Before all of the craziness of 2020, I had the opportunity to visit the Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta; a 4.5 star all-inclusive resort located on Mexico’s Banderas Bay. I spent 3 wonderful nights at this luxury resort.
It was amazing right from the moment we pulled up. When you first go up the steps after getting out of the car, you walk into an open-air Aztec style lobby with a beautiful view of the ocean. We were there December 18-21st so the lobby was decorated for the holidays, with a large Christmas tree right in the center.
A bell hop came right away to help us with our bags, even though we were only travelling carry-on. And while we were walking to the front desk, we were welcomed with cold towels and a delicious pink lemonade cocktail. The woman at the front desk was very friendly and greeted us by saying “welcome home” which I loved!
The lobby is on the second floor in the main building, where they also have a newly opened sports bar, a boutique, and a coffee shop that was under construction during our stay.
The first floor is home to the main buffet and one of the a la carte restaurants, and the third floor is where the fitness centre and spa can be found.
The Hyatt Ziva’s are family-friendly resorts but it was still a fairly quiet and relaxing property. If you are looking for something adults only, check out the Hyatt Zilara resorts!
Beach
The beach was one of my favourite parts of the resort. The resort sits on Playa Las Estacas, a private beach for the guests of the Hyatt Ziva only. There are cliffs on both sides of the beach, so it’s physically impossible to get onto the beach without going through the resort. Access is controlled by the hotel and you have to check in with a guard (who has a list of hotel guests) to get through the gates.
It really makes a difference to not have to worry about the beach being overcrowded. No running down at sunrise to reserve a chair for the day. There were plenty of beach chairs and palapas to go around!
Dinning
The Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta has 5 restaurants in total; the main buffet and 4 a la carte restaurants, none of which require reservations. They also have snack carts with things like tacos and fruits that they’ll bring out throughout the day, and a 24 hour deli but it was closed during my say.
One thing to keep in mind is that all of the restaurants including the buffet and sports bar close by 11pm. So if you want a late night bite, you’re going to have to order room service (unless the deli has reopened by then).
Restaurants at a Glance
VivaZ Buffet
- Breakfast: 7:00A.M. – 12:00P.M.
- Lunch: 1:00P.M. – 4:00 P.M.
- Dinner: 6:30P.M. – 10:30P.M.
- Location: ground floor
- Dress code: resort casual
Blaze
- Brazilian Rodizo style grill- mostly steaks, pork and seafood.
- Breakfast: 7:00A.M. – 11:00A.M.
- Lunch: 12:00A.M. – 4:00P.M.
- Dinner: 6:00P.M. – 11:00P.M.
- Location: South side of the beach
- Dress code: resort casual
Pureza
- Southern Asian fusion
- Dinner: 5:00P.M. – 11:00P.M.
- Location: North side of beach
- Dress code: smart casual
Melanzane
- Italian
- Lunch(outdoors): 12:00P.M. – 5:00P.M.
- Dinner(indoors): 6:00P.M. – 11:00P.M.
- Location: ground floor
- Dress code: smart casual
Casa Grande
- Authentic Mexican
- Dinner: 5:00P.M. – 11:00P.M.
- Location: ground floor
- Dress code: smart casual
I planned on trying each of the restaurants at least once; unfortunately Casa Grande was closed on the night that we tried to go. I learnt after returning home that one restaurant is closed every day so you have to plan accordingly.
On our first night, we swam in the pool and took sunset photos, then made our way over to Blaze for dinner. Situated on the south end of the beach, Blaze offers beautiful views of the ocean. They had a salad bar and a grill, there were also servers taking orders and bringing samples around on skewers.
We both opted on the salad bar and ordered the salmon for our main courses. It came with roasted veggies and potatoes. I also had quite a few prawns.
Our first morning waking up at the resort we decided to order room service, seeing as we were still pretty tired from travelling the day before. Well let me tell you, the Hyatt Ziva has a kick ass room service menu.
I ended up ordering the Mexican eggs- which were to die for. Along with a fruit plate, some toast and orange juice.
The orange juice is freshly squeezed right at the resort, and was perfect every time.
On the second night, after way too many games of flip cup in the pool with a group of Americans, we ended up going to Pureza for dinner. Puerza is the Southern Asian fusion restaurant on the north end of the beach; it sits right beside the kids club and turtle nesting area.
They had some of the most popular Asian soups as starters: Tom Kah, Tom Yum and Miso. I ordered the Tom Kah which is one of my favourite Thai dishes; it ended up being a lot tastier than I expected it to be.
