Puerto Vallarta Vacation

 

Day 1    

The much anticipated day has finally arrived! We are headed to Puerto Vallarta Mexico!  Gary and I were very excited to be able to plan this trip for our family. We have a feeling it’s our last big trip as a family before our family dynamics begin to change.  Kelsey is getting older and to the stage she may not be living at home much longer or she may find herself engaged or married!  We were able to make it happen this year so we took advantage of the time to create some amazing family memories.

 We boarded the plan at DFW at 12:25 Saturday, June 15.  The flight took 2 hours and 4 minutes (as per Brandon!).  Kelsey was excited about our trip, but was having some trepidation about it at the same time.  She had fears of being stopped from coming back home from Mexico or about something bad happening to us while we were there. What can I say; I suppose my worrisome nature has rubbed off on my children some.

 When we arrived at the airport we collected our luggage and were heading out to find a taxi when we were approached by a Mexican lady asking us if we needed a ride to the hotel. We told her that we were looking for a taxi and she told us “yes! yes!” and pointed us over to a counter where a guy eagerly waiting on us was standing.   We looked around and saw many counters with other travelers standing at them doing the same thing we were doing.   It didn’t take us long to realize that we had been sucked into the time share spiel! I had read about this happening, but without even realizing we found ourselves sucked in.  We stood and listened to “Luis” sell us the idea of taking only 90 minutes out of our day to go and tour this property and by doing so we would be given all these fantastic gifts!  We were going to get a free taxi ride to our hotel that day and back to the airport the day we were to fly home.  We were getting free tickets to a city tour, discount tickets to swim with the dolphins and a free bottle of Kahlua as well as breakfast the next morning when we went on our tour!! After much longer than it should have taken we agreed to everything, got a slip of paper with our instructions on what to do the next morning, paid our $200 for the discount tickets and then was finally lead outside to our taxi!!  I thought that Kelsey was going to lose it by this point; she was so nervous and was certain that this taxi driver was going to take us off to some remote place and do whatever it is they do with foolish Americans.  To Kelsey’s surprise the taxi ride turned out to be legit and we made it to the Casamagna Marriott safe and sound. 

 

We were greeted with a “Welcome Home!” from the bellboy who had our keys waiting for us at the curb. We didn’t even have to stop at the front desk; we were able to head right up to room 7056 that was going to become our home away from home for the next six nights. Our room was very nice and perfect for our stay!  We could not wait to dropped our suitcases and get outside to see the beautiful scenery we had come all this way to see!  We headed downstairs passed the pool and headed right to the beach!

 

 

This is where we had our first encounter with the “sharks” as we started calling them.  As we learned through the week the beaches of Mexico are not “owned” by anyone so Mexican men and women were free to sale their wares to anyone that would stop and look.  After politely turning down each of the pleas for us to buy something we got to the waters of the Pacific Ocean!  Brandon was in heaven! That kid is a fish!  I call him Turkey Butt… but I do indeed believe it should be Fish Gills instead!

 

After spending a few minutes on the beach we decided to head to the pool and relax in the chairs and watch Brandon splash around for a while before dinner.  We didn’t want to venture out for dinner so we walked over to the poolside restaurant, Las Casitas.  This was our first meal in Mexico and it did not disappoint!  It was very tasty.  Kelsey was very happy in the fact that she could order any alcoholic drink and be “of age” while we were in Mexico.  She didn’t waste time before she happily “exercised her right” and ordered her first drink, a frozen Daiquiri! 

 

 After dinner we went back to the beach to watch the sunset.  Sadly, it wasn’t the prettiest of sunsets that we have ever seen over the ocean, but we enjoyed it none the less. 

