Excellent stay

This was a great stay for the whole family. Such a family-oriented place, with mostly parents and kids, as well as retirees/grandparents. Staff, food, rooms, and, most importantly, the beach, we’re all great!

Great resort for multi-generation family vacation

We enjoyed our week here. Grandkids loved the pools, playground, mini-putt course and air hockey at the teen club. Beach is magnificent for walking. Usually found available lounges under the palapas, and staff would set up umbrellas no problem. Food was varied and excellent. Disappointed that there was no availability at the Italian or Asian restaurants anytime that week, but the buffet had lots to offer and we also got into La Pergola for dinner. Mexican night in the courtyard was amazing [... read more]. The only real wrinkle of the stay was upon arrival, when we checked in at the front desk and were subsequently directed into an ambush by a guy pushing us to buy a vacation unit. This was mid-afternoon and we had been up since 3a.m., so not in the mood for that. But, apparently, we weren’t getting our resort wristbands until we heard him out. Surely the hotel can save the pitch for guests who actually express an interest.

Nice resort

We recently stayed at this resort and had an amazing time. It’s definitely on the smaller side compared to some larger all-inclusives, but honestly, that ended up being one of the things we loved most about it. It’s big enough to keep you busy, but small enough that you can walk from one end to the other easily — especially great when you have kids. The pools were a major highlight. There’s a lively party pool if you’re in the mood for some fun, a quieter family pool, a small kids’ pool, and ev [... read more]en an adults-only pool if you want a little peace and quiet. The water slides were perfect for younger kids, especially in the 5–8-year-old range — ours couldn’t get enough! The beach was absolutely beautiful — huge, clean, and perfect for long walks. You could walk for miles along the shoreline, and the beach area never felt crowded. Food was another strong point. We loved how easy it was to just show up at any restaurant without needing a reservation (except for the Italian restaurant). Plus, you can eat at your favorite spots as many times as you want, which we really appreciated. One major highlight was the MaiTai restaurant. Since we booked a suite, we received a coupon to dine there, and it was absolutely amazing — easily the best meal of our trip. Honestly, even if we hadn’t had the coupon, I would have happily paid out of pocket to eat there. It was that good! The rooms were nothing fancy — pretty classic resort style — but they were clean and comfortable. The grounds were beautifully maintained. There were a few downsides to mention. The kids club park wasn’t the best — a bit underwhelming compared to others we’ve experienced. The buffet was also on the smaller side with limited variety, so we found ourselves preferring the restaurants most nights. The resort does offer day passes for locals, so it can get very busy at times, especially around the pools. If you want a chair by the pool, you’ll need to be up early — by 8 or 9 a.m., most spots are already reserved. Lastly, for beer drinkers, one frustrating thing was the limit of four beers per day in the room. If you wanted more, you had to pay extra, which was a little disappointing for an all-inclusive. Overall, though, we had a fantastic trip. The size of the resort, the pools, the beach, the dining options, and the amazing experience at MaiTai made it a really memorable family vacation. We would definitely come back but I would not recommend this resort if you aren’t going on vacation with your kids.

Great resort!

The resort is in a great location. The beach is great to walk on when the tide is out. Its really flat. You can walk towards Bucerias or go the other way towards the Marina. The workers at the resort are very friendly and helpful. The food is very good in the specialty restaurants. The food in the buffet was average. The gardens and pools are very well kept up as the resort it self. I would recommend this resort.

Great place for families with little kids

Marival Emotions was ideal for families with young children. The food was plentiful and high quality with a lot of options. Very kid friendly! The ease of getting to the pools and beach was a highlight, the proximity to our room made outings stress free. Everything felt down to earth and we appreciated the easy breezy vibe. The service was excellent and the staff was friendly. The entertainment was plentiful and it was great to include our children in every aspect. The restaurant reservation sys [... read more]tem was a nightmare, the only way to get one was to wait in line for hours. Definitely an outdated system that we decided to avoid. Luckily we were very happy with the buffet options. Lots of variety and great quality!

