Barcelo Puerto Vallarta, Puerto Vallarta

Amazing! The staff, the service, the rooms, the food. From the pick up at the airport on we were treated like not only guests, but the only guests there. Everyone was treated with kindness and courtesy. US and pesos, English/Spanish......they honestly went out of their way to make sure your stay was exceptional. It was. Be sure to walk around the area, take a15 minute walk into Mismaloya and visit the Tequila factory. Still handmade there by the same family since the 1800's. The Spa was a welcomed respite after a hard day of sunning, lounging and eating. Don't miss that special treat with your sig other. They sprayed every AM with a fogger for bugs and mosquitos. I didn't get bit, but noticed several people did. The trip to town is inexpensive, but time consuming. If you plan to go, allow a day for travel and shopping. Do not be afraid to drink the water as they have their own filtration plant. No problems for us. The rooms , our was a Jr. Suite, are large,clean and inviting. The king sized bed with 6 pillows and down comforter was perfect for the end of the night rest. Go! Enjoy! Relax! We will be back. Thank you Barcelo!

This place was a great time, the staff are fantastic, food and drink amazing. The only dra.w back was a few mosquitoes and the distance from town. You can catch the bus or taxi right out front however. Buses are very timely for about 60 cents and the taxis are very fast and not very expensive either. The rooms are very clean also and quite nice. Beautiful view, truely a great value! We ate all over this resort and had no problem whatsoever with sickness, dont no what the others are talking about!

This is my second time in PV & first time at the Barcelo, I was invited to join friends from Victoria and I was very happy on the property. Wonderful large room, excellent service, clean, foods are OK, do not forget it all inclusive so you have for what you pay The them restaurant are nice, excellent service Great effort to make all clients happy Thank-You Barcelo

I was with a group of 10 friends who went to the Barcelo Puerto Vallarta (Mismaloya) in June. We absolutely loved it. The rooms are huge, the pools are nice and the food was decent. (lots of fresh fruit at the buffet and fabulous soups! We really enjoyed the specialty restaurants. Great filet at Los Arcos, great lamb at Quixote and lovely soup at Capri) The beach wasn't the best because of all the vendors and the boats for hire. But on the up side we were able to get one of the boats for $15.00 per person and go over to Los Arcos which is right around the corner and has great snorkeling!!!!! If you want a day at a more private beach, book the Los Caletas tour from Esteban in the lobby. Nice day at the beach and great lunch. Since we all booked it, he gave us a city tour for free. Do the city tour. After seeing a little bit of Puerto Vallarta, we went into the mountains to a nice little restaurant and to a tequila factory whose tequila was the best I have ever had. Visit the village of Mismaloya. The zoo has an option of holding the baby tigers and lions and there are a couple of nice little restaurants. On the Mismaloya side of the beach you can get a massage for $20. My firend did this and said it was great. I booked mine through the spa at the hotel and enjoyed a more private, serene setting. The jewelry store on property is nice and I found the prices better that what I was able to get in town. He even customized a piece for me and didn't charge any extra. Pack sunscreen and bug spray. The only downside we found was that the room with the evening entertainment was a little musty and it triggered an asthma attach, so I couldn't enjoy the shows and there were a lot of smokers in the Cantina. The rooms were big enough that we had every one over to our room in tne evening and played cards. We all stopped at the cantia long enough to get the beverages of choise and took them upstairs. All in all we had a wonderful week and wouldn't heistate to go back or recommend it to friends. We loved being away from the hustle and bustle of Puerto Vallarta and enjoyed the property and the pools.

My husband and I just returned from Puerto Vallarta and stayed at The Barcelo for our one year anniversary. Since our honeymoon was our last vacation, and I feel we were bit spoiled from that trip, so I was nervous to stay at The Barcelo. The Barcelo in Puerto Vallarta had many good qualities: the restaurants (Spanish and Italian) were excellent, the room, which was a junior ocean view suite, was really nice (great view, very modern, clean, spacious, and comfortable), the pool was clean and Puerto Vallarta is a beautiful place. Overall the Barcelo is a nice place to stay. They have free Kayak’s for you to use and the concierge helped us set up some tours (we did a Zipline tour and swam with dolphins). There isn’t much as far as night life at the hotel, but downtown has a number of clubs and the Barcelo will take a group into town to the clubs at night. We ate at the buffet every morning overlooking the ocean (very nice) but there are so many flies! The buffet food is okay… Some things I would change: the pool chairs (uncomfortable), the gym is old, small and hot. Overall, the hotel itself is great. One more tip I would give anyone going to Puerto Vallarta, which is located right along a rainforest, is check the weather report to see when the “rainy season” is before booking your trip!

Spacious views of the Bay from everyroom, the pools are great. They have their own water filtering plant on the premesis, the food is excellent, the service great. When it was the Mismalloya, I bought a package from the sales dept for 21 days to be used over a 2 year period. Will check with the new owners if they offer the same kind of deals. When on the beach and want to rent a boat for the day etc ask for Chato. He catches the best tuna and live lobster

