We will be sharing a villa in Manzanillo with friends in May. None of us have been. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

As 2 of us are professional chefs, you can imagine that food and especially wine are a major part of our pleasure. The prospect of shopping every day in a local market for fresh ingredients is very appealing so I'm thinking that our dining out will be at a minimum.

So, please fire away.

Always a bit bewildered by such a question.
Well there's the beach, diving, sailing & fishing. A real Mexico El Centro to explore that is not "touristy" in the least. Also day trips to Meleque & Barra de Navadad are nice.
Colima is a extra special over night night trip with puffing volcanoes & lots of historic stuff in a lovely colonial city.

Well, that's a nice start. When you have absolutely no idea about a place, getting ideas from fellow travelers rather than commercial endeavors is always where I like to start.

Thanks.

We spent 4 nights in Manzanillo a few years back, staying at Las Hadas (at one time a highly rated hotel, now simply a nice place).

We've over-nighted in I think 18 towns in Mexico, from big resorts to tiny towns where no one else spoke English, and felt Manzanillo was the most blah town we've stayed at, so I can't help you much on things to do. From Las Hadas (on a penninsula north of town where most resorts are located) we had a view of the pollution from the large coal-burning power plant south of town and watched hundreds of large cargo ships enter and leave the docks (I think Manzanillo is one of Mexico's largest shipping ports). Similar to spending a vacation overlooking the Houston shipping channel or Long Beach harbor.

Not many good restaurants or other tourist amenities, not much 'charm' either, just a large working-class city, was my impression. We fished a couple of days (lots of sailfish, no marlin) and took a self-drive tour to Barra and Melaque, smaller beach towns north of Manzanillo, which seemed like much better tourist destinations. Talked to a couple at the hotel who had done a day trip to Colima and enjoyed it. Maybe it's telling that the most popular activites were to get out of town to other nearby smaller sites.

Sorry to be so gloomy about the place ... it wasn't BAD, it was just dull and boring.

Bill

Thanks Bill. Looks loke I'll have to work hard to find something to do. lol

Now about the fishing...

Interesting what people like. One of the things I enjoyed is the non-tourist atmosphere of the city. Also Mexico's largest Navy base there so enjoyed immensely watching the Mexican Frogmen training off Las Brisas beach from my room at The Posada.

Glad to hear the term non-tourist used. My preference is to mingle with the locals rather than tourists.

I agree that it's interesting the different views people have. I loved Manzanillo for the very reason that it was quiet, spread out and not that busy. We stayed with Juan & Lisa at Hotel La Posada and had a wonderful time. If there weren't so many other places in Mexico that we want to see we'd be heading back there soon.

http://www.gomanzanillo.com/hotels/posada/index.htm

There were several restaurants that were very good I recall - but you did have to taxi to them or walk quite a ways.
PamT