PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO

we have been there twice on cruises in 2007, 2015 and stayed for few days July 2016, Mar 2017, Jan 2018, July 2019, Jan 2020

Puerto Vallarta is a clean & safe city, very green and pretty area.
you will find a lot of people speak English which makes it easier to communicate and get around.

Currency– Mexican peso- in Jan 2017 it was at aprox $20-$1US, if you are just there for the day don’t worry about getting pesos, just about anybody selling anything will take US money, if you are staying a few days pesos will get you a better price on some things.

Transportation,
Taxis are plentiful and an easy way to get around, fares can be a little unpredictable if you don’t know what to expect to pay, also knowing you are paying in pesos can help, Always establish the cost before you get in, taxi zone map, here is a site that gives an idea of what to expect for taxi fares, also taxi rates from the airport which can be a little higher than regular around town rates
PORT TAXIS are authorized only to pick up passengers from the Puerto Vallarta Airport and the Cruise Ship Terminal. They have a ‘monopoly’ on these two markets, so this and the fact that they can not provide any other service (not even TO the airport or terminal) makes them a little more expensive. go out to the street to get a yellow ‘city’ taxi for a better deal. The terminal is right on the main drag through town. Walk a block or so, stick out your arm, and flag down a taxi.
Buses, local buses are are good economical way to get around, there is a bus stop right by Walmart that you can catch a bus into town here is a great bus route site with lots of good info on which bus will get you where you want to go and how much. use this link for a overlay of the PV bus routes on your google maps, it has been super useful – PV Google Maps
Water Taxi,there are several location you can take a water taxi (like a small fishing boat), there are a few places that are only accessible by boat like Las Animas beach and Yelpa, here is a map and prices.

Stuff to do

Beaches.
our favorite beaches were the south end of Los Muertos Beach and Las Animas Beach
Las Animas, on the map here, we really enjoyed our visit to Las Animas Beach, even though it was a little crowded because of some beach cruises/tours, only problem is that it is mainly accessible by boat/water taxi, if you want to go there but don’t want to spent a lot of time on a small boat you can take the bus to Boca de Tomatlan (see bus route site for which buses to take) then you only have a couple mile water taxi ride the rest of the way, (there is also a hiking trail from Boco its about 3 miles, more info on that here) even though it is near Puerto Vallarta it is completely different than the beaches there, the sand is finer and softer, water is clearer and calmer!
Los Muertos Beach, map, in the old part of town at the end of the Malecon, away from the real big hotel/timeshares, we liked this area better than the rest of the beach along the Malecon too, not real sure why 🙂 might be because it is kind of the end of the beach so it feels a little less crowded.

Las Animas beach

south end of Los Muertos Beach, looking north to Los Muertos pier

Excursions– here is a comparison on some excursions.
ziplining in Puerto Vallarta, Princess, Carnival and Norwegian are the main ones that go there, they all sell the same zipline tour (Vallarta Adventures) Princess is $139, Carnival is $109, Norwegian is $119, and you can get the trip on Vallarta Adventure site for $99 with some discount options, they do push you to book through the cruse lines if they know you are coming in on a cruise, most of their time slots for the days in port will show sold out, but some times if you book far enough ahead you can catch a spot or do one of their other tours that include ziplining, you will need to take a 10 min. taxi to their office location(they have a second location about 25 min away). the biggest advantage to booking on your own is you can offset your time a little to miss the bigger groups from the ships, there are also cheaper options for ziplining, there are a couple other locations for canopy tours $54 – $67 ( Vallarta Adventures does offer more to do at their site and include some like waterslides, mule rides, UTV rides etc.) but if you are looking for the basic zipline at a great price you can do the Indio Canopy Tour for about $27 each with their 2 for 1 special (the one we did while we were there, great zipline! and they pick up from the port)

some of the things we have done in Puerto Vallarta-

Indio Canopy tour Zipline, here on the map we went during our 2016 visit and we ended up going free for listening to a timeshare presentation (they don’t try to push that on you if you come in on a cruise, just if you fly in).
the zipline tour was a great trip, these guys sell the same thing we went on here, http://www.puertovallartatours.net/indio-canopy-tour.htm for a good price, $54 for 2 adults $30 for 2 kids (follow the instructions for booking on the site to get the 2 for 1 price) they will pick up at the cruise ship terminal and drop back off there, most tours have a little wasted time that isn’t always welcome, this one wasn’t too bad. after the ziplines (which were awesome) there was a “tequila tasting” which was basically a little sales pitch for tequila, we got a snack at the restaurant while they were doing that, they do have various shuttle busses that go back and forth at different times, you don’t have to go back on the same one you came on, part of the reason they hang out longer and “give you time for lunch” is trying to push business to the little restaurant there, it was expensive and not that good, if you want to try to skip out on the extra stuff as soon as you are done with the zipline you can ask the people at “the front desk” if you can get on the first shuttle/van going back to the port, you might get lucky and leave sooner than the rest of your group, find out when it is leaving and if its a while relax, enjoy the scenery, sometimes guys will dive from the rocks into the river, its fun to watch, or you can play in the river (one word of caution: when we were there in 2015 playing at the river a lot of us got bitten by sand fleas, they itch for weeks, if your going to play at the river use some bug spray) overall the zipline tour was a great thing to do. if your not ready to go back to the ship you should be able to get the shuttle to drop you at one of their pick up stops in town, then you could take a taxi back to the ship

The Boardwalk / Malecon
a lot of fun stuff to see walking down the Malecon, it is a walkway that goes along the beach with shops, old church and restaurants along the way, variety of street performers, statues and Los Muertos pier, if you are there at the right time you will also see some neat sand sculptures. a good way to do this is have a taxi drop you at the north end, about 15 min from port, link to map here, and walk to the south end and catch a different taxi back, map showing Malecon end to end (you will stay along the beach the whole way though) also if you want to do some swimming the beaches are nicer on the south end (Los Muertos beach) or if you want to go from the south end back north have a taxi take you to Los Muertos Beach

Snorkeling, snorkeling on the west cost is not going to be as good as the Caribbean, but there are some decent spots, in Puerto Vallarta the best place i could recommend is at Los Arcos, when we went we ended up going on a beach snorkeling tour (Beach Boy) i would definitely not recommend that, we had about 20 min in the water.
what i would recommend, and we will do next time we go is take a taxi and get dropped off at the pullout on the map below, you can arrange a time to have the taxi driver meet you back there to pick you up or when you are done walk to the south a little there is a pullout/over look area, flag down a bus back into town.
there is a trail down to the beach, the beach is mostly rock so not really a “hangout on a sandy beach” but if your main purpose is snorkeling it is all you need. there are several tour boats (like the beach boy) that will drop a lot of people off near the bigger rock to snorkel so if you get there early before the crowds that is best, there are also several smaller boats that take people over there so if you are going from the beach watch for boats, if you have a dive flag would be helpful too, here is a dive flag i got
to see where you want to go here is a link to Google maps, you can even zoom in to street view and go down the trail to the beach.

rocky beach entry

here is one of the site we went to before we went that has some good suggestions, http://www.puertovallarta.net/what_to_do/top-ten-things-to-do-puerto-vallarta.php

Malecon