Ziva Puerto Vallarta REVIEW MASTER THREAD
Jan 6, 2016, 3:37 pm
#226
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
Posts: 8,964
I disagree that just because it is in Mexico they know how to cook Mexican food. The worse meal (inedible) was in the Mexican restaurant and all the other "mexican" dishes in the other restaurants were not authentic or tasty.
The food kept me alive for the week I was there...but that is all that I can say was " good" about it.
Jan 10, 2016, 7:55 am
#228
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
Posts: 8,964
As often is the case...reviews of any restaurant vary widely. Some like it some don't...we were the "don't'.
Jan 17, 2016, 9:06 am
#229
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Austin, TX
Programs: AA EXP, B6 Mosaic, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 61
Hi,
Does anyone have the email for the concierge or another contact at the hotel? I'm looking to get a few questions answered before booking.
Thank you!
Does anyone have the email for the concierge or another contact at the hotel? I'm looking to get a few questions answered before booking.
Thank you!
Jan 17, 2016, 12:45 pm
#230
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
Posts: 8,964
Feb 4, 2016, 12:52 pm
#232
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Sammamish, WA
Programs: Hyatt Explorist; SPG Gold; Hilton Gold
Posts: 160
Hello! We are looking to book a stay here in early March. I was initially going to book the base level room & use a DSU to get the Club Hot Tub room, but there are pretty good prices on the Swim Up rooms, so I'm thinking of booking that. My main reasons are that we loved our swim up room at Zilara Rose Hall, they are renovated rooms, & they are adults only. I know people say they aren't very private, but they still look awesome. Would anyone recommend the Club Hot Tub room over the swim-up? Additionally, if the resort were to upgrade us to a 1 bedroom plunge pool suite, would you choose that over the swim-up? They look like spacious, beautiful rooms, but I've read several reviews where people say they didn't use the plunge pool much or it was dirty.
How is the internet at this resort? We are thinking of working remotely a couple days while we're there, so we would need decent internet. If it's not great in the room, are there any areas of the resort where it's better (i.e. lobby, a certain lounge, etc.)?
If anyone is there now or staying there soon & could run a couple speedtests, I would greatly appreciate it!
How is the internet at this resort? We are thinking of working remotely a couple days while we're there, so we would need decent internet. If it's not great in the room, are there any areas of the resort where it's better (i.e. lobby, a certain lounge, etc.)?
If anyone is there now or staying there soon & could run a couple speedtests, I would greatly appreciate it!
Feb 4, 2016, 1:37 pm
#233
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
Posts: 8,964
Hello! We are looking to book a stay here in early March. I was initially going to book the base level room & use a DSU to get the Club Hot Tub room, but there are pretty good prices on the Swim Up rooms, so I'm thinking of booking that. My main reasons are that we loved our swim up room at Zilara Rose Hall, they are renovated rooms, & they are adults only. I know people say they aren't very private, but they still look awesome. Would anyone recommend the Club Hot Tub room over the swim-up? Additionally, if the resort were to upgrade us to a 1 bedroom plunge pool suite, would you choose that over the swim-up? They look like spacious, beautiful rooms, but I've read several reviews where people say they didn't use the plunge pool much or it was dirty.
How is the internet at this resort? We are thinking of working remotely a couple days while we're there, so we would need decent internet. If it's not great in the room, are there any areas of the resort where it's better (i.e. lobby, a certain lounge, etc.)?
If anyone is there now or staying there soon & could run a couple speedtests, I would greatly appreciate it!
How is the internet at this resort? We are thinking of working remotely a couple days while we're there, so we would need decent internet. If it's not great in the room, are there any areas of the resort where it's better (i.e. lobby, a certain lounge, etc.)?
If anyone is there now or staying there soon & could run a couple speedtests, I would greatly appreciate it!
The wifi was surprisingly fast...the fastest I have ever experienced in a hotel....until...the weekend when the resort got quite crowded and I think their system was taxed by the quantity of users.
Feb 5, 2016, 11:37 am
#234
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Sammamish, WA
Programs: Hyatt Explorist; SPG Gold; Hilton Gold
Posts: 160
I would think twice before reserving or accepting a swim up room. They are NOT awesome. When I was there in November the swim up rooms were in the shade almost all day. I saw only one couple actually hanging out in their swim up pool...and frankly they looked so bored and more importantly...totally exposed. ( No privacy) This is a hotel where you need to be up as high as possible...the views are much better and the resort noise less. One bedroom plunge pool suite, whether you use the plunge pool or not..is way better then the swim up.
