Review of all-inclusive Iberostar Puerto Vallarta so far — facilities are nice, everything feels clean and reasonably well-maintained. Staffing is a little light at check-in (took a long time to check in) and tech crashes a lot, it seems like. Everyone has tried to be very helpful, and they don’t sell you too hard on things like time-shares and tours. (The airport tour desk that we stopped at by mistake was a little pressure-y; we felt sort of trapped for a while.)
But what about the food, Mary Anne? Well, it’s sort of what we expected from the reviews — the Mexican food is generally very good, the international food is generous with high end ingredients (rack of lamb, duck, lots of meat, lots of seafood, including giant prawns and the like), and of course, it’s all inclusive, so as much food and drink and alcohol as you want.
If you’re a heavy drinker, it’s a pretty good deal — the pours are somewhat watered down, but you can always get more if you’re looking to get drunk. I’m basically the only one in our party who drinks, and I’m normally a one drink / week max kind of girl, so even though I’m doing more like a drink a day here (a mimosa at breakfast, or a margarita poolside in the afternoon), we’re definitely not really getting value for money on the alcohol. Ah well — we knew that going in.
A little more disappointing is the non-Mexican food. There are tons of options, but they’ve pretty uniformly been sub-par, sometimes to the point where our pickier children have had trouble finding anything they like. Kavi thought the mashed potatoes were inedible, for example. The steaks are generally overcooked for her taste. She’s used to Kevin making her perfect steaks at home, though (combination of sous vide and grill) — her standards are high.
There are mediocre burgers and decent fries available most of the time, and American basics like pancakes and waffles at breakfast. But a lot of the seasonings on other dishes are just…off. I suspect that’s not a fault of this place in particular — from reading reviews, it seems pretty typical of all-inclusive resorts in Mexico (and probably elsewhere).
My recommendation is that if you can stick to the fresh fruit, the seafood (generally done pretty well, but I’m the only one in our party who eats much seafood), the stuff that’s cooked right in front of you (omelettes, quesadillas, tacos, etc.), and the Mexican dishes, you can eat really well. Take small bits of other things and taste them before committing to a large amount.
So far today, haven’t done much — chai and a very gentle yoga class (basically a stretching class, suitable for complete beginners and all levels of fitness), followed by yummy breakfast (spinach and cheese omelette with spicy green tomatillo sauce, quesadilla with guacamole, pickled onions, fresh orange juice) and reading.
Finally finished The Saint of Bright Doors, which I started a while back, then got derailed by work interruptions. Sri Lankan author, Hugo Best Novel finalist, recommended. At first, it didn’t seem my kind of thing, but it grew on me. 🙂
On to Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory.
