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Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 2016
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May 22-29, 2016
Who's going? Michelle, Tim & William (2 & 1/2 years old)
Another deal from AppleVacations.com, $800/pp for a 7 nights all-inclusive in Puerto Vallara; plus $200 discount per booking so total cost for two adults and one 2-year-old child is $1,545.00 which I think is a pretty good deal considering free round trip airport transfer (30 minutes driving from airport to the hotel)
The Grand Palladium Vallarta Resort is about 45 minutes driving from the PV downtown; it's easy & cheap to take the bus to get to the downtown from the hotel; but if you rather take taxi, it'd cost about 420 pesos and up ( this is the price from the hotel but from downtown the taxi driver may ask for more so be prepared to negotiate: I paid 450 pesos to get a taxi from downtown to the hotel).
This hotel is isolated on the hills so there's staircases everywhere (there's no elevators): 30 steps to go down to the pool from my room; 15 steps to go up to the main buffet; more steps to get to the beach, etc. After the 1st day, my legs are tired of walking up the stairs or up hill!
The hotel has 3 pools but they're rather small: family pool, kids pool with some slides and infinity pool for adults only.
The food at the main buffet El Bosque is not that good: same thing everyday; mostly Mexican foods. Howerver I like the foods from the El Porfotino (Italian food) and Bamboo restaurant (Asian food). The steaks at the Ribs & More restaurant is bad: very dry. We especially enjoyed the view from the Viva Mexico restaurant which sits on the high hill that we can see the beach below. Sitting outside in a hot summer day and feel the breezy wind, eat Mexican food and listen to Mexican music is the best. Guacamole is prepared at out table; I had some tequila and Fajitas for dinner. To me the food is ok but the scenary is beautiful.
The drinks from the lobby bars are much better than from the pool & beach bars. The lobby bar is also the place I got the big box of milk almost every day for William to drink.
William was scared of the water for the first few day: he'd hold on to me all the time, he would not want to be in the pool unless I hold him and stand in the water. 2 days before we left he started to like the pool and would run the the pool to play by himself.
Overall this hotel with natural settings is not as beautiful as the other ones that we stayed in Cancun but it's a good place to relax.
29 files, last one added on Dec 30, 2016 Album viewed 1 times
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Miami, Florida 2015
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Aug 20, 2015
Who's going?
- Mom
- Anh chị Hương, Thân, Danny & Tracy
- Dương, Thịnh and Quý (21 months old)
We stayed in Miami, Florida for 4 days before flying to Atlantis Resort in Bahamas where we stayed for another 4 nights.
In Miami, we stayed at the beach front Alexander Resort Hotel (5225 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33140, Unit 1109).
176 files, last one added on Sep 22, 2015 Album viewed 6 times
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Riviera Maya, Mexico 2014
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Sunday Aug 17 - Sunday Aug 24, 2014
Booked the trip from AppleVacations.com for $900.00/person for 7 nights all inclusive at the hotel IBEROSTAR PARAISO DEL MAR in Riviera Maya, Mexico. One week before our departure, AppleVacations called and said that they overbooked at the hotel Del Mar so they upgraded us to the hotel next door which is more luxury IBEROSTAR PARAISO LINDO. Turned out it was a very good upgrade because Lindo is much nicer than Del Mar.
There are total of 4 Iberostar hotels which are located next to each other and in the order of the luxury, the one with lowest stars are listed first: IBEROSTAR PARAISO Del Mar, IBEROSTAR PARAISO Beach, IBEROSTAR PARAISO Lindo and IBEROSTAR PARAISO Royal. All hotels share the same shopping center, which also offer foods and drinks and wifi with no extra charge because this is all inclusive.
The hotel Lindo is huge with lots of water features around it. The only places that have Air Conditioning is the lobby and the main buffet restaurant; other restaurants and the theater where all the nightly performances took place are open space so it can get really hot during the day and night. That is why the kids love the Lobby because there's free wifi and it's cool.
Riviera Maya is about 40 min drive to the Cancun hotel zone. The hotel offers taxi service with a not-so-good price but since this hotel is in a very isolated location we really had no choice but to use their taxi. We checked out the La Isla plaza and the kids wanted to swim with the dolphins so we bought the tickets to the Aquarium. After that we had lunch at the Iberostar Cancun which is the sister hotel of Lindo hotel so we did not have to pay anything. The kids love the beach here because of white sand and lots of waves. I especially love the cakes here; they tasted so good! My bro in law and husband loved their wine; they almost finished the whole bottle of champagne!
Riviera Maya is about 15 minutes drive to the nearest town Del Carmen. The shuttle fee is only $5.00/pp one way. The town is small with mostly shops for tourists. The beach is so full of hotels and restaurants! Seems like this is the place for snorkeling and diving!
Overall this trip was so much fun and worth every penny. The foods were great, weather was nice and best of all we got to hang out with the family.
I have to thank aunt Huyen for babysitting William so that we could be so free to enjoy our vacation.
But after that I promised myself that I would never leave him home alone again!
540 files, last one added on Apr 09, 2015 Album viewed 17 times
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