The wifi was surprisingly fast...the fastest I have ever experienced in a hotel....until...the weekend when the resort got quite crowded and I think their system was taxed by the quantity of users.
The wifi was surprisingly fast...the fastest I have ever experienced in a hotel....until...the weekend when the resort got quite crowded and I think their system was taxed by the quantity of users.
Feb 21, 2016, 11:16 am
#236
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: 718
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Platinum, IHG Diamond
Posts: 967
Arrived yesterday with the gf. Staying 6nts but had booked their 5th nt free along with citi prestige 4th free (2 free nts!) applied a dsu but was upgraded to a plunge pool suite at check-in. The rm is huge and has amazing views. Have only ate at blaze so far (dinner was ok but breakfast we found to be pretty good). We like staying at the beach rather than pool area. The beach is beautiful, huge, soft sand, strong waves. We love it! The pools are amazing as well. Most of them are infinity pools with views of the ocean horizon. Hotel is mostly facing the west side so sun does not really hit the resort area until 10am. Cant see sunrise but can see sunset (amazing views from blaze while dining). A good amount of people here as it appears hotel is sold out but service has been on point. Concierge is phenomenal as well as all staff. Beach service has been swift and frequent. There are few vendors trying to sell you merchandise and excursions but very respectful and not pushy. There are daily shows every night and are quite entertaining. And did I say these waves are amazing!!! Very relaxing and can hear it crash from our room even with the door closed! So far loving this place and already know we will be coming back because this place is so beautiful! Definitely a hidden gem and the price point is great for an AI.
Feb 21, 2016, 1:12 pm
#237
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
Posts: 8,964
Arrived yesterday with the gf. Staying 6nts but had booked their 5th nt free along with citi prestige 4th free (2 free nts!) applied a dsu but was upgraded to a plunge pool suite at check-in. The rm is huge and has amazing views. Have only ate at blaze so far (dinner was ok but breakfast we found to be pretty good). We like staying at the beach rather than pool area. The beach is beautiful, huge, soft sand, strong waves. We love it! The pools are amazing as well. Most of them are infinity pools with views of the ocean horizon. Hotel is mostly facing the west side so sun does not really hit the resort area until 10am. Cant see sunrise but can see sunset (amazing views from blaze while dining). A good amount of people here as it appears hotel is sold out but service has been on point. Concierge is phenomenal as well as all staff. Beach service has been swift and frequent. There are few vendors trying to sell you merchandise and excursions but very respectful and not pushy. There are daily shows every night and are quite entertaining. And did I say these waves are amazing!!! Very relaxing and can hear it crash from our room even with the door closed! So far loving this place and already know we will be coming back because this place is so beautiful! Definitely a hidden gem and the price point is great for an AI.
Just out of curiosity which building do you end up in?
Feb 24, 2016, 2:04 pm
#239
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Sammamish, WA
Programs: Hyatt Explorist; SPG Gold; Hilton Gold
Posts: 160
Arrived yesterday with the gf. Staying 6nts but had booked their 5th nt free along with citi prestige 4th free (2 free nts!) applied a dsu but was upgraded to a plunge pool suite at check-in. The rm is huge and has amazing views. Have only ate at blaze so far (dinner was ok but breakfast we found to be pretty good). We like staying at the beach rather than pool area. The beach is beautiful, huge, soft sand, strong waves. We love it! The pools are amazing as well. Most of them are infinity pools with views of the ocean horizon. Hotel is mostly facing the west side so sun does not really hit the resort area until 10am. Cant see sunrise but can see sunset (amazing views from blaze while dining). A good amount of people here as it appears hotel is sold out but service has been on point. Concierge is phenomenal as well as all staff. Beach service has been swift and frequent. There are few vendors trying to sell you merchandise and excursions but very respectful and not pushy. There are daily shows every night and are quite entertaining. And did I say these waves are amazing!!! Very relaxing and can hear it crash from our room even with the door closed! So far loving this place and already know we will be coming back because this place is so beautiful! Definitely a hidden gem and the price point is great for an AI.
Feb 26, 2016, 3:25 pm
#240
Join Date: May 2003
Location: ICN
Programs: AA (850k miles), SPG Platinum
Posts: 511
I just got back from a 1 week stay. This was the second time I stayed here (last year was the last week of Jan). Last year was a short 2 night stay and it rained. This week the weather was beautiful.
