My husband and 7 year old son travel a lot internationally. We are scuba divers and have a place in Cozumel. We probably go out of the country about 3 to 4 times a year. I am very familiar with other cultures definition of clean and am willing to work with it without being rude. I've slept on bad beds and drank bad water. I've eaten strange food all in the name of traveling and experiencing the world. This little trip was our first time to Puerto Vallarta and our last. There were 9 people in our group made up of two kids ages 7 and 9 and seven adults. When we first arrived in the airport, we were bombarded by timeshare people. Tell them that you already own one save your breath and just push on through. After you clear the first room of timeshare people after customs, get ready for the excursion people. We found that we could book stuff cheaper from people at the resort or on the beach. Next was the arrival at the resort. The resort, Crown Paradise, is clean, but for all the people there, it really doesn't matter. There were so many people in every tiny pool on the resort that the people in the pool looked like a bunch of potatoes in a small pot. In the morning, there was a film on top of the main pool because of all the people. So count the pool out as a plus for activities. The buffet is gross. They seemed to have responded to the complaints of breeding bugs and are putting net over the fruit and vegetables, but the rest of the food is really bad and unrecognizable. The soup was the safest bet and it is available at all meals. If you expect to get a drink in a normal 12 oz cup, you better go elsewhere too. Getting more than 2 water bottles will cost you even if there are 3 people in your room. The restaurants are difficult to get into if you do not book right at 9 am - be sure to get in line. There was some difficulty in accommodating a party of nine, so we had to break it up. The Japanese was bad and the Italian was along the lines pretty dang bad. We were not able to go to the French restaurant because we had a 7 year old. Honestly, the best place we ate at and kept going back was in town upstairs in the market. The seafood was very fresh and inexpensive with a great view of the river. Back to the resort, the beds are hard, so be prepared; the beach only has very uncomfortable plastic chairs; and the beach is dirty. I highly recommend that you bring a premade sign that reads "No, Gracias, No." and the other side "No, mas." Stake and rope off your area with the signs and you will be somewhat free of the hundreds of vendors that go up and down the beach selling everything from necklaces to even tube socks. If you make any eye contact with any of the beach vendors they will rush over to sell you something. Since the pools are very full, we were stuck at the beach. the beach is a very large bay next to the marina. If it rains a lot the night before the water will be full of stuff. At 3 am, sewage is dumped into the bay for the city. It is treated but do be aware of this. My son is now on various antibiotics for an ear infection and staph infection. Another member of our group had to go to the hospital to be treated for a staph infection. The hospital in Puerto Vallarta is great if you end up needing their service. They are fast, efficient and very helpful with excellent follow up. They made my doctors at home look bad. Because the pools were so full, we really only felt safe to swim at the beach, but that obviously had its dangers too. As for tipping, everyone wants a tip but it doesn't improve service. Oh, and don't stay in room 455, the air conditioner barely works. When we complained, they told us it was working fine. Don't count on having the same number of towels in your room as when you arrived. The number seems to go down all week. Everyone in our group had this problem. We would get together at dinner and pool towels to make sure everyone had one. The floors are clean and the cleaning staff did a good job cleaning the floors. The resort itself is very clean and a lot of people are constantly working to clean the place. Neither of the kids in our group went to the kids club. They went to the kids pool which looks really fun, but not with hundreds of kids all over it. For safety reasons, we discouraged our son from playing over there. There is no way to keep track of our child with all the kids in that pool. I would even say that in the United States there would be some sort of violation for over capacity.
Good things about the resort: Clean, the people that work there are nice but somewhat ineffective in helping with easily solved problems - like air conditioner or towels, the soup was good, and if they bar-b-que outside by the outside cafe, the barbque is great.
As for Puerto Vallarta, it is a large city of 350,000 people. Everyone has to get their cut of your money. Beware of the Dolphin swim place, they charge $25 a picture and don't let you take your own pictures. in fact, the workers will stand in front of your lense so you can't get the shot. If you want to fish, flag a fishing boat down from the beach - it's much cheaper. Ask how much the cab ride is before you get in the cab, there are not standard cab prices - which is not unusual in Mexico. If they say to ride the horse to the waterfall, by all means ride the dang horse. I like to hike and paid the price - it was a mud slide.
My advice is if you like to experience the culture than stay at a place in town and do not go all inclusive; it is not necessary in such a large community. If you are really wanting to stay at a resort, stay at the Grand Mayan and go all inclusive. Avoid Crown Paradise. I know it is 3 star, but it quickly sliding downhill faster than the group can assess the stars. 3 stars is a compliment.