 

Day 2  

Day two we woke up at to be at our 9:00 time share appointment.  Kelsey was very unsure of this entire process.  She asked us many times if we were sure this was going to be okay, and when I told her that we had our phones we would just call the police if something didn’t feel right she went in search of the phone book and found the number for the local police and saved it into her cell phone!  This is the most prepared, for anything, I have ever know this child to be!   Brandon was showing signs of not being confident in our plans either, when he is nervous he starts to yawn over and over and gets quiet and fidgety.  We headed out assuring the kids that we were going to be fine. We met Luis out by the curb and showed him our paperwork for the day.  I clarified again that we would not be signing any paperwork nor giving our credit card to anyone! He said that was just fine and we did not have to. He called a cab for us and wanted us to split up in two taxis so he could go with us, but we told him that we didn’t want to split up so he told our cab driver where to take us and we were off. The drive felt as if it took an hour to get to where we were going, but it was only a few minutes from our resort.  We arrived to the location and were taken from the cab into the hotel to the check in area.  Kelsey started breathing a little when she saw many other groups there doing the same thing that we were doing.  We were very excited to see that our salesman was an American!  Only because we knew that for the “90 minutes” we were supposed to be there we would be able to understand everything that he was saying to us.  We sat down with Matt and he assured us that if when we sat down to talk about this wonderful opportunity and we found that it was just not something for us that he would not waste our time and would say thank you and let us go.   We ate a delicious breakfast chitchatting with Matt then we were off on our tour of the property.  We listened to his speech…watching the clock click past the 90 minutes we were told we would be on this little excursion. 90 minutes went into two hours and then three. We finally made it to the stage of the day where we were going to set down and talk how much money they wanted from us to sign up for this time share. We politely listened for a couple of minutes and Gary told Matt that there was just no way that we could commit to anything at this time, yadda yadda yadda.. Let the ping pong game commence!  It got to the point that Matt said he would go get the sign-out paperwork and let us go. But no… instead he brought back Guido with him! Oi!  Again the ping pong game continued.  Gary politely telling them no.. them insisting that this was a deal of a lifetime!  Guido excused himself and then Matt decided he would let us talk things over alone and excused himself as well.  I told Kelsey and Brandon that this was the time that they needed to start acting like bratty little kids and throwing the biggest fits of their lives.  They both said NO way! and just laughed at me.  Matt came back and tried one last time to win this ping pong game, but much to his dismay he had to concede to the defeat and get those damn sign-out papers he said he was going for thirty minutes ago!  As we were leaving to get our gifts the friendly Matt had quickly disappeared!  He turned into a quick jerk.  He led us to another building where he handed us off to another man that was supposed to get our parting gifts. He never looked at us to thank us for our time, to shake Gary’s hand or anything! It was all quiet humorous.  We were taken into another room where “Fish” sat down to finish our paperwork…. Oh but not just yet!  First he had to try his hand at this never ending ping pong game as well!  Let me just say, we are some pretty damn good ping pong players in the family!!  At this point we were FOUR hours into this “90 minute” tour. We assured Fish several times that we just could not sign up for anything blah blah blah.. It wasn’t until Kelsey let loose on Mr. Fish that he realized he had met his match in this 19 year old blonde from Texas! It was so damn funny. Before Gary and I realized what was going on our daughter was telling Fish, in no uncertain terms that she was sick of all of this that we had already told him and two other people no and we were ready to get out of there! All we wanted was our gifts that we were promised and to be able to get back to our vacation!!! Fish acted as if he has been slapped! He stood up and stalked off taking us out the door to FINALLY get our parting gifts! After getting the royal treatment when we arrived we were handed our gifts and pointed towards a door that was supposed to get us out.  We took off and ended up getting lost before we were able to find our way back to the front of the building to find our cab to get back to our real resort! 

After the four hours of our life that we will never be able to get back was over we went back to the hotel to decompress for a little while by the pool.

We ordered some drinks and nachos by the poolside and took in the Mexican sun.  We then decided to walk over to the marina area that we had heard was close to our resort. We walked down the waterfront and were approached by every single street vendor, restaurant and store employees there.