Our group had 2 rooms. My wife and I had a room in the club tower (19th floor) with a hot tub in the balcony. The others had a room in the other tower.
A few notes / observations:
1) The club tower is nice because the rooms are a little bigger (couch + sitting area) and there is a concierge and lounge with food and drinks on the ground floor. In reality, we never got food or drinks from the lounge and we didn't use the concierge (we did check out here though to save time).
2) We had a hot tub in the balcony but never used it. I always told myself that I'd try using it "later tonight" but never did.
3) There were some kind of bugs / mosquitos that bit my legs (ankles, feet, calves) as well as my arms (near elbows). I didn't get any bites anywhere else. Whatever bit me...it's really itchy.
4) The activities staff is cool. They are always trying to get people to play beach volleyball, ping pong tournament, water aerobics, etc. It's nice to participate a little bit because you then get to know them.
5) Nightly entertainment was mostly pretty good. The fire show was similar to the fire portion of the show at a luau in Hawaii. The water circus was good. The regular circus was also good (juggling, gymnastics, etc.). The star wars dance was interesting. The mime was a little boring but oh well. I don't remember them having nightly entertainment last year. Maybe I was just too busy to attend last year.
6) You need to get out early to reserve chairs. By around 9am, many chairs are taken. It is a bit annoying because many people show up really late or don't show up at all.
7) Drink service, etc. is all pretty prompt and good. Service was good all around. It does help if you tip them a little bit (otherwise they sometimes ignore you).
8) Restaurant service is very slow. You're on vacation so hopefully you're not pressed for time. It was common to sit in a restaurant and take 20 minutes to order, 20 min for food, etc. Meals typically took at least 1 hour but 2+ hour meals were not uncommon. Some guests were annoyed and would simply get up and leave and walk over to the buffet (or sneak food into the restaurant from the buffet or grill to eat while waiting).
9) One elevator was broken in the newer building. You had to use your hands to force open the door, etc. Later they just closed the elevator so it took forever to get an elevators sometimes.
10) Check in was nice as they give you a glass to drink and a nice cold towel. It was nice to see Beatris from last year (she's nice!)
11) Check in took about an hour or so. I guess we had a slightly complex reservation. Our group was 4 adults, 1 child (10) and 2 infants (2, 1). The website indicates that infants are free and we booked them when making reservations but sometimes they didn't show up in the reservation as a child. We made multiple reservations including:
1 - paid reservation for 6 nights / 7 days. straight up vanilla reservation made online. no problems with this one. 2 adults, 1 child, 1 infant.
3 reservations each were 2 nights free sign up offer using hyatt visa credit card
The 3 reservations were made back to back to equal 6 nights. However, these have to be made via phone only and they are made as 6 separate 1 night reservations back to back. Some said 2 adults / 1 kid and some said 2 adults / 2 kids. Phone lady said it didn't matter if the extra kids are infants but it turned out that it did matter. Luckily my other reservation was 2 kids (1 kid / 1 infant) so these reservations were fine since I only needed a spot for 1 kid.
The desk agent had a lot of problems figuring out how to do these free night reservations that are all back to back and organize them in a way so that we don't have to change rooms every day. It was a lot of him going back and forth and him getting confused and him creating a spreadsheet to organize (with many mistakes) and in the end, he finally got it. He did say that I had 2 other 1 night reservations in the middle that I should cancel but I didn't get to the bottom of that one since he gave me 2 rooms for the week which is all I wanted.
12) The coffee shop is nice and it's great that it's open 24/7.
13) Restaurants were all decent. Blaze was good for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (but service is slow). Asian restaurant was more like South Asian but was good as well. Casa Grande is always good. The buffet is best for breakfast. Italian is good for lunch but pizza was broken one afternoon (and service is really slow).
14) We took a taxi into old town one afternoon to walk malecon and get some dinner. It's close to the hotel and the taxi is cheap (like 60 or 80 pesos).
15) Rodrigo is a nice bell hop but we asked for a van to take us (+ our friend's family) to the airport on check out day. I booked it with him the day before but on the day of, there was no van. He said that the van service failed him. We ended up taking 3 cabs when no van showed up after waiting around 20 minutes.
16) Beach vendors are all fine. They aren't pushy. I felt bad for one older guy that we bought some stuff from and offered him some water but he said no...seemed to indicate that it was against policy and that security would kick him out if he drank water from a guest.
