Marival Residences Resort

A beautiful stay, great service, and an experience I won’t forget. I came here with family with the all inclusive. I never felt so important in my life but with all the VIP accesses, it felt great.
The room was beautiful, we were on the sixth floor which had two spacious, spacious rooms, a kitchen, a living room, two bathrooms, washer and dryer, balcony, and private pool deck upstairs. It was a dream and I would want to return with friends to live in that single greatest hotel room I ever stepped food in.
My complaints? The restrictions. We weren’t allowed to go beyond the resort, and that kind of frustrated me. I can’t say I hated it because there was a great deal to do, but not enough. The restaurants. There were only a few to eat from and I can say most of them didn’t have any authentic Mexican food, which I was looking forward to the most. It’s great to have $ 300 plates of food as a buffet and already paid for, but I wish the food tasted better. I think they try too hard to accommodate to rich American food, when I really just wanted some great authentic food.
Still though, it’s an amazing experience. Would I go again? Possibly. With friends. But only for a week or maybe less, then we would probably go stay somewhere in the heart of Mexico.

Our trip was taken 11/​14******
Pros:
Great service. The staff was consistently attentive, friendly and warm.
The suite we stayed in was a huge highlight of our stay. We had a beautiful suite with three rooms and four bathrooms. Everything was clean and modern. My husband, baby and I stayed in the master and the room and bathroom were so spacious, we felt like we had our own hotel room, almost separate from everyone else.
The beach-​The VIP area at the beach connected to the resort (which we had access to as Residence guests) was incredible. Beautiful day beds and amazing service. Highly recommend spending at least one day there.
Insu Sky Bar and Pool Lounge-​This beautiful rooftop bar/​restaurant/​lounge came with an added bonus-​a stunning rooftop pool overlooking the resort with ocean views.
Cons:
Restaurants-​Prior to our trip, our booking contact informed us that we would have access to the three restaurants on site IN ADDITION to seven restaurants at the resorts (a quick shuttle away). This was echoed upon check in. Imagine our surprise when we went to make reservations at a few of the resorts and learned from the concierge (the only person who seemed to have the story straight) that because of MASSIVE construction (and therefore much lower capacity) at the resort, there were only TWO restaurants open at the resort, and the alternated being open… so essentially rather than seven additional restaurants for dinner to choose from each night… there was one, and the resort guests got the first go a the reservations of the already limited settings. While this was certainly not the end of the world, it was extremely frustrating that the communication was so inconsistent. Sadly, even Insu (see above) was closed for breakfast every morning because of low occupancy at the residences. Note that this was our experience when we visited in November of 2014…
Booze-​Drinks were consistently weak and watered down. Additionally, we were told that the policy was a maximum of one bottle of wine per suite per day. As we had six adults in our suite, this seemed ridiculous.
Accessibility-​We had a toddler (in a stroller) with us. The resort doesn’t offer ramps from the residences down to the pool/​restaurant area which really surprised me considering that it was such a family-​friendly place. We ended up having to carry the stroller (and 30+ pound kid) up and down the stairs each way, which I imagine, would present an issue for most folks.
The Resort Pool-​Due to low occupancy (because of the construction) the resort is offering day passes to locals with use of the pool and facilities. Totally understand their need to drum up revenue, however, this turned the pool from a resort environment to one that felt like a public pool. We opted to stay at the pool at the residences.
Transportation-​While shuttles were readily available between the residences and resort, returning from the resort to the residences was a different story. We were left (in the heat, with a toddler) for 30+ minutes plus to wait while we were assured «there was one on the way.» Disappointing.

To whom it may concern, my family and I just returned from Puerto Vallarta, for our 1^st annual family vacation, and I wanted to share our experience with you all, with hopes of making you think thrice before Making reservations at the Miraval Resort.
We arrived on 6÷29÷15, our rooms were not ready, and then they tried to put my whole 4 member family into a 1 bedroom ocean front suite, although we paid for a 2 bedroom ocean front suite. Our check in was delayed due to them mistakenly checking in our other family members (with a separate name and reservation) into the neighboring room. We were then greeted by one of their team members, who immediately made an active effort to sign us up for a «promotional tour» with promise of messages or free excursion for the family.
We listened to his spill, handed over 500 pesos and then eventually made it to our room. The room was nice looking, unfortunately we had no hot water, the air conditioning was malfunctioning (in 90 degree weather with 85% humidity) only 1 of the 3 phones in the 2 phones worked. This was mentioned daily to concierge and nothing happened. There was also no hot water (no matter what time you showered) this was also mentioned to the front desk, and nothing was done.
⁶⁄₃₀ we woke up to have breakfast and saw very basic options, we are at a stellar resort and looking on line, we expected to have some amazing authentic Mexican cuisine, day after day we were continuously disappointed.
When making an effort to follow the posted guidelines and make a reservation, the 3 restaurants were almost always booked. We ended up dining at La Pergola, the food was amazing, the wait time however was not. We waited about 60 minutes for the main course to arrive and this was a birthday meal and this wait time was ridiculous, especially since we had a reservation. We also had an extended wait time for the food to come out when dining at Las Palmas, which tasted OK, not amazing but OK.
While shopping at the 2 gift shops, the employees followed us around and made it uncomfortable to shop for souvenirs in general. When we made an effort to go into the buffett area with cover ups over our swim gear, we were not allowed to enter, but there were guests there, non black guest, dining in the same type of attire, I didn’t want to make a scene so we decided to catch a cab to journey into town to eat, again not acceptable.
I also lost over $ 500 due to missed excursions, due to such early leave times that were not communicated in advance.
In general, I feel like our ethnicity played a huge role in the treatment that we received, and thus I am going to make it clear to ALL of my friends and family who have EVER expressed an interest in traveling to Puerto Vallarta to make sure they don’t stay at the Miraval resort because it’s not worth the high amount of money you pay with this type of all inclusive resort. I have already reached out to my legal team to share the experience with them and see what can be done to help me receive a portion of the monies paid to stay at this resort.

