Occidental Nuevo Vallarta - All Inclusive

The hotel is older ,average rooms . The buffet is below average for lunch and dinner. It is hard to get a reservation at the restaurants. Lots of elderly guests. no swim up bar. Beach is great . Hotel staff excellent . Entertainment shows are good. Not a lot to do at night.

Nice experience Good food, not many options but every day there were tasty dishes and at least one of each proteins. Nice beach

A nice resort but not quite 5 stars. Meals generally excellent but a couple were so so. Room air conditioning a little touchy as was our sliding glass door. Service generally excellent but the main bartenders were slow. Resort is starting to show its age. Overall had a good time and would return

Armando (Bellman) was excellent helping with cabs. He got the taxi to drop me off with in a few minutes blocks of where I wanted to go.

This mid range resort was ok overall, but there were enough issues that will keep us from going back to a Barcelo property. The main issues: Property needs updating. Our first room was terrible. No cold water, trickling water pressure and an extremely noisy ac fan. Almost impossible restaurant reservation system done every week until Sunday. On Sunday, you could make reservations for the following week. All reservations were on the hour only, nothing like a 7:30 reservation. On the hour, everyone showed up at one time and stood in line. Also, we were told on numerous occasions that there were no reservations left for the desired time. Yet, we'd walk by the restaurant at that time and it was half empty. We thought that they were way understaffed and that they wanted you to go to the buffet. Bar drinks were constantly served in plastic reusable glasses. We'd expect this from a low level resort. I can understand the pool area, but it occurred at the inside lounge also. Room cleaning left a lot to be desired. Some days, we received hand towels, some days we didn't. There were a bunch of sand on the floor that wasn't cleaned up for days until I picked it up. Overall, the property has a good location, which is their best feature and their food was ok. This was our second Barcelo property experience, our first was similar. We're done with Barcelo.

This is my fourth time at the resort. I wanted to treat my daughters on a long weekend get away here. The resort has a small footprint. It’s not one of those places that you need a map to find your way back to your room. It’s just right I feel. The beach is amazing! The sand is super soft and you can walk way out into the ocean and not touch a rock or anything! There are a lot of activities to do if you want. We always get the Royal Level. We like the pool and bar there. I especially love the beds. It’s relaxing and the wait staff come down there as well. Get dinner reservations as soon as you can for the nights that you are staying. The schedule goes Sunday-Sunday. The three of us went to the Wellness Spa and had the best massages and facials! It was so relaxing and magical. We were floating the rest of the day. Call ahead to schedule them if you want a specific day/time. They are super flexible and helpful. Obviously, I will be back! Might even have my husband come next time. LOL!

Amazing resort. Everything was very clean and well maintained. The food was amazing, didn’t have a bad meal all trip. The beach is beautiful and so much fun swimming in the ocean. The pool was very relaxing and Jose Oscar did a great job of serving us drinks and recommending new drinks to try. Eric and his team in the lobby bar were always so friendly and happy to make us a cappuccino or a drink. It’s a great place to vacation and we will be back.

Occidental Nuevo Vallarta is incredible. Have loved our stay. Nineva at the pool is incredible. The service of the drinks was highl chef by her smile and friendliness! She made our stay awesome!

