If you had a choice?

[lovebugs2003]

would you rather go to an All inclusive for two weeks to:

Mayan Riviera or Puerto Vallarta

We are trying to decide between the two.

[laura]

Probably Mayan Riviera, I've heard great things about it. My understanding is that the beaches are mostly (all?) unswimmable in Puerto Vallarta, IIRC, and I would prefer swimmable beaches if going somewhere beachy.

[moderngal]

I've never been to Puerto Vallarta, but I have been to a part of the Mayan Riviera and loved it.

[Bbbethie]

I've never been to Puerto Vallarta either, but I have been to the Mayan Riviera three times and never had a bad experience. We're hoping to go back again next year!

[jnshanna]

I haven't been to Puerto Vallara either but I loved the Riviera Maya. If you do decide on Riviera Maya just be sure to get details about the resort's beach. There are a lot of different variations there and if you want clear blue water you should specify that specifically and make sure you're getting that. For example, we stayed at Aventura Spa Palace and it doesn't have a beach at all. That's okay with us because we expected that. We also visited the Moon Palace and while it did have a beach, it was not the clear blue water that I would have wanted, it was dark and had a lot of seaweed. But I've heard that Playacar has a very nice beach. Anyway, more info than you asked for but I'm fresh from my trip and can't help but talk about it. ;)

[lovebugs2003]

Thanks everyone, we are staying at the Occidental Grand XCaret, it looks like they have a nice beach, we have already booked it, so we can't change it. But we told our travel agent, we wanted white sand and clear blue water. So hopefully, crossing fingers.

jnshanna What were some things that you would definitely recommend doing? We enjoy sitting on the beach, but we also would like to explore outside of the resort?

[jnshanna]

We really enjoyed relaxing by the lagoon at our hotel mostly so we didn't get out much. We did go to Tulum and I'd highly recommend it. The beach is absolutely gorgeous and it's neat to see the Mayan ruins. The only thing I didn't like was that everything is roped off so you can't actually walk into the ruins. I've heard Chichen Itza is nice too and you can actually walk up one of the ruins. I would have liked to do that. Oh, and for Tulum we only did the short tour, I would have preferred to do the longer tour with extra time to swim in the water. We didn't have enough time to do that on the short tour.

And if you haven't already, check out tripadvisor.com. It's a great site to hear what other travelers thought of their trips. You just type in the name of your resort and you'll see lots of reviews. That site helped us so much with our preparation. I hope you have a great time!

[genndan100502]

lovebugs2003 - when you come back can you tell us how your vacation went. my cousin-in-law is having her wedding at the Occidental grand xcaret in May 2007 so we're debating about traveling there with the family. TIA!

[lovebugs2003]

HI Genndan

Definitely, i will tell you how it went. With pictures too. We don't go untl end of Jan. We are going for two weeks.