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Forums Other Destination advice Trip Report – Dublin, Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta

  • NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    Morning @Gordon. Yes I tried scuba once but I also feel a bit claustrophobic underwater plus it’s time-consuming – lots of equipment care required which I can’t be bothered with on holiday!

    My list was just of people likely to be deliberately targeted by the bad guys – of course anyone can be inadvertently caught up and a fair few Mexicans suffer because of this. But this can happen anywhere – and I would think it’s probably as likely in the US and Caribbean islands as in the tourist areas of Mexico.

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    Last day soaking up the sun in PV. We’ve done quite a bit of that! We went into PV proper yesterday afternoon – it was so built up it was impossible to appreciate the Sierra Madre backdrop. It reminded me of Playa de Las Américas in Tenerife, with lots of tat shops and dodgy blokes trying to see you drugs every few yards 🤦🏻‍♀️😂. The bit where it’s divided by the Cuale river was quite nice to sit and watch the pelicans, herons, cormorants and other birds for a while.

    In the morning we did the whale-watching trip, again with Vallarta Adventures, who also collect scientific data on the excursions. This was amazing; although it’s only the beginning of the humpback season we saw them continually, breaching and feeding on sardines and occasionally squabbling and showing off! The company lays on a nice breakfast buffet and open bar so it was also excellent value (can’t remember the exact price but they have regular offers on their website). I would come back here just to do that again.

    We’re flying back to CDMX tonight on AM, can’t do OLCI so hoping there aren’t any issues when we get to the airport!

    CJD 188 posts

    What was your itinerary getting back from Puerto Vallarta to London? Did you overnight in CDMX on the way back?

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    @CJD, I still need to write up the last couple of days of the trip but I’m currently trying to do all the Xmas prep and minister to OH who now has man flu!
    But briefly, we did AM again PVR-MEX, then 2 days back in CDMX (you must have missed me moaning about the Hilton MEX airport in the daily chat, lol), then MEX-LHR-MAN overnight last Sunday which was pretty brutal, even in J! Going forward I’ll be doing everything I can to avoid night flights …

    I am missing having sunshine and an egg chef to prepare my breakfast.

    CJD 188 posts

    What was so bad about flying at night?

    One of Iberia’s flights leaves MEX around lunchtime (think it’s between 1 and 2pm) which I would have thought would be the flight to avoid, because it arrives in Madrid at 6am local time, which is about 11pm the night before Mexican (and therefore body clock) time, which I would have thought would be the flight to avoid.

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    Really poor sleep then a hideous connection to MAN involving huge queues and a delay, plus having to transit C to A, then back to B. Having flown back from BOS on the day flight a couple of years ago, I can confirm it’s an infinitely better option!

    JDB 6,255 posts

    The huge queues for MAN connection and transit C > A > B aren’t a function of an overnight flight; both could apply to connecting flights at any time of day. A good walk between the satellites after being on a long flight is probably beneficial to one’s health and maybe better than a bus gate for either of both flights. That just leaves the sleep issue. The day flights from the US depart early so and kill a whole day, so even if one has time on ones hands, that’s a day lost at the destination or an extra night of hotel, possibly arriving the night before so adding another day of transit. Not all roses or an infinitely better option for everyone!

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    I didn’t say any of that, @JDB, I was just stating that it all made for an exhausting journey home! The day after the overnight flight was lost anyway as we didn’t get home until after 6pm, so may as well have been spent flying and feeling slightly more human.

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    We do a similar journey home from GCM each year but this felt much more gruelling! We’ll see how it feels in March which may not be as chaotic as mid-December. Just our personal experience, of course, which will inform travel planning going forward.

    Michael C 887 posts

    Have to say I’m with @NorthernLass on this one: daytime flights
    from the East Coast all the way – at least you can watch a couple
    of series instead of pretending to sleep!
    Likewise the daytime flights departing BKK for LHR around 1100-1200h: perfect!

    captaindave 151 posts

    Really enjoyed reading this trip report ( and the many excellent contributions to it)
    Kudos to you all.

