definitely made them preferable to me. I would not recommend...