Our group had 2 rooms. My wife and I had a room in the club tower (19th floor) with a hot tub in the balcony. The others had a room in the other tower.
A few notes / observations:
1) The club tower is nice because the rooms are a little bigger (couch + sitting area) and there is a concierge and lounge with food and drinks on the ground floor. In reality, we never got food or drinks from the lounge and we didn't use the concierge (we did check out here though to save time).
2) We had a hot tub in the balcony but never used it. I always told myself that I'd try using it "later tonight" but never did.
3) There were some kind of bugs / mosquitos that bit my legs (ankles, feet, calves) as well as my arms (near elbows). I didn't get any bites anywhere else. Whatever bit me...it's really itchy.
4) The activities staff is cool. They are always trying to get people to play beach volleyball, ping pong tournament, water aerobics, etc. It's nice to participate a little bit because you then get to know them.
5) Nightly entertainment was mostly pretty good. The fire show was similar to the fire portion of the show at a luau in Hawaii. The water circus was good. The regular circus was also good (juggling, gymnastics, etc.). The star wars dance was interesting. The mime was a little boring but oh well. I don't remember them having nightly entertainment last year. Maybe I was just too busy to attend last year.
6) You need to get out early to reserve chairs. By around 9am, many chairs are taken. It is a bit annoying because many people show up really late or don't show up at all.
7) Drink service, etc. is all pretty prompt and good. Service was good all around. It does help if you tip them a little bit (otherwise they sometimes ignore you).
8) Restaurant service is very slow. You're on vacation so hopefully you're not pressed for time. It was common to sit in a restaurant and take 20 minutes to order, 20 min for food, etc. Meals typically took at least 1 hour but 2+ hour meals were not uncommon. Some guests were annoyed and would simply get up and leave and walk over to the buffet (or sneak food into the restaurant from the buffet or grill to eat while waiting).
9) One elevator was broken in the newer building. You had to use your hands to force open the door, etc. Later they just closed the elevator so it took forever to get an elevators sometimes.
10) Check in was nice as they give you a glass to drink and a nice cold towel. It was nice to see Beatris from last year (she's nice!)
11) Check in took about an hour or so. I guess we had a slightly complex reservation. Our group was 4 adults, 1 child (10) and 2 infants (2, 1). The website indicates that infants are free and we booked them when making reservations but sometimes they didn't show up in the reservation as a child. We made multiple reservations including:
1 - paid reservation for 6 nights / 7 days. straight up vanilla reservation made online. no problems with this one. 2 adults, 1 child, 1 infant.
3 reservations each were 2 nights free sign up offer using hyatt visa credit card
The 3 reservations were made back to back to equal 6 nights. However, these have to be made via phone only and they are made as 6 separate 1 night reservations back to back. Some said 2 adults / 1 kid and some said 2 adults / 2 kids. Phone lady said it didn't matter if the extra kids are infants but it turned out that it did matter. Luckily my other reservation was 2 kids (1 kid / 1 infant) so these reservations were fine since I only needed a spot for 1 kid.
The desk agent had a lot of problems figuring out how to do these free night reservations that are all back to back and organize them in a way so that we don't have to change rooms every day. It was a lot of him going back and forth and him getting confused and him creating a spreadsheet to organize (with many mistakes) and in the end, he finally got it. He did say that I had 2 other 1 night reservations in the middle that I should cancel but I didn't get to the bottom of that one since he gave me 2 rooms for the week which is all I wanted.
12) The coffee shop is nice and it's great that it's open 24/7.
13) Restaurants were all decent. Blaze was good for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (but service is slow). Asian restaurant was more like South Asian but was good as well. Casa Grande is always good. The buffet is best for breakfast. Italian is good for lunch but pizza was broken one afternoon (and service is really slow).
14) We took a taxi into old town one afternoon to walk malecon and get some dinner. It's close to the hotel and the taxi is cheap (like 60 or 80 pesos).
15) Rodrigo is a nice bell hop but we asked for a van to take us (+ our friend's family) to the airport on check out day. I booked it with him the day before but on the day of, there was no van. He said that the van service failed him. We ended up taking 3 cabs when no van showed up after waiting around 20 minutes.
16) Beach vendors are all fine. They aren't pushy. I felt bad for one older guy that we bought some stuff from and offered him some water but he said no...seemed to indicate that it was against policy and that security would kick him out if he drank water from a guest.