Travel agent told us it was a 4 star all inclusive resort, it will be great!Boy was she wrong, I should have went with my gut instinct when I first looked at photos of resort on trip advisor,but I did not so heres the run down.
We arrived at resort by bus from airport, forget about curb appeal this resort or should I say hotel was located on a back alley,thought they were going to have to pack us in with donkeys to get to front entrance. Check in went smooth got to room and air conditioning barely blowing.Called front desk told them problem they sent maintenance up to room,all the maint. guy could tell me was frio air , work good.Then went down to front desk requested another room ,they showed us another room which was a little cooler so we moved. While at front desk we questioned the sign they had displayed that said it was a 5 STAR resort.We tipped room service everyday this got us clean room and bath towels,never received hand towels or wash cloths,so don't waste your money.Also I had read comments about tipping at bar would get you better service, what B.S., maybe if you were hispanic. I tipped regularly 2,3,4, dollars at a time.If I walked up to bar at same time as hispanic Ijust had to wait until they got served,needless to say I stopped tipping after that.
As for the workers there they work hard but you just can"t polish a turd!Now lets talk about the beach , dirty water and dirty sand.I am from Texas if I wanted to see this kind of beach I could have saved alot of money and just drove to Galveston, no difference in beaches. Oh did I mention the beach vendors, they will drive you insane even stand at sidewalks of resort begging you to buy something, if by chance you bargain with one they all come a running.
Now lets talk about day trip excursion we booked through resort lobby with Vallarta Adventures.Was told it consisted of snorkeling,lunch at private beach,waterfall tour,and drinks.Now let me clarify they load 140 adults not counting kids under 9, onto a catamaran boat,(should be called cattle boat), about 1 hour ride to snorkeling site that had about 3 foot visibility. By the time everyone got off boat 10 minutes later they yelled vominos and loaded everyone back up.Then on to the so called private secluded beach, or should I say public dump.There was all sorts of debris and junk piled up everywhere, meal was served under a pavilion with no drink of any kind.If you wanted any kind of drink from pepsi to beer you had to pay for it.The only time drinks were provided was while you were on boat.You had to make choice b-4 getting off at beach to go to waterfall or get ff at beach,not both.About 5 hours later they herded everyone back onto boat and returned to port.This was a total waste of time and money.

Now back to the resort, the food was ok considering the quantity served and number of guest .The main buffet was open from 7a.m. to 11 p.m., there was wide variety of food and wait staff done a good job.The best way to sum everything up is you get what you pay for.Do not trust star ratings do the research b-4 booking a trip,if price sounds to good to be true then avoid it at all cost.I can honestly say this will be my first and last trip to P.V. Please don't be fooled by random reviews that give this resort a good rating, at best it is a 2 star .

I stayed at this hotel for 5 days with my mom and that was not enough time. We absolutely loved it. The staff members were soo friendly and accomodating, and the service was great. We went to the french restaurant twice, and the food was delicious. They had really good bread that they bring to you when you are looking over they menu. We also went to the Italian restaurant once. That was also very good and filling, but i think the French was the best. We went every night to Club Nitro. The shows were excellent. Some of the staff puts them on, and they are very entertaining. The staff also does little activities and games in the maiin pool area. Like crazy games, where they say we need 6 men, or 13 kids, or something like that and do a competition, like belly flopping or something,its cool. I was actually picked for a game, which I had to go around the pool and kiss as many people as I could, and another girl went against me. I won the game and got a free sunset picture. They game was very fun and the sunset picture turned out great. It was a beautiful sunset. If i had to pick a downfall, Id say the rain. It only rained at night, though. During the day it was beautiful, nice warm weather and very sunny. But it was rainy season when we went, soo. Also, the water wasnt as clear as it usually is because of the rain. The rain washed down the mountain into the water. But it was still nice. They have buggie bording, kayaking, snorkeling, and wind surfing. Me and my momm tries wind surfing. It was really fun, but its harder than it looks. We had a really nice instructor who taught us how to do everything. I absolutely loved it and hoping to bring the whole family back in a few years. I definetely recommend this for families.

