Time of Year To Visit Puerto Vallarta
Dec 21st, 2006, 01:35 PM
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Time of Year To Visit Puerto Vallarta
Hello! We are considering a trip to Puerto Vallarta sometime between late April-July. Due to work, the best time to get away is late May-July. Based on research, it looks like the rain season starts in June. My wife would really like to do the turtle camp thing but that doesn't start until July. Will July be too hot / humid / rainy? If April or May is really a better time to go we can swing that. Thoughts? Thanks for the help!
Dec 21st, 2006, 02:43 PM
#2
Any time is a wonderful time to go to PV. But yes, for the months you asked about the later will be hotter, more humid, with more chance of rain or storms.
April (excepting Easter because it is very busy those two weeks) or May will be the nicest weather.
But if the turtles are more important and that must be in July, just make sure your hotel has air conditioning.
April (excepting Easter because it is very busy those two weeks) or May will be the nicest weather.
But if the turtles are more important and that must be in July, just make sure your hotel has air conditioning.
Dec 21st, 2006, 05:03 PM
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<b>My two favorite times in PV are mid November to mid December & mid April (after Easter) through May. Not as many Gringos & it just seems so much more Mexican.</b>
First time I visited Vallarta in the mid-90's I thought it was a nice blend of "tourist Mexico" with "genuine Mexico", especially compared to Cabo, a place I had visited many times to fish.
We were just in Vallarta (Dec 12th) for one night, picking up a car before heading north to a small town up the coast, and I must say I'm beginning to think it's not that "genuine" anymore compared to even a few years ago.
Getting off the plane the time-share ropers hit you up as you pass customs. Driving to our hotel I notice a new Wal-Mart on the left ... walking on the malecon I saw American chains like Subway, a pizza place (Dominos or Pizza Hut? can't remember which one) and a Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors ice cream shoppe. (Hard Rock was there in the 90's so it's grand-fathered in I guess).
Then a McDonald's, right on the malecon. I have no problem with McDonald's in the USA, but in Mexico I want to go 'yuck'. How genuine is that!
Final straw was at the end of the malecon, close to the Rio Cuale mouth and Old Town, where a Mexican restaurant had been replaced by a Hooters. HQQTERS!
The walk on the island in the Rio Cuale used to be a nice quiet stroll between restaurants but now it's elbow to elbow with vendors hawking tourist T-shirts and other non-genuine trinkets.
If you want a nice combo of "genuine" and "tourist" Mexico try San Miguel de Allende or Guanajuato instead.
If you want "genuine Mexico" without the "tourist" try the place we stayed at about 3 hours north of Vallarta, a small town (10,000) where Mexicans vacation with a couple of decent hotels and one fine restaurant, zero T-shirt shops, no Wal-Mart, no American restaurant chains, and no time shares. I think only 3 people speak English (luckily we met two of them).
Sorry ... end of rant! I was just really disappointed to see Vallarta falling prey to the vulgarians like so many other tourist places.
Bill
First time I visited Vallarta in the mid-90's I thought it was a nice blend of "tourist Mexico" with "genuine Mexico", especially compared to Cabo, a place I had visited many times to fish.
We were just in Vallarta (Dec 12th) for one night, picking up a car before heading north to a small town up the coast, and I must say I'm beginning to think it's not that "genuine" anymore compared to even a few years ago.
Getting off the plane the time-share ropers hit you up as you pass customs. Driving to our hotel I notice a new Wal-Mart on the left ... walking on the malecon I saw American chains like Subway, a pizza place (Dominos or Pizza Hut? can't remember which one) and a Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors ice cream shoppe. (Hard Rock was there in the 90's so it's grand-fathered in I guess).
Then a McDonald's, right on the malecon. I have no problem with McDonald's in the USA, but in Mexico I want to go 'yuck'. How genuine is that!
Final straw was at the end of the malecon, close to the Rio Cuale mouth and Old Town, where a Mexican restaurant had been replaced by a Hooters. HQQTERS!
The walk on the island in the Rio Cuale used to be a nice quiet stroll between restaurants but now it's elbow to elbow with vendors hawking tourist T-shirts and other non-genuine trinkets.
If you want a nice combo of "genuine" and "tourist" Mexico try San Miguel de Allende or Guanajuato instead.
If you want "genuine Mexico" without the "tourist" try the place we stayed at about 3 hours north of Vallarta, a small town (10,000) where Mexicans vacation with a couple of decent hotels and one fine restaurant, zero T-shirt shops, no Wal-Mart, no American restaurant chains, and no time shares. I think only 3 people speak English (luckily we met two of them).
Sorry ... end of rant! I was just really disappointed to see Vallarta falling prey to the vulgarians like so many other tourist places.
Bill
Dec 21st, 2006, 10:38 PM
#6
ah Bill,
you say you arrived Dec 12th - that is the culmination of the Festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe!! an amazing and truly genuine local event. I'm sorry you did not have the chance to witness or partipate in it. That might have changed your perspective drastically.