    Now I have pretty much total flexibility time-wise ( but not budget-wise, sadly ) this should inspire me to do something similar…

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    Thanks, @captaindave, I’ll get the last 2 days written up today.

    Cost-wise though, it wasn’t an expensive trip as the travel was mainly booked with points and Mexico is very reasonable once you’re there.

    MAN-DUB = around £90 pp
    DUB-LHR-MEX in F = 94k avios plus £483
    MEX-LHR-MAN in CW = 100k avios plus £450

    2 nights at CP DUB with lounge access = 55k IHG points

    1 night at the HIEX T4 = £78.

    5 nights at the Hilton Mexico Reforma (with breakfast as gold) = 160k HH points

    MEX-PVR-MEX in J = 55k Virgin points plus a very small amount of cash.

    11 nights at Club Regina in PV = around £800 in timeshare fees.

    2 nights at the Hilton Mexico City airport with breakfast = £340.

    Organised tours to Teotihuacán, whale watching and scuba/snorkelling trips = around £500

    We ate either lunch or dinner out most days; you don’t have to spend a lot to eat well.

    Metro journeys = 6 pesos each! Uber is also cheap (use them and not the “authorised” airport taxis who quoted us nearly 10 times as much!), though traffic in CDMX is so bad it can be quicker to take the metro. The journey from the airport to the Historic Zone was around £6 – £10 depending on how busy it was. We also used Ubers around PV which were very cheap.

    Museum entry is cheap, e.g. the incredible Anthropology Museum was 90 pesos (£3.50) each, and there are plenty of things you can see for free, e.g. the Metropolitan Cathedral and other churches.

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    We flew back to CDMX for 2 days as there were other things I wanted to see and I like to give myself a nice buffer zone between flights on separate PNRs. For convenience we stayed at the Hilton MEX in Terminal 1 which was incredibly convenient for our flight home, though require talking a taxi from T2 on arrival. Despite some poor reviews, it’s not actually a bad hotel. We had a problem on the first night in that the bed was tiny and definitely not the one we’d booked, but they moved us to a King “executive” room the next day so we had a decent sleep on our last night.

    We spent one day back in the Historic Zone – we were fascinated to read that Hernán Cortés was actually buried in CDMX and you can just wander into the church and view the plaque behind which his remains are apparently bricked up! You can read the story of the journeying of his corpse online if you’re interested.

    We also had a wander around the Museo de Ciudad de México, which had a few interesting exhibits plus modern Mexican art, but I wouldn’t say it’s a must-do.
    Then some final Christmas shopping. The city was very, very busy, I would definitely advise avoiding trying to sight-see on a Saturday close to Christmas!

    On our last day I dragged OH off to the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe – I love historical oddities and this was definitely on my bucket list! (My doctoral thesis was also partly on the psychology of phenomena such as religious apparitions, so I try to visit any relevant sites when we travel anywhere) If you’re Catholic, unlike me, this is one of the holiest places you can visit, and indeed we had just missed the anniversary of the apparition, which saw over 8 million visitors! It was still very busy, however the atmosphere was very peaceful and good-natured; many Mexican families had clearly come for the day with their picnics 😀

    It’s just to the north of the city centre and fairly easy to access on the metro or by Uber. It felt much more organic than, say, Vatican City; most of the pilgrims were clearly ordinary Mexicans (or from other parts of Latin America) rather than arriving on cruises or organised tours.

    The famous tilma, on which the image of the Virgin Mary supposedly miraculously appeared, is displayed high up on a wall in the new basilica (the old one is sinking, which you can clearly discern when you go inside!) and you join a queue to get onto one of 3 travellators which take viewers past and ingeniously keep the flow of visitors moving. We joked that it was a better set up than the travellators at MAN!

    It’s all free to get in, except for the museum, which is definitely worth the 10 peso entrance fee and contains many related art works from the past four centuries. (Oh, and the loos, which looked like a prison, complete with many bars, and required a 5 peso coin, lol. OH got a picture of me emerging from “my Mexican jail hell”, as the tabloids would probably put it😂)

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    Final thoughts and top tips.

