I'm currently in the midst of a 9 day vacation here in PV. For the flight, I was able to use AA miles, and they were running a special of 25K miles rather than the usual 35K. Only caveat is that I had to connect through DFW, rather than direct from either SAN or LAX.

For the first 4 days, I was in the Westin in the Marina Vallarta area, which I got on Priceline for $50 a day (all in $61.50 a day including taxes and fees). The Westin is a very nice 4* resort on the beach, and in season prior to the slump, it was going for $275-300 a night.

Then I moved to a perfectly pleasant hotel in the Zona Romantica that has AC, kitchen with fridge, a living room, bedroom, bathroom, 3 blocks from the beach for which I am paying $20 a night.

I went deep sea fishing today, for $200 on a nice new 28 foot boat, for 5 hours. Normally I would expect to pay $300-400 for this sort of a fishing trip on this caliber of boat - and no, there was no timeshare presentation involved at that price. BTW, I caught a 50 pound Yellowfin tuna along with a couple of smaller Bonita. After the tuna was filletted on the boat, I kept half of it and gave half away as part of the tip to the guy who worked the boat. Half that tuna will provide enough food for 3 ample sized meals.

This vacation is probably the biggest screaming travel bargain of my life.

And nary a drug war in sight.