 

 It was maddening to say the least.  I don’t tell people no easily as it is so this was very difficult to be rude and just keep walking or tell them all no.  If you tried to be polite and pause in your steps for a moment to listen and then politely say no thanks you were worse off than to just act as if you didn’t hear them and keep walking.  We quickly learned being polite was not paying off if we wanted to make it anywhere any time soon. We made it to the end of the marina and found ourselves in an ice-cream shop.  After sitting for a refreshing ice-cream we walked back to our resort where we decided to sit in one of the bar areas and enjoy the breeze and have a drink before calling it a night.    

 

 Day 3  

This may have been one of my favorite days of our trip!  First thing in the morning we went off to swim with the dolphins!  We got to the location of the dolphin swim, checked in and sat to wait for our time with the dolphins.  As we were waiting to be called for our swim we saw something moving in the trees.  We looked around and saw several iguanas!

It was amazing to see these large animals walking around.  One of them climbed up onto the recycle/trash bins and lowered himself down into the trash and all you could see was his long tail sticking out.  Brandon got close enough to one of them to touch his back and pose for a picture for me. We finally got to go in for our dolphin swim.  Being the sap that I am as soon as we saw the dolphins I teared up.  We all jumped into the water and the dolphins were brought over to us and were able to swim around us.
 

(I don't have the pictures of us from the swim yet... but here is one I took of the dolphin before we got in the pool.)

Getting to touch their rubbery feeling skin was really cool. The best part was as we were all floating in the water we would feel a nudge and look around to see the dolphins  were pushing their way right up against us. It was so much fun!  We got to swim with two dolphins. One was named Dalia and the other one was named Nueba. We got to spend 45 minutes in the water with the dolphins.  We were able to each hold on to their fins as they pulled us across the swimming pool then we got to hold on to both of them at the same time and they took us down under the water and then back up on the other side of the pool.  It was such an amazing time. 

I am so glad that we were able to do this as a family.  We all decided that it was worth the stupid time share experience to be able to go. 

 

 

 

Once we were finished swimming with the dolphins we went back to the resort to clean up and then caught another cab to head downtown to walk through the shops and flea markets.  Kelsey was most excited for the shopping in Mexico.  We found the flea market and bargained for a few must have items.
 

 

We were once again approached by multitudes of street vendors and restaurant employees.  Our favorite line that we heard from a couple of them was “Senor! Senor! Come by something you don’t need!”  It cracked us all up.  We found ourselves being pulled into one restaurant called Canto Del Mar.  We went in and were able to set under a tent along the beach.

We ordered a couple of drinks and some chips and guacamole.  As we were sitting there two mariachi men came in and started singing. Naturally, we could not understand a word they were saying, but it was awesome! They were very good. THIS is what Mexico is all about to us!  We had the absolute best time sitting and listening to the music. 

 Once we were done we walked out to find a taxi, but before we did we walked into one last shop. Gary called me over to show me something.  He pointed out a sombrero and on top was a little Chihuahua!! 

It was priceless. How much more Mexican could you get?!   We then found our taxi and went back to our resort so Brandon and Daddy could swim for a few minutes before we called it an evening.  While we were at the pool Kelsey was talking to her boyfriend, Colton, and found out that there were bad storms in the Abilene area.  I then got on Facebook and saw a few status updates of talking about how bad things were.  I sent a text  to our neighbor and found out that our trampoline had turned into a flying saucer and went from our backyard and ended up in their front yard-taking out their flag pole!  This made me and Gary instantly worry that there was more damage happening at our house! We had Kelley get in touch with James and Lorene to see if they would go to the house to check things out, but true to their nature they had already been to the house and took care of cleaning up water that had come through the windows on the back side of the house and went to pick up the trampoline pieces that were in our neighbors yard! This was a horrible feeling to know that we were so many miles away without being able to get to your home to check things out.  We just had to trust that things were going to be okay and continue on with our vacation. 

Day 4 

Today we went for a bus tour of the city.  We started at the north side of Puerto Vallarta.  We walked through the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe a Catholic Church in the city center.

 

 It was very pretty and looked to have a crown on the top of the building. It looked like a really old structure, but it was really new, relatively speaking. 