    I would absolutely love to go back and see more of CDMX and other archaeological sites (there are nearly 200 in Mexico!), however I’m not sure OH would be persuaded.

    If you’re of a nervous disposition, Mexico may not be for you. There was appalling violence reported daily, though we never saw any trouble and found everyone we encountered friendly and helpful. It was quite surreal to think of millions of ordinary working people going about their everyday lives side by side with daily murders and kidnappings. The authorities are taking some impressive and innovative steps to prevent crime – for example there are separate spaces for women and children at stations and on the metro, and poster campaigns on public transport and in public and hotel bathrooms with helplines for victims of domestic abuse and human trafficking. Police and security staff were to be seem in huge numbers, on every street corner in CDMX (though OH pointed out that they seemed to spend most of their time looking at their mobiles) They are armed to the teeth – we even saw security guards in shops toting machine guns!

    Public transport – very cheap and efficient and we used it quite a bit, during the day time anyway. You need to buy a travel card in one of the stations and load it with some pesos then you can use it on the metro, the buses, and the cable car system (which sadly we didn’t get to try). Each journey is 6/7 pesos, so it’s a very cost-effective option. Services are frequent and reliable. though as you’d expect it gets busy at times. There were always police officers and cleaners in the stations so they are a relatively safe and pleasant experience!

    Ubers are cheap (avoid the “authorised taxis” at CDMX as they quoted us 10 x the Uber price!). On arrival at CDMX T1, go to gate 7 and order an Uber from the app as normal, it will pick you up at the kerbside.

    MEX is modern and clean, with plenty of food options and shops (including mini markets where you can buy very reasonably priced things like bottles of water, coffee and sandwiches). We had some very tasty tacos al pastor before security on the way home as we’d been warned about the poor lounge offering. The AA lounge which is apparently for OW pax had decent drinks and limited hot and cold food. The barman will make you a cocktail if you fancy a final margarita before departure.

    We ate in a few informal places and also at El Cardenal, a family-owned restaurant with a few outlets in CDMX. We weren’t very adventurous or sophisticated, I’m afraid, as we love tacos, burritos and that kind of thing and happily ate different varieties of them on numerous occasions! Street food is ubiquitous in CDMX and the pavements are crowded with vendors and local customers. If you want to try it, you can find plenty of vendors cooking it in front of you on hotel-style hot skillets, which is quite reassuring.

    The tap water is reportedly not drinkable so we didn’t risk it – bottled water is cheap and in the 2 Hiltons we stayed in, we were given 2 smalls bottles each day. For further supplies we bought it cheaply in the supermarkets like Oxxo which are on every corner. When we were in PV with a full kitchen, I boiled and chilled water to drink so we weren’t using too much plastic (we also bought one of those gallon bottles and decanted it into smaller, reusable ones).

    Apart from the bottled water, Mexico is quite far ahead environmentally of the USA and some Caribbean islands. Straws are banned and drinks in resorts are supplied in reusable plastic cups.

    Puerto Vallarta was clearly once quite beautiful, with the Sierra Madre backdrop, but feels a bit like Playa de las Americas now! We stayed between the beach and the Marina and only went into the town proper once, where we were approached on every corner by people pushing bars, restaurants, beach loungers and far less legal things! There’s a quite pleasant area by the Cuale river where you can spot pelicans, herons and other attractive birds, but there wasn’t much else which was appealing.

    prices are also a fair bit lower than in the US and Caribbean – happy hour cocktails at our resort were the equivalent of £3 and there was a cabana next to the beach staffed by numerous therapists who would provide an hour-long massage or facial treatment for about £35.