Sure there's a Hooters (which has been there for years, you must not have visited El Centro in a while) and a McDonalds, Dominos pizza, Sams club, etc. I have not been in any of these places. But it does not diminish my love of Vallarta, nor do I believe it makes it less "authentic". It's the real world. Modern and changing all the time. And if you notice who is eating in McD's, it's the locals more than the tourists btw.
The one thing I will agree with you about is that the timeshare sales presence is overwhelming and highly annoying.
Lo siento, but I refuse to buy into statements that Puerto Vallarta is somehow not "Mexican"... tell it to the 250,000 mexican people who live there.
you say you arrived Dec 12th - that is the culmination of the Festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe!! an amazing and truly genuine local event. I'm sorry you did not have the chance to witness or partipate in it. That might have changed your perspective drastically.
Sure there's a Hooters (which has been there for years, you must not have visited El Centro in a while) and a McDonalds, Dominos pizza, Sams club, etc. I have not been in any of these places. But it does not diminish my love of Vallarta, nor do I believe it makes it less "authentic". It's the real world. Modern and changing all the time. And if you notice who is eating in McD's, it's the locals more than the tourists btw.
The one thing I will agree with you about is that the timeshare sales presence is overwhelming and highly annoying.
Lo siento, but I refuse to buy into statements that Puerto Vallarta is somehow not "Mexican"... tell it to the 250,000 mexican people who live there.
Dec 22nd, 2006, 06:25 AM
#8
Bill, It really must have been a long time since you've been in Puerto Vallarta. Much of what you are complaining about has been there for at least a decade (as Cabron mentions above).
Heck there's a McDonald's in my favorite town in Switzerland, does that mean I don't want to go to Europe?
I understand some people enjoy going to less developed, more out-of-the-way places on their vacations, which is fine. But just because you don't care for particular modernizations of a city, does not make it a bad or a wrong or undesireable thing imo. Nor does it make one place more "Mexican" than another.
Suze
Heck there's a McDonald's in my favorite town in Switzerland, does that mean I don't want to go to Europe?
I understand some people enjoy going to less developed, more out-of-the-way places on their vacations, which is fine. But just because you don't care for particular modernizations of a city, does not make it a bad or a wrong or undesireable thing imo. Nor does it make one place more "Mexican" than another.
Suze
Dec 22nd, 2006, 10:48 AM
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<b>Bill, It really must have been a long time since you've been in Puerto Vallarta.</b>
I think I was there twice in 1996 and once in 1997 ... I remember the Hard Rock but not the McDonald's ... nor do I remember Hooters even though we probably walked by that corner a dozen times (I recall a Daquiri Dick's or something classy like that instead in that area). Maybe the sign was smaller then?
<b>Sure there's a Hooters ... and a McDonalds, Dominos pizza, Sams club, etc. ... But it does not diminish my love of Vallarta, nor do I believe it makes it less "authentic".</b>
We will have to agree to disagree on this I guess since I don't find it "authentic" at all ... I have an informal "touristy" scorecard to keep track of how different places rate ... 5 points if the time share guys are lined up right outside customs, one point for every time-share solicitation on the street (the car rental clerk even offered us a chance at a free breakfast at Nuevo Vallarta last week), one point for each US chain restaurant or store or hotel, with a bonus points for McDonald's and Wal-Mart, 5 points for more than 10 T-shirt shops, etc etc
Cabo probably scores the highest but I'm betting Vallarta is gaining ... I give it a +32 just from our one day there last week.
By comparison places like say San Miguel get +1 (Baskin-Robbins), as does Guanajuato (Holiday Inn Express). It's a different experience. These places seem to care more about retaining their culture and less about chasing every possible tourist dollar, even though they are clearly tourist destinations.
A step removed from these are places like Stewbear mentioned or like the small place I was at last week, with very little tourist infrastructure but strong traditional Mexican culture (I confess I don't have enough Spanish to feel as comfortable in these places as in the more touristy spots).
<b> just because you don't care for particular modernizations of a city, does not make it a bad or a wrong or undesireable thing imo.</b>
I'm not passing judgement on it, I'm just saying Vallarta has become more touristy and less genuine compared to places that are lacking
such "modernizations" as time share salesmen or Wal-Marts or Hooters and have kept their earlier traditions.
I've been to Mazatlan, Vallarta, Acapulco, Manzanillo and Ixtapa/Zihua 12 times and all are to some extent touristy. I've been to Cabo more times that all these put together and it's the most touristy of the lot, so I'm not saying going to these places is a bad thing, I'm just saying it's inaccurate to label them "genuine Mexico" or "authentic Mexico" instead of "tourist Mexico".
At one time I thought Vallarta had struck a nice balance between the two but now I think it's probably the third most touristy beach town behind only Cabo and Cancun, and apparently trying hard to catch up to them.