You get what you pay for up sums up our week long stay we just had at the Crown Paradise Club. We have travelled extensively with our family of three kids, currently 8, 6 and almost 2. We have done all-inclusives in Jamaica and the Mayan, as well as the Disney Cruise so we feel we have lots to compare it to.

Having already done a two week trip to Maui this year as well as a Disney Cruise at the end of 2007, and a Disneyland and Vegas trip still to come this fall, we were looking for a vacation rather last minute somewhere warm, where my husband could do a little surfing and mostly, one that was going to be really inexpensive given the amount we have invested lately into our family vacations. In the past we have spend between $8000 and $14000 for our all inclusive trips, one for a week, but the rest for two weeks. They were all fantastic 5 star vacations. This trip however we paid $4500 for the five of us for one week. When you factor that the flights and transfers were likely $600 to $700 each, we paid very little probably less than $1000 for the resort for the room, food and drinks. Pretty cheap, and pretty cheap is what we got. It was what we expected as it was what we had paid for. We knew exactly what we were getting into on this vacation, with the help of the reviews here, and by factoring in what we paid, so we were in no way disappointed, we made the most of our trip and overall had a good vacation. Despite the fact that the Crown Paradise was a 2 star property.

The family room, poorly maintained, noisy, very outdated, but clean. The food, the worst we had at any resort ever. The cleanliness and food prep was terrible. Never once saw anyone wash hands, although there were sinks there. Food was prepared with the hands. Watched the pancake lady scoop a lump out of the batter with her fingers, toss it on the floor, then proceed to scratch a wound on her arm. Found it really hard to eat any of the fruit and salads, the flies were really bad. Food was generally cold, unappealing and really, how many ways can you serve a hot dog?? Mostly we went to the grocery store, bought our own apples and bananas and a few snack foods, this got us through but I have never been as hungry as I was here, and certainly never lost weight on an all inclusive vacation before, but I did here. Main pool was way to small for the amount of people that wanted to use it. Pools were warm, and poorly maintained. Beach, well it is the ocean, but when you have seen the waters of the Caribbean, Hawaii and the Virgin Islands, it certainly won't take your breath away. Really hard to enjoy it with the venders. We did keep track once, we were approached 23 times in one hour. We were even approached while eating in the buffet and at the snack bar tables. A constant annoyance to say the least. That being said, we ventured an hour north to Sayulita for surfing, beautiful beach, town and area. Best day of our trip. Our best meal was at the Liverpool mall, at Chilis.
Our kids were unable to met any other children to play with as 90% of the guests were Mexicans. Nice family oriented people, loved feeling that you really were in Mexico, although the food and music did reflect this.
My youngest did get sick within 6 hours of us getting home. They still have not determined if it is E Coli and or parasite. The sickest we have ever had a child. Despite 7 weeks spent at Mexico all inclusives, this is the first time this has happened to us and we are VERY careful. Not surprised though as the standards are not there for this property. Never saw them once check the pool water and test it while we were there. Saw this happen almost hourly on the Mayan side. Also, saw probably six kids a day not in swimming diapers that should have been, the Mexican families never used them. Spent most of our time at the small quiet u shaped pool as it seemed the cleanest.

All in all if you are used to staying at higher end places, go to hotels that are $400 and $500 a night, you will find it really hard to have a good time and look past all the negatives. If however you don't mind $100 or less accomodations, and food to go along with it, this place will be great given as well you have kids as it is a family resort. For us, we would never go back. Although we had a good vacation, we know that we would rather spend the money on the four or five star properties. When it comes to this resort, I would have to agree with those leaving the negative reviews. The positive reviews especially the raving reviews, I would have to believe they are from people who just have not seen what is really out there for beaches and all inclusives. If however the Crown Paradise is all that your budget will afford, it is worth a try, just know that a vacation is what you make of it and if you can look past all the negatives (with this resort I really mean ALL the negatives) you can still have a good time for very little money as we had a good vacation.