Just got back yesterday. Did not hear of anyone being sick and I was there for a week. Spent alot of time socializing by the pool so I would have heard. Great value. The rooms are suite's with a living room with a pull-out, flat screen tv and 2 chairs. The bathroom had a shower only but it was about 3X8 feet with a rainshower head. Large bedroom with another sofa and a nice balcony. The floors including the balcony was a travertine tile. We paid less than $900/week p.p. and had a ocean view with the water about 30 yards away. The hotel is situated on Mismoya Bay and is surrounded by mountains and jungle. The main road runs out front so take a but to town for 70 pesos. The beach was clean but not the fine sand as the gulf. So expect a grainier sand. There are beach bars and restaurants next door on the beach, plus small boats that will take you snorkeling for about $15-20 us. The service at the hotel is excellent, the food is good no complaints except that after a week it gets to be the same. (Go to Golden Corral for a week and it will get old also) The bars have premium brands for the asking (Jack Daniels, Absolut, Stoli, Johnny Walker etc.) that are included in the all-inclusive price. The beer was Sol on tap and Tecate Light in cans (which I found to be good because I"m a Coors Light drinker). The pools were nice but go out about 8am to claim your spot. Tipping is not necesary but a dollar goes a long way. If you go into town take some $2 bills. Hand them out sparingly but they are considered good luck to get one. The locals will take it and then give it to a family member for good luck. I gave 5 stars for service because all the employees were great. If you are a Ritz Carlton type of person you may rate it differently. Location I loved because you are away from the hussle and bussle of town. Some people think it may be remote but you are 20 minutes away from Vallarta by bus. Across the road is the small town of Mismoya. Take a walk though it. No one bothers you or are constantly trying to sell you something. There are 3 tequila stores there. Overall the place was clean, good service, nice pools, great rooms and no one was sick that I heard of.

The front desk was unfriendly at check in and it all went downhill from there. All 4 of us were sick within 48 hours of arriving at the hotel. Nausea, vomiting, diahrea, fever, one person in our group came close to going to the hospital. If you read some of the other reviews you'll find the ambulance came several times to pick up patientsand they're hospital bill came to more than the vacation. This hotel should be shut down. They won't admit anything, very unfriendly, even our city tour guide said he had heard of the bug going around the hotel. They finally said the river flowing into the ocean there is contaminated and they were cleaning the kitchen extensively. Although no responsibility was taken they wanted us to file a report with the Dr. who wanted to know exactly what foods we had eaten before getting sick. To file the report is no charge but it's $70 for a Dr. exam even if it's their fault. I noticed several dishes that were not entirely clean in the buffet area. I think they know it's their fault but can't figure it out. Hand sanitizer from the hostess is your admission ticket to the dining room. Almost everyone we met had someone in their family who was sick, some very seriously dehydrated. One poor lady was sick her entire week there. Please do not take your family there. Even after the sympthoms are gone you feel weak and cannot digest food well for several days. Take your hard earned vacation somewhere else. To make things worse this hotel has a terrible infestation of tiny mosquitoes/noseeums that bite. Almost everyone had bites all over their legs. We were sitting around the pool scratching like a bunch of dogs !! They hotel's only response is they can't do anything about it because the location is in the jungle. One man looked like he had measles, I had 50 - 60 bites. It's so good to be back home. Also don't bother to pay the $12 per day charge for the WiFi, you must sit in one corner of the lobby to use it, and they don't bother to tell you that either before you pay. The beach is not walkable due to the contaminated river and there's not much there. It was the most miserable vacation we've ever had and the hotel's attitude made it all worse!

This virus that everyone mentions is still plaguing this hotel! My family stayed from 3/26/10-4/3/10 and we all got sick. Fortunately, we did not have it as bad as some families did, but being sick on vacation is never fun! Something is seriously wrong....We couldn't find a single person there who didn't have at least one member in the party infected. While I don't think it was food poisoning, the food was not good at all. I feel like we spent too much money for what we got in return. I did enjoy the sunshine, sunsets and there things Mexico gave us, but would never again stay at this hotel.

I have never written a hotel review before, but I feel compelled to this time. There were eight of us in our party and we arrived March 25, 2010. Seven out of eight us got violently ill (fever, vomiting, diarrhea) during the trip. The first person got sick two days after arrival and the last got sick on the day of our departure. I spoke to the Manager twice during our time there. He listened and admitted that he first started getting complaints of sickness on March 18, 2010. He went on to say they have not been able pinpoint the problem, so he felt the hotel was not at fault in any way. During our time there I heard many, many others talking about people getting sick. After coming home and reading these reviews, I see we weren't alone. I feel the management of the hotel was very irresponsible in how they handled this situation. They first denied any problem and then reluctantly admitted it. It would have been nice to know of the situation and then make my own decision whether to stay. The hotel service was okay, at best. Not bad, not great. The room itself was nice, clean for the most part. My concern was with the kitchen and how they cleaned the plates and silverware. I noticed many semi-clean plates in the stack of "clean" ones. The hotel is about 10 miles south of the city of PV and that limits your choices of places to eat. I would never, ever recommend the all-inclusive at this place, and with it being so far out of town, I can't recommend the hotel at all. The pool area was nice, though loud (not unexpected) this time of year. There were never enough lounge chairs by the pool, as is common at resorts of this type. People reserve them starting around 6 AM. The beach was not nice at all, other than to look at. The water had an unpleasant smell, and was very murky. The water on the Cancun side is much clearer, and better quality. Also, there was not much beach area to speak of. It was not inviting to sit out there, which added to the overcrowding of the pool area. In my opinion, this is nowhere near a 4 star hotel. The food was below average, the beach was below average, the service was average, and the proximity was below average. When you add in a nasty virus, or food poisoning, it was downright unpleasant. And the way management handled the problem makes me want to avoid all Barcelo-owned establishments. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the Riveria Maya Barcelo two years ago, but I'll never stay at another one! They got my money this time, but never again. You can do much, much better.