Our stay was 6/25 - 7/2/2008. We are a family of four, two girls 4 and 10. We booked a last minute deal through Funjet.com. Our package included charter air (direct flight), hotel and transfers. Our entire vacation price was very reasonable. I suggest booking through a company like Funjet. You will get a good price, and they help you avoid the local sales people that take advantage of tourists. A Funjet representative was at the airport to greet you, and have a representative on site at your hotel daily to assist you with any questions. They also got you to back to the airport for your return flight seamlessly. I defiantly recommend the Marival if you get a great price. The more money you save on a single vacation leaves extra money to plan another one later. If you can be flexible and not get upset at some minor annoyances, you will find the Marvial to be a great value.

Airport:
Yes, after you get your luggage there are a group of professional con artists. These folks look and act professional and do a great job convincing people to hop into a van with them. The purpose is so they can force you to tour one of their timeshare properties. DO NOT STOP. Continue through that hall way, and kindly ignore these people. Look for your transportation (someone holding a sign) or go outdoors to get a cab.

Check in:
We were very impressed with the lobby and could not wait to get started. Check in is not until 3pm. If you get there early you are guaranteed to wait in the check in line twice. Once to get your bracelet for the all inclusive, and a second time to get your room key. Once you go through the line the first time, they ring a bell and a 'hotel rep' with a clip board takes you aside to talk to you about timeshare or vacation clubs. Don't let this scare you. Let them know upfront you are absolutely not interested and they will quickly wrap up your talk with helpful information about their facilities. After our visit, I wondered if I shouldn't have said I am not to prepared to discuss vacation clubs or timeshares on my first day, but to catch me on the last day of my visit. That might incent them to step up their customer service for your stay.

Customer Service/Staff:
I read ahead of time that you need to rent a lock ($2 per day) for your safe. I asked for it both times I went through the Check in line. I was told the second time to ask the bell boy. The bell boy directed me back to the front desk. That was irritating. Our overall rating of staff/customer interaction is slightly below average. The staff is not the friendliest. They were pleasant, but not helpful or outgoing. I brought with me cash for tips. I like to tip for a great service from the bar, entertainment and wait staff. I brought a lot of money back home with me. The entire staff did not seem to be motivated by the company they work for or by my tip money. That surprised me.

Food:
Breakfast at the buffet was excellent. Get there before 9:30 or there is a line. Grab a table outside. The air flow is not great inside. Lunch/dinner at the buffet was yucky.

Go to the following link to make reservations for dinner. Print your emails and bring with you. Visit the reservation desk in the small lobby right after you check in to confirm your reservations.

http://www.gomarival.com/restaurants-bars/reserve/

Las Palomas – This is a Mexican specialty restaurant, but during our stay, it was Texas Week, so the food was 'Texas Food.' We enjoyed the 'Texas Food'. The margaritas were excellent!! I can't report how the Mexican food is here. You need a reservation.

Bellavista – We thoroughly enjoyed the Italian food here. Never skip the salads. The salads & house red wine were great. The service was top notch as well. Stick with the pastas. The meat was tough. You need a reservation.

LaPergola - Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You need a reservation for dinner. Only come here for breakfast if you want to sit in the a/c. The service in the AM is slow. We ate here for dinner twice. Salads were great. Food was okay.

Outdoor snack shops with burgers, hot dogs, nachos and fries were okay for lunch. The pool bars could not keep up with the traffic at times, but the drinks tasted great. (Ask for premium liquor by name and make it a double) Kids will want to ask for the "Mickey Mouse" or "Pink Panther" drinks.

M&M bar is located on floor 16 along with Bellavista. Yum!!!! They have a piano player at dinner, very nice.

Rooms:
We liked our room for the most part. We were on the 19th floor of the Grand area. It was very clean, even though we never saw our maid. Our beds were awful, ran out of hot water when we all took showers, but our a/c was nice and cold.

Nightlife:
We had our kids with us. We didn't use kids club. We would go to the theater at 8 - 8:30pm and the kid’s club staff would bring the kids up on stage for a game, which they enjoyed a lot. The theater was hot!!!! We found an area in the back by the fans that we could tolerate. The kids could not stay awake to watch the shows that started at 9:30pm so I can not comment on the shows or disco. If you want a drink bring it with you. The small bar in the back can not meet the demand of an entire theater.

