Puerto Vallarta: Highlights

Ken’s family planned a great vacation in Mexico the week before Christmas – we all flew to Puerto Vallarta and spent seven days at the Dreams Resort in Nueva Vallarta on Puerto Vallarta. We had a super early flight on Saturday, December 17th, and I checked in my carry on (I figured it was okay since it was a direct flight). I was terribly wrong — a pair of silver cufflinks were stolen out of my bag (they were gift wrapped and in a box for Ken’s brother in law, my secret santa pick). I was pretty upset; not only had someone gone through my stuff, someone actually had the audacity to STEAL a gift…RIGHT BY CHRISTMAS! Shame on them.

Ken and I flew directly from New York to Puerto Vallarta (a surprisingly quick flight) and Ken’s parents and his sister flew in from Chicago and his other sister flew in from San Francisco. We managed to find them in the airport (lots of people are at the airport trying to sell you timeshares or give you a ride) – we were really happy that we found Ken’s family (and that they actually thought about booking a van to take us to the resort!) Puerto Vallarta was much cooler than expected; I only packed short sleeved dresses since I figured it would be warm the entire time, but it was actually in the high 70’s with a nice breeze everyday.

When we arrived at the hotel, Sammy and Charley immediately jumped into one of the three pools behind the hotel:

We spent many afternoons by the pool, sipping virgin daiquiris:

It was a great all-inclusive resort with a lot of options for food and drinks – they even had a bar next to the beach where the seats were swings:

Ken and I also took naps on the hammocks – these weren’t in the shade but there were four or five hammocks situated next to the bar where people hung out everyday:

Since we couldn’t stay on the resort the entire time, we ventured out to the city (here’s the sunset from the boardwalk):

Paul, Ken’s brother in law, also chartered a boat one day so we could go fishing and whale watching. Charley was so excited to catch fish (he memorized every single boat and fish in the pamphlet he’s holding):

We ate a ton of great food (including one restaurant that deserves its own post, Tacos El Gordo), spent a lot of time swimming on the beach and in the many pools, and had so much fun with that we were very sad to leave Puerto Vallarta!