This is the second time staying at Occidental Nuevo Vallarta. Our stays are 1 yr apart and after my last review and hotel management responding back asking for us to try again to see their true hospitality it was another complete bust. When we arrived for our trip we upgraded to the royal level package for our 10 night stay. 920usd for premium drinks private pool and a 7th floor private restaurant. Premium drinks what Mexican hotel does not serve corona beer. Instead it’s a Swiss ultra. When I asked they bar staff said thy switched vendors. The private pool for royal level is quiet. Which is nice at times but the water is extremely warm. When it’s 30° you want to cool down. A warm pool doesn’t cut it. The 7th floor restaurant for royal level is quiet. The menu there isn’t many options and if you don’t have a reservation for dinner you won’t get in. The food quality is not so appealing. I’m sure they just go fill your plate from the buffet. I ordered the 300g ribeye and after it was ordered 3 different guests approached me and said do not eat the ribeye cancel it and get the 200g medallion. I was told I wouldn’t enjoy it and it’s very fatty. I changed my order and the Massillon showed up cold and way over cooked like it was reheated in microwave. It wasn’t made fresh. Our room third floor had no view was nothing special. I had to ask for facecloths 20min after we arrived cause they got forgotten. The next day after the room was cleaned and supposedly stocked I had to go back to desk and request my fridge be stocked. So when you pay 920usd for this royal level upgrade what are you paying for ? The hotel has a spa onsite and during the day time the massage ladies are by the pool with there chair offering a sample neck and head massage to get you to sign up for a spa package. So my wife signed up for the second tear 50 min massage full body 30 min facial massage. We were told 117 usd and to pay it when you go for apt. When we showed up for apt the girl at the desk who was the same one selling it said oh your paying usd cash then there is a fee so it’s 119 usd. We gave her 120usd not once did she offer the 1 dollar change back. We told her when booking we would pay cash so why would there be a fee of 2.00 usd so with the 1.00 that wasn’t given back that’s 3 dollars or 53.37 Mexican peso. No it was not put towards the tip that was a different cost to go straight to the massage therapist. The other food restaurants the food is buffet and is the same everyday. They say they change the main buffet each nights to different themes but I still see the same food. It’s a very basic buffet at most. I thought for sure this trip when we upgraded to royal level would be better but it’s not hitting the mark. The hotel is definitely showing the age and is going from what use to be a 5⭐️ is a 2⭐️. The pool has cracks on the hard top the tiles in the main pool are getting replaced every morning. The rooms show the age and wear. I am definitely not happy with our stay again. This afternoon. I sat in the Hottub on the royal level pool. I had my back against the wall and once I got out my wife notices a green line on my back that was extremely sticky and very hard to remove. We had to scrub it with nail polish remover and a wet towel to get it off. Once off I checked the Hottub and there is a green sticky ring all around the Hottub it’s a green algy sticky from all the peoples sunscreen and so on. Every morning I see the chemicals getting checked in the pools and how they barely wipe down the pool sides with no effort they don’t clean and scrub it. The entire resort is suppose to be no smoking or vape but people every day are smoking and vaping and the security does nothing about it. There is cigarette butts scattered everywhere around this resort. The beach use to be clean and now it’s dirty and the staff doesn’t clean it. The beach chairs and the private chairs and cabanas are broken. There are signs that say no reserving chairs and beds with towels but everyone does it and security and management does nothing. Somewhere along the line management needs to accept they are in the wrong and need to find a solution for the guests to come back. A bottle of champagne when a party doesn’t drink is nothing special. The royal level menu , on Sunday night when we arrived we had dinner on the 7th floor royal level restaurant I ordered the 300g ribeye steak. I am from Alberta where we are known for our steak and the different cuts of meat. The ribeye i was warned by 3 different tables to not order it and to change my order because 3 people say it’s disgusting. I didn’t order the ribeye that night I ordered the medallion steak which was tough and hard to cut. But I thought to myself i need to try it. 4 days later I did and it was extremely fatty and over cooked and was ice cold. In the middle of our 10 day stay I got up at 1am to use the toilet to find my toilet filled right to the top with poopy water. When I tried to flush it was clearly backed up. Me and the wife did not plug the toilet. I called the maintenance to come fix it and was told there is a block at the hotel and people are having toilets and showers back up. 2 days later maintenance staff was outside at 2:30pm setting up equipment to suck out the sewer sump. 2:30 pm when all the pool activities are being played and right between the 2 pools this is where the crew was working and the 29° heat and the smell was amazing. Why a hotel can’t do this type of maintenance items in the night or at 8 pm when all the pools and bars close. Why they can’t repair pool tiles at night instead of 1 hr before the pool opens at 9am. My trip this yr was 6500 plus my royal and last yr was 5500. In 1 yr I have spent 13,000 Canadian to stay at the resort for 17 days. I did sit down with the manager of the hotel and said the food service manager hasn’t said anything about the steak quality and he wasn’t aware of any issues. The Hottub he said it was private maintenance company that cleans pool and he needs to look into it. 3 days later Hottub was still nasty. He did offer us a royal level upgrade next time we come. But after this time with the royal upgrade his hotel isn’t what it use to be. They need to shut the hotel down for 4-6 months for renovations. This hotel use to be 5⭐️ but it’s not anymore. The hard rock hotel resort right next door is closing its doors on July 2026 and opening again in dec 2026 cause there doing Reno’s to the entire resort. Once their renovations are completed I’m sure they will be a 5 star resort and the Occidental will show the wear of their resort even more and be a 1 star.

We have been off and on since 1994, we have another trip booked for March, this by far is our favorite resort