Review of Hard Rock Resort Vallarta Mexico All Inclusive Hotel

Hard Rock Vallarta

I just returned from a 3 night trip to Hard Rock Vallarta with my high school friend, Jenelle.
Here is my full review of the resort experience -

Check in process is easy. Our room wasn't quite ready yet so they took all our info and then we went and had lunch and came back. Buffet is typical above average all inclusive buffet with a wide range. They had cooking stations where they were grilling fajitas or fresh fish or steak and then of course a little bit of everything else.
Once to our room, we has an ocean view room. It was a great view of the pool and the ocean. No complaints from me. This is called "Gold" by the hard rock standard. They don't have full balconies. You have to be concierge (diamond) to have a full balcony but no big deal to me.

The rooms all have huge 2 person Jacuzzi tubs. This hotel use to be Vallarta Palace and this is standard with the Palace Resorts. I don't think Hard Rock would have had these if they built the hotel from the ground up because it's kind of weird when it's not a super couple-y type hotel. Oh well!
Rooms are standard hotel room size. Bathrooms are kind of small. There is a nice full length mirror in the closet and light. The rooms have a mini fridge stocked with cokes, beer and juice. There is also a liquor dispenser (does anyone actually use these?) if you just didn't get enough booze throughout the day. ha!

The hotel is easy to navigate. Some restaurants down by the ocean and some more off the lobby. We ate at the Japanese restaurant and the Brazilian. I thought the Brazilian could use some work. They hadnbsp;a small buffet set up,nbsp;with salads and sides. The mashed potatoes,nbsp;tasted instant which,nbsp;makes me crazy. They had the big skewers of,nbsp;meat that came around. It was ok. It wasn't Texas de Brazil by any means. nbsp;Japanese was good. A wide selection. I had grilled curry mahi mahi which was excellent. The restaurant doesn't have the hibachi grills which everyone seems to have these days so that was a little disappointing. All the restaurants had excellence service.



The pool area at the hotel is great. A good size swim up bar and some activities going on. They had some silly games as well as water aerobics. There are a few slides for kids (one more just for toddlers) and the kids (as well as me) had a fun time with that. There were waterfalls and rocks and it was a pretty pool area. Great service by the pool. They had a wood fired pizza that was open 11am - 6pm with plenty of topping options (but go get ranch at the buffet if you need it!) and there was a snack bar with guac and pico and all the other junk food things you can think of that you need to be eating in your swimsuit.



At night they had different things going on. Each night was different whether they had a live band or karaoke. They had a DJ most nights in the sports bar. The resort was not full by any means so some of these things were a tad on the boring side but would have been more fun if they hotel had more guests.

The resort has a nice salon with spa treatment rooms. I opted out of doing a spa treatment here. I prefer to do them when I can do the whole spa experience. I want to be waited on with cucumber water and sit in the sauna and steam room before while listening soothing music and smelling aromatherapy type stuff. They don't have that. They have a sauna and a steam room at the gym so you can use it everyday if you want so if you like to work out on vacation and use the sauna, you are in luck! Me, not so much.
But (and this is a huge but) if you stay here and have to pay (mine always seems to be free) they give you a resort credit you can use at the spa. If I had a free massage with my room I would still be all over that. I just don't want to pay fancy resort prices for a massage if I don't get the whole spa experience if that makes sense.

The resort is located in Nuevo Vallarta or Vallarta Nayarit. People call it both. It's located right next door to Paradise Village which is the marina where tours leave out of with Vallarta Adventures (my favorite tour company!) so it's a good location if you want to be up there (about 20 minutes from downtown). It's across the street from a pharmacy and a casino. I didn't visit the casino but I know some of the wedding groups at the hotel were doing that. It's literally across the street but it looked small. It was in a strip mall.

So basically it's a nice resort. It's perfect for weddings because it's not too romantic but not too much of a party. It has something for everyone. Good service, pretty good food and pretty beach!

Call me if you want to go! I would love to send you! 405-418-4180

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