    What was definitely worth going for was the ocean life – December to March is whale watching season, and on the 2 boat trips we took we saw orcas, humpback whales, dolphins, a large sea turtle and a shark right up next to the boat. We used Vallarta Adventures which is slick, well-established operation mainly aimed at cruise passengers, but we were impressed; there was no over-crowding on the boats and each excursion includes food and drink – including a full buffet breakfast onboard on the whale-watching trip, and lunch at a beach restaurant on the Marietas Islands trip (which wasn’t specifically a whale-watching trip, but during which we were surrounded by a pod of orcas for several minutes). All in all, much better value than equivalent excursions we’ve done in the Caribbean.

    OH did 2 separate dive trips and said marine life was plentiful, but visibility was quite poor. owever, I think the opportunity to get his SLR out to photograph the humpback whales made up for this!

    I would definitely recommend the Hilton Reforma in CDMX if you want to keep costs down – at 160k HH points for 5 nights it felt like a real bargain. The rooms were a bit dated, however we had a splendid view of the smoking Popocatpetl volcano first thing in the morning before the smog descended over the city. There was a pleasant outdoor area with a small swimming pool, and several restaurants, including branches of El Cardenal, and Sonora, an upmarket-ish steak house. Breakfast was very good – there was a large selection of hot and cold buffet items (including delicious cut melon and papaya) and the chef would make whatever variety of eggs or omelette you wanted, along with tacos and other Mexican specialities. There was an indoor pool and spa but we didn’t use these.

    All in all we had a fantastic time and ticked off many bucket-list items. Feel free to ask more questions as I’ve definitely not covered everything!

    captaindave 151 posts

    @NorthernLass – thank you for taking the time to break down the pricing, appreciated.

    CJD 188 posts

    Agreed, I’m looking to book Mexico City and Zihuatanejo in February 2026 for our honeymoon, so the Mexico City tips have been much appreciated.

    I love street food and recently watched 2 episodes of a Spanish language show on Netflix which was all about tacos, so I can’t wait to go to Mexico City 😂

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    We brought back all manner of sauces, for us as well as stocking fillers! Also packets of dried chillies of which you can find numerous varieties in the supermarkets (Soriana had a good selection).


    @CJD
    , can’t recall now if you were in on the discussion on FCDO travel advice, but just be aware they currently advise against all but air travel into Zihuatanejo. Road travel may well be absolutely fine (the Mexican diver we were chatting to drives between Guadalajara and PV regularly, which is another FCDO no-no), but you could end up invalidating your travel insurance.

    Chas 152 posts

    Thanks @NorthernLass for all the details contained in your posts – all very informative.

    Who did you use for your tour to Teotihuacan? We’re going in just under 6 weeks, and I’ve left it quite late to book all of our activities – that’s something I need to rectify in the next few days… Will probably go via Viator like you did, and my original research several months ago showed a plethora of similar looking excursions. We’re more than likely to book a sunrise balloon trip followed by a (guided) tour, preferably a small group or maybe private.

    After a few days in CDMX (similarly in the Centro Historico district, but in a different hotel to you), we are then going to Oaxaca for a few days, then on to Zihuatanejo for some R&R, before returning to CDMX (this time in the Polanco district) for an overnight ahead of our flights back.

    Other things I’m likely to book are a food tour in Oaxaca (looking at With Locals whom we used for something similar in Vietnam previously) and a Mescal tasting “tour / education event”, although not sure where yet. Whilst we will obviously visit some of the historic buildings, we’re not typically “culture” people, and won’t overdo it on the museums / galleries / arts scene – we much prefer to experience the outdoors / scenery, people, atmosphere and food. Any top tips along those lines that you haven’t already mentioned? We’re certainly looking forward to booking a whale watching trip whilst in Zihuatanejo, and will look at Vallerta tours if they’re not too local to where you stayed.

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    We booked the Teotihuacan trip through Viator, the local tour company was Paseos Olmedo. All the tours seem to meet at the Palacio de Bellas Artes and were much of a muchness. We saw the balloons overhead as we arrived at the site, they looked pretty spectacular.

    I can’t help with Oaxaca, plus I think Vallarta Adventures is just local to Puerto & Nuevo Vallarta – they may be able to recommend similar companies in other areas though. They were fairly responsive via their website and social media.

