My partner and I just came back from a week at the Marriott and we had a wonderful time. We travel a lot (both for work and pleasure), and we have stayed at many different hotels and many Marriotts (I am Marriott Platinum), and we were very pleased with this hotel. It is not a new hotel, but it is very well maintained and we found all of the staff to be very pleasant, friendly, and helpful. This was our first trip to PV, and we usually go to the Caribbean every year, so we have a tendency to compare this to various places in the Caribbean.
Two things I would like to put you at ease about – safety, and drinking the water. We felt very safe anywhere we went in PV, both during the day and at night. We walked to the Marina for dinner each night, plus we spent a couple of evenings wandering around downtown, and never felt uncomfortable about safety. Don’t let safety concerns stop you from going to PV! It is a very safe area. Also, the drinking water there is not a problem. We know that the water is always filtered at hotels and most restaurants, but we also heard that the entire town supply is filtered. We did not really restrict our drinking and eating based on water concerns and we had no problems at all (believe me; I would have had stomach problems if it was an issue).
The beach at the hotel is very nice. It does not have the fine white powdery sand of the Caribbean, but it is still a nice, wide, sandy beach. The water is not that good for swimming – it can get a little rough, plus there is rocky sand as you enter the water, and the water is not very clear so you cannot see the bottom as you enter the water. With all of that combined, not many people go into the water there. We spent a lot of time relaxing on the beach, and if we got hot, we would just go up for a dip in the pool. Overall, a nice relaxing beach.
Vendors – yes there are a lot of vendors that continually come by, but all you need to do is nicely say “No, Gracias”, or No Thank You, and they move along. We did not find them to be annoying. Also, if they are selling something you are interested in, by all means take a look and strike up a bargain. They are just trying to make a living.
Money – Be aware that the ATM at the hotel only dispenses US dollars, and they don’t do cash advance against credit cards, so you can’t get Mexican Pesos at the hotel. There is an ATM just down the street (turn right out of the hotel and it is about a block down) that dispended Pesos. We were able to use credit cards for just about every meal and all purchases, but be sure to ask first – some places do not take credit cards. You will likely need Pesos for transportation and other misc expenses.
Transportation – We took a cab from the airport to the hotel and it was $18 US. There are booths for paying for a cab inside the airport just before you exit. These cabs are different than the usual PV cabs, and are a bit more expensive (but they are the official airport cabs). The cab from the hotel back to the airport was only 50 Pesos which is less than $5. For going downtown, we took a bus once which is very cheap – 6.50 pesos, which is about 5 cents! However, some of the buses are very old and uncomfortable, and sometimes you have to wait a while for a bus back to the Marina. We ended up taking a cab other times we went downtown, which was a lot easy and still not expensive – 80 pesos (without tip), which is just over $6 each way. It is about a 15 minute ride to downtown. The cab prices are set, so there are no meters and we never had an instance of a cab driver trying to overcharge us. We always asked the price before we got in just in case.
Meals – The Marriott breakfast buffet is amazing, but a bit expensive ($20 without tip). We ate there a couple of times for the ease of it, but other mornings we walked to the Marina and had breakfast there for about ½ the price (Mr Cream was my favorite!). For dinner, most nights we walked to the Marina and ate there. There must be a dozen restaurants there, most of them decent and not real expensive. The best thing is to just walk around and see what menu looks good to you. Our favorites at the Marina were Buenos Aires (steak), La Terrazza di Roma (Italian) and Victors (more for the atmosphere than the food – they give out free tequila shots with dinner!). At the hotel, we had 2 lunches and a dinner at Las Casitas and we were very impressed with the quality of the food there. Downtown we had great dinners at La Palapas (on the beach in old town), and at Vitea (on the Malecon). I will submit separate reviews on those.
One last note – we found the Mexican people to be wonderful people – very warm and friendly!
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