 

 We also visited some more flea before headed south along the bay towards Conchas Chinas to see a wonderful view of the Los Arcos  and the town of  Mismaloya, famous for the filming of “The Night of the Iguana”.  We drove a little further into the rain forest of the Sierra Madre before we stopped to have lunch at Las Cascadas Restaurant. After we ate Gary and Brandon got up to walk around the area and Kelsey and I stayed to pay for our lunch.  We heard a noise beside us and looked down to see these two adorable boys standing below us (our restaurant was up on a little cliff) holding up a flower wanting us to give them some money in exchange for their flower.

 

 

   It melted our hearts!  I would look down at one of the little boys and smile and he would make the cutest pouty face he could and then I would look over and Kelsey. When I looked back down at him again he would make the face at me again!  Kelsey and I neither one could turn the boys away, so we gave them a couple of pesos each and they gave us their flowers they had picked from the bush behind them.  

 

 After we left the restaurant we headed off to a tequila tasting!  We went to a family run tequila plant. Gary learned the “proper” way to drink tequila and was able to try several different flavors. 

 

 As we were leaving we found this amazing brick wall! I fell in love. I wish we had something like this in our backyard!   

 
When we got back from our city tour we changed into our swimsuits and headed to the pool for our nightly swim.

 We have found our favorite cabana boy, Raul, and ordered some nachos and a couple of drinks.

He was so nice and funny. After our swim we went to our room and found that the maid left a towel animal in our room. Brandon was in love instantly!

He was certain she had made it just for him!  He named it Jeffery and moved it beside the bed to sleep by him for the night.  He even wrote a note to the maid to tell her thanks for making it for him and asked her if he could take it home with him.  Sadly, she never did answer his note, but it was worth a try, right?! 

 

Day 5
 

Day 5 meant snorkeling day!! This was something I was looking forward to as soon as we booked our trip to Puerto Vallarta!  Gary and I had played around without own snorkels while in Hawaii so we knew it was something that we wanted to take the kids to do.  Gary booked us a day trip to go snorkeling. We had the best time. 

 Our boat trip out to the spot of the dive was enjoyable. Our trip guide was Julio and several boat crew made certain we all had a great time. Our favorite was Carlos.  He was such a hoot!  We got to our first stop at Majahuitas which is only accessible by boat..

  We all jumped into the water and were off to find out what we could see swimming under us.  Kelsey loved seeing the schools of small silver fish…Hundreds and hundreds of fish sparkling in the water. Brandon couldn’t get enough of the snorkeling. He had been wearing a snorkeling mask in the pool all week and now to get to see some real fish below him was great! 

After our time snorkeling we loaded back on the boat and cruised off to Yelapa. Yelapa is a charming little fishing village that is again only accessible by boat.

 Gary and Kelsey went for a hike with one of the boat crew through the little town to see a waterfall.

  Sadly this is their dry season so the waterfall was pretty dried up, but the hike was fun. While Gary and Kelsey did the hike Brandon and I went to the beach area so Brandon could swim.  It was such a fun little area to sit and relax in... relax as soon as you had said no a million and one times to all the vendors wanting to sale you something!  On the boat ride back to our resort the boat crew sang and danced for us. It was all such a fun time. I am very glad that we booked this excursion.

We got back to our resort to find the drive lined with police cars and policeman carrying very large guns..  I’d be lying if I said this didn’t freak me out for a few minutes.  We walked into the hotel and I asked one of the mangers walking around what was going on. He acted as if he didn’t even know there were police outside!  We soon found out that they were preparing for a high class visitor soon and were making sure that everything was secure.  Interesting……  We went and cleaned up before we went back downstairs to another on sight restaurant- Champions for dinner. 

 

Day 6

 

We did not have any plans for our last day other than to let the kids sleep as late as they wanted and hang around the pool until late evening when we wanted to go back down town to have dinner.  I got up at 7:30 and headed down to the beach with my kindle. 