    Have you seen the FCDO advice about not travelling to Zihuatanejo by land – are you planning to fly in?

    @JDB
    may well have some suggestions re tour operators there.

    Polanco is quite a hike from the airport if you’re only going back for one night. We found it much easier to stay at the airport and use the metro into the city than moving our luggage backwards and forwards again.

    Chas 152 posts

    Thanks NL – will look out for that tour operator when I research the Teotihuacan tours later. Yes, I’ve seen the FCDO advice – we’re flying into Zihuatenejo from Oaxaca (via Mex), so no issues on that front.

    Re Polanco – Apple Maps tells me that the airport to there is c1 hour travel irrespective of whether by taxi or metro. We won’t have explored that area at the start of our holiday, so staying there made sense and with luck will help it feel like still part of the holiday rather than hanging around close to the airport which might be more akin to waiting to fly home. We’ll arrive there around lunchtime, and don’t fly out until 21:00 the next day, so with a 4pm checkout that will hopefully make for a reasonably full day and a relaxed taxi journey back to the airport 🤞.

    CJD 188 posts

    Thanks @NorthernLass for all the details contained in your posts – all very informative.

    Who did you use for your tour to Teotihuacan? We’re going in just under 6 weeks, and I’ve left it quite late to book all of our activities – that’s something I need to rectify in the next few days… Will probably go via Viator like you did, and my original research several months ago showed a plethora of similar looking excursions. We’re more than likely to book a sunrise balloon trip followed by a (guided) tour, preferably a small group or maybe private.

    After a few days in CDMX (similarly in the Centro Historico district, but in a different hotel to you), we are then going to Oaxaca for a few days, then on to Zihuatanejo for some R&R, before returning to CDMX (this time in the Polanco district) for an overnight ahead of our flights back.

    Other things I’m likely to book are a food tour in Oaxaca (looking at With Locals whom we used for something similar in Vietnam previously) and a Mescal tasting “tour / education event”, although not sure where yet. [B]Whilst we will obviously visit some of the historic buildings, we’re not typically “culture” people, and won’t overdo it on the museums / galleries / arts scene – we much prefer to experience the outdoors / scenery, people, atmosphere and food.[/B] Any top tips along those lines that you haven’t already mentioned? We’re certainly looking forward to booking a whale watching trip whilst in Zihuatanejo, and will look at Vallerta tours if they’re not too local to where you stayed.

    I’d be very interested in a write up of your trip as the bolded part applies to us.

    Chas 152 posts

    @CJD – will do so on our return towards the end of Feb. Do you have a trip booked yet, or are you still in the planning stage?

    JDB 6,255 posts

    @Chas – in Zihua we have used a guy called Abraham – on WhatsApp +52 755 136 5246 for whale watching, snorkelling and above all trips on the lagoon at Barra de Potosí where he is based at the La Gaviota restaurant one of the very local ‘enramadas’. He speaks little English and doesn’t have a fancy boat, but we like him. Most hotels will have a friendly fishing boat owner to take you out on trips from the main port in Zihua. We have also used the two Playa Blanca taxis Guillermo and Gilberto as guides to go the Xihuacan archaeological site when we didn’t have a car.

    NorthernLass 10,518 posts

    I will look up Abraham if we ever get to Zihua. We only used Vallarta Adventures because we could book the whale watching, Marietas Islands and OH’s scuba trips all through them which made things less complicated.

    CJD 188 posts

    @CJD – will do so on our return towards the end of Feb. Do you have a trip booked yet, or are you still in the planning stage?

    Just the planning stage. Will be using a 2-4-1 on IB from MAD to MEX, will be doing an overnight in Madrid first to position and then 4-5 nights in CDMX. Plan is then fly to Zihua for a week.

    Big question is the coming home itinerary. I think there’s a ZIH-MEX flight around 1pm or so, which would involve sitting around the airport for 6 hours or so in advance of an overnight flight. We’d then get to Madrid at 1pm the next day and need 2 flights home to Glasgow.

    It feels like that needs broken up a bit.

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