There were three of us girls having dinner together, so for the second course we decided to order one of each sushi roll and share them.
For the main course, I got the Salmon Teriyaki which came with roasted veggies and jasmine rice. It was good, not as good as the salmon I’d had at Blaze the night before, but it was tasty and flavourful. SO many people around the resort recommended trying the pad Thai and I really wish I would have!
On our last full day at the resort, they actually had a group go deep sea fishing in the morning and had a fish fry on the beach for lunch.
Later that night we wanted to check out Casa Grande for dinner, but when we got there it ended up being closed so we decided to try Melanzane instead.
I had the minestrone soup to start, and the grilled mahi mahi with a lemon toasted almond sauce, broccoli and mashed potatoes. I ended up having fish for almost every meal on this trip; being landlocked in Winnipeg means there aren’t many options for good seafood!
Pools
This resort has 7 different pools, 5 of which are oceanfront infinity pools and 2 “kids pools”.
There’s the main pool pictured below, which was usually filled with families playing games. Then there’s the swim-up bar pool, to the right of the photo. An adults-only pool on the south end of the beach near the Tortuga bar along with a hot tub, and another family-friendly pool hidden behind trees near the main tower.
We spent the majority of our time in the swim-up bar pool (of course). Can’t beat the easy access to drinks!
Rooms
The resort was actually built in 1969, but you would never be able to tell. Hyatt took over the property back in 2014 and put $20 million USD into renovations. The modern resort is very open, light and airy.
There are 2 separate buildings with rooms and suites: the main tower and the club tower. We stayed in the main tower in an Ocean View King room.
The rooms were perfect. Every room at this resort faces the ocean, so you really can’t go wrong. It just depends if you mind whether the view is obstructed by palm trees or not. In my opinion, the palm trees made the view even prettier!
The rooms are bright, airy and very spacious. There was a seating area with a pullout couch, a coffee table and a chair. All rooms also have a mini fridge which is restocked daily with beer, soft drinks, juice, water and snacks!
If you’re staying in the main tower, most of the rooms have French style balconies. This means there isn’t actually a balcony space; the sliding doors opened up to a railing. Some of the higher room categories in the main tower have balconies, and all of the rooms in the club tower do (apart from the swim-up rooms). The club tower also has much more spacious rooms.
One thing I really liked when booking the resort was that the room categories specified whether you would have two double beds or one king. With many resorts, rooms are assigned at time of check-in so you’re never guaranteed specific bedding, which can definitely put some people off.
The two double beds ended up being sold out already for the room category that I wanted to go with, but I was travelling with my best friend and we’ve shared beds countless times before so we went with the king anyways.
Activities
This resort has a wide variety of activities for guests; they actually have an app that you can download to keep track of what’s going on at different times of the day. They do morning yoga, aerobics, games on the beach, and even jungle walking tours. There are kayaks on the beach for guests to use and they even do free Kayaking tours! Unfortunately, the waves were a bit too big for kayaking while we were there.
Parasailing, banana boat rides and jet skis are also available if you’re willing to pay the extra money.
Sea Turtle Release Program
The main highlight of the resort for me was the Sea Turtle Release Program.
A zoologist names Miguel stays at the resort and looks after the turtles. Sea turtles will come up onto the beach in the middle of the night to lay their eggs. In the morning, Miguel carefully digs them up and re-buries them in the turtle nursery on the north side of the beach near the kids club.
The eggs take roughly 45 days to hatch. The baby turtles can then take up to 14 hours to get from the egg to the surface of the sand. They are released the same night at sunset to give the baby turtles their very best chance to make it into the sea without being noticed by predators.
One of my coworkers stayed at this resort a few years before I did and when they were releasing the turtles a seagull actually swooped down and grabbed one…
I think I would cry…
Location
Lastly, the location of the Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta is definitely one of the best parts. It’s in zone 2, the southern zone of Puerto Vallarta. It took roughly 35 minutes to get from the airport to the resort by Taxi in moderate traffic- not bad at all.
The resort is a quick 5-10 drive to downtown Puerto Vallarta and it only cost about 100MXN (about $6 Canadian). This is where you’ll find the old town/zona romantica, the famous Malecon boardwalk, the flea market, and the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Would I go back?
Absolutely. I loved the Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta.
Overall, this is the nicest resort that I’ve stayed at so far. I will definitely be back someday!