It was such a wonderful time. The “sharks” weren’t out yet trying to hustle their goods so I was able to sit peacefully for about an hour. Gary came down around 8:00 to join me and soak up the peace and quiet before the beach got busy.

  It didn’t take long before we had to move closer to the pool area because we were getting propositioned to buy stuff.  The kids came down to the pool around 10:00 and we hung out there the rest of the day.  While we were there we saw a big Navy boat floating right out in the waters in front of our resort.  Before we realized it there was also a smaller motor boat loaded with several officers patrolling the waters back and forth in front of our resort and several officers walking the beaches with their big ol’ guns as well! 

 Had this been happening on the first day we arrived in Mexico there would be no way our daughter and son would have agreed to stay we would have been heading back to the airport as soon as we could hale the next cab!  We asked around more and found out that the Governor was going to be staying in none other than our resort! When it was finally time to for dinner we talked to Raul to see where he would suggest we go to dinner downtown.  He told us “My mom , and she is Mexican, always wants to go to Café De Olla when she is in town.”  (it cracked us up that he told us that his mom was Mexican. Ha!)  He said that it was the authentic Mexican food, not a showy restaurant for tourist.  That was exactly what we were wanting!  When we went back to our room to clean up we found that the maid had left another towel animal for us… err Brandon. 

This time we believe it was a donkey.  Brandon was determined to take the animal towels back home with us. He even wanted to leave the pesos that he had left to pay for them! We cleaned up and called for another taxi to whisk us off.  We got to Café De Olla and were very happy Raul did not lead us wrong! 

 The kids were trying all week long to find queso like they are used to getting at home, even though we assured them before leaving that they would not be finding the same kind of Mexican food that they were used to.   Café De Olla was the closes to what they were wanting, but still it was only melted cheddar cheese in a skillet, not a dipping queso sauce.  We asked for sopapillas and one guy told us they didn’t have them, but another guy heard him and said “I’ll do some for them.”  We found out that sopapillas were not a food served in Mexico, but rather in New Mexico.  Although when we got our sopapillas they weren’t the big fluffy pastries we were anticipating they were amazing!!  They were more like the dessert nachos from Abuelos. Yum-O!  After our dinner we went back down to the water’s edge and walked along looking in some of the shops and checking out all the street vendors.  We learned a couple of things; the “you break it you buy it” policy is a real thing! Gary walked past a shelf with pottery on it and knocked off a little pot.  We continued to look around and picked up a couple of things and when we got to the checkout they proudly had the broken piece of pottery there waiting for us to pay for with our other purchases.  Second thing we quickly learned was that if you were wanting to, you could get really drunk for free while walking the streets! Every time you turned around there was a place offering free tequila tasting! We enjoyed walking along the area taking in one last Puerto Vallarta sunset and enjoying the Mexican culture.

 

Day 7

Our time in the Mexican paradise was over, time to head back home.  We all had an amazing time together. The family time was priceless. We were ready to get back to our own Texas paradise. Our flight wasn’t until 3:00 so we walked back down to the marina area to eat breakfast.  We went to Mr. Cream Pancake and Waffle Restaurant.

Once we were finished we went back to the hotel to finish packing and head to the airport.  Gary always likes to poke fun at me that I like to get to the airport really early and sit within eyesight of our gate, but he is always so good to humor me and do just that.  We had time to play a couple of games of farkle while we waited to board. 

 

Our flight home was once again uneventful. After going through customs coming home from Israel we really thought we were going to be in for a long process coming home from Mexico. To our surprise it was nothing?!  It didn’t even seem like we had gone through customs!  After stopping for a quick dinner at McDonalds we were on the road heading home!

 This was the best family vacation we have had as our little family of four. I believe that our children, as well as Gary and I are more aware than ever how fortunate we are to have everything that we have.  Seeing the homes that so many in Mexico live in, the jobs that so many have to make a living for their family it makes us feel like we live in the lap of luxury. We are very blessed to be able to do these things with our children. We created amazing memories together that will last us all a lifetime. 



These are just a few random pictures that make me smile...