3.26.15 — 3.31.15
I’m going to fully admit that I’d never stayed at an all-​inclusive resort before — I’m more of a «pick a hotel in the center of a city, walk all day long, avoid super touristy locations, get to know the culture» kind of traveller, but after a couple of rough years I thought that maybe a relaxation vacation was just what I needed. Maybe it would’ve been. .. somewhere else. There’s something about staying in a gated community that’s guarded by armed police that didn’t allow me to fully let go – strange, I know.
Here’s my suggestion to all of you: DO NOT do the timeshare presentation — it’ll only shatter your illusions of the idyllic setting you’re holed up in. I’d never participated in one before, and was genuinely curious as to how they worked with the idea that I’d start researching from there and invest in the future. I’ll save you the time and say this: because I am someone who does research the eff out of things, I WILL NEVER PARTICIPATE IN ANYTHING THAT RCI DOES, NOR INTENTIONALLY STAY AT ONE OF THEIR PROPERTIES AGAIN. PERIOD.
Shoutout to Rebecca, the woman who ran our presentation — you single-​handedly ruined our experience. Your manager with the «folksy» charm? Wolf in sheeps clothing. .. I honestly don’t remember the last time that I’ve been so enraged.
We spent the rest of our trip getting as far from the resorts as possible. True story. We’d sleep at the resort, maybe eat breakfast, and then jump in a cab to Puerto Vallarta or Sayulita. The money that we were tipping your staff? Went to other workers in other establishments.
If what you’re looking for is a hotel with large rooms and pools, where you and your family can frolic and not even know where you are — Mexico? Florida? Maui? What’s cool right now? — I’m sure this will suit your needs. My future vacation dollars? Will be spent elsewhere.

Fantastic facility. The staff are very well trained and have excellent attitude towards their job.
The restaurants are all good quality and thought it was worth every cent.

Grounds & rooms are beautiful. 3 swimming pools here, 2 of which are ‘tucked’ away infinity pools, awesomely cool.
Rooftop bar/​tapas restaurant/​adult infinity pool (7^th) floor are awesome.
All of the food served here is ok at best. My husband and I were very disappointed in the quality of all the steaks/​beef & the sides had no flavor.
On a side note this is an upscale location, so most of the guests here are in their 80/90’s-so the food tends to be cooked without spices, salt… so on.
Also, they like to eat dinner like early birds.
No dancing here which keeps the place quiet at nite. Of course you can go about 15 minute beach walk to the ‘family’ style Marivalle. More activity and folks here, mostly family reunions it seemed to us.
I’m not a big drinker, but I truly felt like the alcohol was watered down, A lot! I would of enjoyed a good well made drink but they were all just a lot of mixer and ice.
Wine for dinner was low grade table wine at best. Sadly, another bummer for us.
Would we return??? Don’t know why we would since most resorts have all of these amenities plus so much more. If you have not been to Puerto Vallarta before, just to let you know the water is dark, no teals and pretty crystal blues here and the beaches are brown sand with no sea shells. Mountains surrounding the whole bay are beautiful to look at as you lay on the beach.

I absolutely love it here. First of all it’s Mexico, the beaches, view and weather are amazing! Secondly, the rooms here are unbelievable. Thirdly, the staff is unreal. This is a 4 diamond resort for a reason. The rooms are 1400+ square feet each. We had our own kitchen (which we never used) and a private pool. Our trip was all inclusive and we were able to eat and drink as much as we wanted whenever we wanted and we were able to use their sister resort too! I had filet and seafood every day! The staff was so amazing that we when we asked for oranges and they didn’t have any Patricia went out and purchased some for us! Who does that?! What an incredible experience! They went above and beyond for us. I went with one of my best friends and her daughter, we took my two daughters too. They allowed us to all stay together and brought a crib for my 13 month old! Our ultra-​all inclusive not only included our food and drinks, it also included an excursion! We got to swim with sea lions. My 8 year old daughter and I went to Vallarta Aventuras and had an amazing incredible experience that we will never forget. I encourage everyone to go and enjoy the beautiful hotel at the marival and all it has to offer.