Pools/Beach:
This was my favorite part. Kids had a great time in the 3 kid pools. One had slides. There was a lot of shade at the beach. This was a great beach to sit and relax. The water is not the same as Cancun area, but the kids did not notice that a bit. Fun waves to ride boogie boards. (Provided) The Marvial was big and we could change beach/pool locations each day and never got bored.

Shopping:
A lot of peddlers on the beach. Don't pay more than $10 usd for a sequin dress for kids OR $15 usd for ladies. Don't pay more than $20 for a full head of braids for your kids.

Wal-mart/Sealife Waterpark/Downtown:
I felt very safe on site at the resort. We took a cab to the Sealife Waterpark. The water park was a dump. It did not look that way on their website. We left immediately, because we would have rather been back at the Marvial. We considered going to Wal-mart because we ran out of sunscreen. We decided not to, because we didn't feel comfortable in the cab ride to and from the water park. We have been to Cancun 11 times, and never felt that way over there. We wanted to go downtown, but decided not to due to $18 cab ride each way. The bus would have cost $20 round trip for our family of four.

We booked this as a late deal (£720 all inc).
Firstly, the airport was hassle free for us. From plane to transfer bus must have taken no longer than half an hour which is a bonus. The airport has recently been done up - its a very clean and nice space.
The weather was amazing the first week with a nice breeze, however the second week was cloudy with regular downpours.
The rooms were in need of a revamp in my opinion, these rooms did not represent the 4 star rating. Everything was really basic. A hairdryer and mini bar are in the room - the mini bar is filled up everyday, however, regardless of whether or not you have a "do not disturb sign" up they will still knock and enter your room. One thing I will say is that the rooms are clean - I couldnt fault that.
We ordered room service on out 7th night (extra charge of $5)and this resulted in food poisoning - it cost $50 for the doctor to come out and then an additional cost for medication etc. I obviously wouldnt recommend room service!
The club is just "Ok". The Italian restaurant is the best. Med restaurant comes a close second. I would say steer clear of the buffet restaurant "Casa Bella" - it seemed to be the same thing every night! (even when there was meant to be themed nights).
All in all, apart from the food poisoning, we had a great holiday and met some great people.

I use Trip Advisor a lot; we love to hear what others have to say about destinations we choose for our family vacations. Some have been on the money, others have been a little off but overall, they have helped us to see what we have to look out for or forward to.

We just returned from our trip tonight and I wanted to write this now, before I forgot anything . . . . This is a long one but I don't want to leave anything out, so if you don't want to hear about our week long stay, move on to the next review.

