Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

by Trevor Thorpe

When I got home to Derbyshire after my last scuba-diving holiday to Cuba, I immediately set about planning my next scuba diving holiday!! I was looking through the usual travel brochures, especially through the Eclipse brochure, the firm I normally use, and particularly at Puerto Vallarta as it had been recommended to me by some people I met in Cuba (see my report). I decided to book a two week holiday to the hotel Playa de Oro, an all-inclusive which had been recommended by one of these divers - Mark, who is also a P.A.D.I. Advanced Diver. I had his email address and when I mailed him to tell him I’d booked the trip, he said he would also like to go. So after he’d checked with his wife Danielle, they also booked. Danielle is not a diver and because she knew that Mark and I would dive a lot, she asked her friend Kate if she would like to join us. She immediately said she’d love to! So, my holiday changed from a trip for one to a group of 4.

The holiday cost me £970 with my single person supplement. Anyway a month before I was due to fly they had a big hurricane which damaged the hotel, meaning it would have to close for refurbishments, so they decided to move all the clients to other hotels which hadn’t been damaged. Fortunately all four of us were moved to the 5* hotel Marival in Nuevo Vallarta. After my journey down to Gatwick on National Express, which I always use, I met the others in the departure lounge where we all booked in together meaning we would be sitting together on the plane for the 14 hour flight to Puerto Vallarta.

The Marival is a truly marvellous hotel and because there were 4 of us in 3 rooms, it meant we could use the speciality restaurants every night (rather than the buffets) as each room could use 1 of the restaurants once per week. It makes a nice change to use the speciality restaurants because you can get a bit fed up with the buffets after a while.

Puerto Vallarta/Nuevo Vallarta/Bucerias are all built around Banderas Bay and it is in this bay that Humpback Whales bring their calfs during November, which is why I picked that particular month for the holiday.

There was no dive shop on site although they did do pool dives that were run by Vallarta Adventures, whose shop is just a 10 minute bus ride away on the local bus. I recommend a trip on one of these buses - very interesting because you get to meet the locals travelling to work. We both took our own equipment so getting on and off the buses was interesting but not too difficult and the locals were very friendly. We only did six dives because there was so much else to do and we didn’t want to leave the girls on their own for too long.

The dives we did were; El Bajo, a 38ft. dive lasting 43mins., La Parco, a 60ft. dive lasting 45mins., both around the Marietas Islands, Mahaita a 58ft. dive lasting 40mins., Caletas a 48ft. dive lasting 41mins., El Morro a 85ft. dive lasting 37mins. & the Marietas Caves, a dive to 58ft, lasting 43mins.

Vallarta Adventures are really an all around excursion shop but they do have several dive masters. They take divers out with the day trippers on a 40ft. catamaran and then when you reach the dive site and you’ve had your briefing, the divers transfer to the small dive boat for transfer to the entry point. This dive boat is really just a rowing boat with an outboard engine.

While there we also did a few dives with Chico’s in central Puerto Vallarta, but that meant a 30 minute bus ride which wasn’t very convenient. Anyway the girls could come for the day trip if we dived with Vallarta Adventures, which was much more enjoyable for everyone.

It was on my first dive on this holiday that I logged my 100th ever dive and so after the dive they called me to the front of the boat and congratulated me in front of 50+ daytrippers, so embarrassing.!

There are also lots to do for the non diver such as quad biking in the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains, which I tried and para gliding which I also tried as I felt much more confident with Mark, Dannielle and Kate being there. I also had a overnight stay in Guadalajara which is a very beautiful city. You can also visit the towns of Tequila where they take you around a distillery and Tclacepace, a beautiful little Mexican village on the way. There are also lots more excursions to choose from.

All-in-all a brilliant holiday especially for a mixed party of divers and non divers, but the diving (in my opinion) is better on the Cancun/Cozumel side).

Contact; www.vallarta-adventures.com the Adventure Vallarta website.


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