<b>Nor does it make one place more "Mexican" than another.</b>
It does to me ...
Bill
I think I was there twice in 1996 and once in 1997 ... I remember the Hard Rock but not the McDonald's ... nor do I remember Hooters even though we probably walked by that corner a dozen times (I recall a Daquiri Dick's or something classy like that instead in that area). Maybe the sign was smaller then?
<b>Sure there's a Hooters ... and a McDonalds, Dominos pizza, Sams club, etc. ... But it does not diminish my love of Vallarta, nor do I believe it makes it less "authentic".</b>
We will have to agree to disagree on this I guess since I don't find it "authentic" at all ... I have an informal "touristy" scorecard to keep track of how different places rate ... 5 points if the time share guys are lined up right outside customs, one point for every time-share solicitation on the street (the car rental clerk even offered us a chance at a free breakfast at Nuevo Vallarta last week), one point for each US chain restaurant or store or hotel, with a bonus points for McDonald's and Wal-Mart, 5 points for more than 10 T-shirt shops, etc etc
Cabo probably scores the highest but I'm betting Vallarta is gaining ... I give it a +32 just from our one day there last week.
By comparison places like say San Miguel get +1 (Baskin-Robbins), as does Guanajuato (Holiday Inn Express). It's a different experience. These places seem to care more about retaining their culture and less about chasing every possible tourist dollar, even though they are clearly tourist destinations.
A step removed from these are places like Stewbear mentioned or like the small place I was at last week, with very little tourist infrastructure but strong traditional Mexican culture (I confess I don't have enough Spanish to feel as comfortable in these places as in the more touristy spots).
<b> just because you don't care for particular modernizations of a city, does not make it a bad or a wrong or undesireable thing imo.</b>
I'm not passing judgement on it, I'm just saying Vallarta has become more touristy and less genuine compared to places that are lacking
such "modernizations" as time share salesmen or Wal-Marts or Hooters and have kept their earlier traditions.
I've been to Mazatlan, Vallarta, Acapulco, Manzanillo and Ixtapa/Zihua 12 times and all are to some extent touristy. I've been to Cabo more times that all these put together and it's the most touristy of the lot, so I'm not saying going to these places is a bad thing, I'm just saying it's inaccurate to label them "genuine Mexico" or "authentic Mexico" instead of "tourist Mexico".
At one time I thought Vallarta had struck a nice balance between the two but now I think it's probably the third most touristy beach town behind only Cabo and Cancun, and apparently trying hard to catch up to them.
<b>Nor does it make one place more "Mexican" than another.</b>
It does to me ...
Bill
Dec 24th, 2006, 07:19 AM
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Bill, your geography is a bit off. Daquiri Dick's is on Los Muertos beach on the south side of time.
I don't like the US chains here but the locals are the main customers at McDonalds.
To the OP the rain starts around the end of June, May is pretty nice but as you approach July the humidity increases a lot, maybe uncomfortable for you if you're not used to it, once the rainy season comes (only a couple of hours a day) it drops the humidity quite a bit.
I don't like the US chains here but the locals are the main customers at McDonalds.
To the OP the rain starts around the end of June, May is pretty nice but as you approach July the humidity increases a lot, maybe uncomfortable for you if you're not used to it, once the rainy season comes (only a couple of hours a day) it drops the humidity quite a bit.
Dec 27th, 2006, 07:31 AM
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Claro, and we now have a new Super Gigante and a new Mega Comercial on the upper and lower ends of El Carachol.
Still, 140K Mexicans live here, but more went to El Norte in the last several years than historically typical.
sb: When did you last visit "el pueblo magico"?
We were at the Costalegre last week (it's uninhabitable Apr-Oct, iohpo's)and are looking near Zihua/Ixtapa for next Christmas as the drive is less brutal.
Prospero Ano Nuevo.
M
Still, 140K Mexicans live here, but more went to El Norte in the last several years than historically typical.
sb: When did you last visit "el pueblo magico"?
We were at the Costalegre last week (it's uninhabitable Apr-Oct, iohpo's)and are looking near Zihua/Ixtapa for next Christmas as the drive is less brutal.
Prospero Ano Nuevo.
M
Dec 27th, 2006, 07:52 AM
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I have been to Puerto Vallarta 8-10 times, at different times of the year. I spent several years in a row celebrating my birthday there in April. This is one of my favorite times of the year in PV.
Yes, there will be rain during the rainy season. Most of the time it will rain very hard in the afternoon but I always found it cool and refreshing, a good time to take a siesta or head to the palapa bar for a couple of beers. On some occasions it will rain a good part of the day but that is a rarity.
Enjoy your trip!
Yes, there will be rain during the rainy season. Most of the time it will rain very hard in the afternoon but I always found it cool and refreshing, a good time to take a siesta or head to the palapa bar for a couple of beers. On some occasions it will rain a good part of the day but that is a rarity.
Enjoy your trip!