From the time we got off the plane, we were bombarded with timeshare pleas and pushes. I had remembered this from our last stay in Mexico and politely said "no thank you" but of course that wasn't enough. I had to be a little rude and actually walk away from the person in mid sentence. Once we found our transportation to the resort, it started to get a little better, but wouldn't you know it, upon checking in we discovered that the ocean view 1 bedroom suite we requested was not available and after checking to see if there were any 2 bedrooms available we were given building #9 (with a view of the put-put golf course and children’s club). I was alright with that after such a long flight, all I wanted to do was get my suit on and get to the pool, but then we were assigned a person that was going to tell us a little bout the resort and how to get around, make dinner reservations, where to find the desk for excursions, etc., we were again bombarded with the talk for time shares and how we could have a free something if we gave them 90 mins of our vacations time. I politely agreed thinking we could do the jungle tour for free and still do a few more later in the week, at our own expense. We sat for the timeshare talk and before anything was said I told the guy that I had sat thru one before but didn't appreciate being pushed or pressured, he agreed and said this was not going to go like that . . . He lied! We were almost done until his boss decided to join and almost go over the whole thing again, when I told him this all sounded good but that we weren't interested but would think about it for sometime in the future (as my husband and I have talked about getting a place) he wouldn't talk no for an answer. I finally had to get up and walk out, leaving my husband to explain my dislike for being pressured into spending our money and time. Our 19 and 6 year old kids were waiting in the room to begin their vacation, and their parents were spending it having their arms twisted. After that unpleasant 2 hour battle, we finally began our vacation. Back at our room, I found that sitting on our balcony wasn’t going to be the pleasant experience I envisioned, as there was a nest of birds who took offense to me sitting there and chose to dive bomb us until we went inside. After calling the front desk to complain, they sent someone to take care of it. I felt a little bad, because they had to knock it down – but hey, I paid good money to have a balcony I could use so I got over my guilt. Of course the birds wouldn’t let me forgot because for the next two days, they acted like the nest was still there and terrorized us by making fly bys at us. They finally got tired and left us alone.
THE POOLS - the activity pool left a lot to be desired, it needs to be re-tiled and some rule needs to be set about kids hanging at the pool bar - no room for adults to sit, drink and hang out, with all the small kids gathering around and making a mess of the drinks that ordered but didn't drink! Getting a lounge chair was pretty easy, just get up early - around 0830 -0900 and place your towels in the chairs. I would recommend that you bring our own, as if someone takes one of the hotel pool towel, you don't get your pool card back and are charged $25.00 for losing it, which leaves you to think about taking someone else’s and that creates a domino effect (as that happened to my brother in law, whose towel was taken). The other pool was nicer, although there are no activities being done there, it is not as crowed and there are better choices of loungers. There is only drink service at "quiet pool" (the adults only) which is fine, if you don't mind standing in line with many adults and some kids, who don't seem to get the concept of waiting your turn.
THE FOOD - the Bella Vista was the best of all the restaurants, the food is excellent and the atmosphere is wonderful. The M&M bar is there too, and you can get the best martinis and very nice tables for adults to sit and enjoy. I wouldn't recommend the Mediterranean one, as the menu is less to be desired, nothing on the menu was that appetizing and the wait; once you put your order in, took forever. The CasaBella, which is the buffet restaurant and the most popular only because you need no reservation. The food was alright, but the daily menu needs to be rethought. It seemed to have the same thing everyday, even though each night was a different theme. I do know that we weren't in the states and the food is different but at least make it tasty and appealing. The desserts were awful; the cakes were soggy and not very flavorful. It is hotter inside then it was outside, which didn’t help you enjoy the meal and if you ate outside, the flies ruined the meal for you.
ACTIVITIES – The zip line excursion was definitely our favorite. For $75.00 USD, you experienced 10 different lines and the meal (which isn’t included) was great. The guides were fun and friendly and made the whole experience more exciting. My 6 year old was so happy to do them with just a little help from the guides, as they did the line with him and made him feel like a big boy. He had a ball, and we have pictures to prove it (which they take on the first line for $6.00 each or a CD for $25.00 USD).
We spent most of our time by the pool or playing golf (the men) at the nearby Nicklaus course, which they found very challenging. The ladies did the spa thing but we weren’t that excited about it, as the facial consisted of our faces being pushed and probed with the technicians’ fingers and no facial cleanser or mask. We had the herbal mud treatment, which was great but only one shower worked in the whole spa, so we spent some time waiting for the only working one while we waited on the side covered in green mud.

Overall, we wouldn’t go back, it was alright, but we have stayed at better resorts and much more fun. My teenager didn’t find the teen club very interesting and the disco left a lot to be desired by her. Of course my 6 year old was just happy to be in the pool, and abandoned the kids club, as he said it was for babies – I think he was the oldest one there. If you have little ones, then this is the one for you. I can’t see how a group of adults could really enjoy themselves with all the “runaway” kids that made the bars their homes. If I stay in Vallarta again, it will be closer to the city, if at all.

The staff is very nice and is always smiling. Our first impression of the resort entailed hordes of time shares people.Big waste of time and shamefully allowed by management. We did not know and we politely agreed to go to a presentation. Very pushy sale tactics. The hotel does not have AC in common areas like the buffet dining room, hallways and front desk. May be the AC in the buffet is broken, but it was very hot everywhere. The room temp is either too cold or hot and humid as there is not a way to regulate the temp.Several rooms are like this (we had 3 families there). The foods are edible and poor. Processing time takes a long time. They do not allow guests visiting from other facilities into your room. I would not give this resort a 4.5 stars like some did. The most it can earn with us is 2 stars passable performance. The dedication of the staff makes up for the lack of amenities and modern technologies. They have to record and write everything and manual work takes a long time. I have been at other places with better conditions and services. Conclusion, not recommended.