Absolutely amazing and well worth the stay

From the location to our room, buffet and accommodations for adults and children, this resort has it all. This resort is well planned and laid out, especially the distance to the ocean or if you prefer just to sit at the pool everything is very accommodating. The performances and talent of the nightly shows in the theatre were the best that we’ve ever seen. My grandkids loved the variety. The only thing that I think we were not very happy with was the arrangements to try to get a dinner at on [... read more]e of the specialty restaurants. I was probably waiting for almost 2 hours in lineup to get into the Italian restaurant… When I finally got up to book it, it was sold out. The resort must have a better plan in place to book these restaurants… Perhaps at check-in time we could book something rather than get up at 6 AM to go wait for the 8 AM opening to reserve these spots. Aside from that this resort is amazing and I would definitely go back… The staff was also very friendly and helpful.

Excellent accommodation, facilities and food. Great destination for families with young children.

The location in Nuevo Vallarta, a short Uber ride away from Puerto Vallarta and Bucerias was a plus. The fine sand beach was great although the water was too rough for swimming most of of the time. The cleanliness and the temperature of the pools was amazing. With four pools catering to different demographics and needs, the choices were appreciated. The quality and variety of food in the buffet restaurant was above average and serving it by the pool on several occasions was a nice touch. The  [... read more]specialty restaurants however need improvement. The steak and sea food one was not anything to write home about. At the Italian one the food was great but the service was so slow, the children were totally cranky by the time we were served. The Mexican one had good food and the service was good. One common theme in all of them is that the wines are exorbitantly priced. There were a number of bars around the facility, including in two of the pools. The one issue with them is quality control and consistency: heavy on the ice and varying amounts of liquor and/or mix from each bartender. We got the same four cocktails at the table at the Mexican restaurant and they all tasted different! The buffet, restaurant and bar staff need better training in customer service as some of them seem to be quite indifferent at times

Good resort

The grounds were kept beautiful. The food was very good, with lots of variety. Overall clean but rooms could use updates, especially bathroom. The pools were very nice and warm with plenty of chairs everywhere.

Excellent stay (and some not so excellent points)

We travelled to Marival for my daughter's milestone birthday. It was the first time to this resort. My husband and I occupied one room in the resort section, my two adult sons shared a room in the resort section and my daughter, husband and granddaughter had a one bedroom suite in the club section. The resort is beautiful, the service for the most part is excellent. The food in the buffet restaurant is not the greatest, edible but very bland with the exception of the turkey night on Thanksgiving [... read more]. The breakfasts in La Pergola were very good, much better than the buffet. When we arrived, the check-in experience was not good. The line was long and the staff had difficulty allocating our rooms. Then the front desk ran out of room key cards and after waiting for 90 minutes to check in, we had to wait another hour before they found key cards!! Just very strange that a resort should run out of key cards! Then when we got to our room, they had mixed up our room with our adult sons' room. After changing rooms twice, we finally ended up with a very nice room overlooking the family pool and a view of the ocean. The balcony was nice. Our room was lovely with a very comfortable bed. The bedroom and bathroom were very clean and looked after very well. We spent most of our time at the family pool and my granddaughter enjoyed the slides and just having fun. It was great that the beach is so close and easier to find lounge chairs on the beach. Hotdogs or hamburgers for lunch were good at La Bamba, followed by an ice cream cone. Pro's 1. The Mexico fiesta was amazing. The food was so-so (excepting for the delicious churros, yum!) , but the atmosphere, the setting, the view and the mariachi band was fantastic. 2. The Michael Jackson tribute show was absolutely fantastic. Very professional and the lighting was amazing. Very impressive 3. Nice music in the Club lobby - we even danced. It was fun. 4. Honestly, the staff were amazing in all the restaurants and bars. We enjoyed aquafit every day and the pool entertainment staff were fantastic. . Cons: 1. The usual story of people claiming pool chairs by draping towels over them and then not using them for hours. I know this is a pet peeve of a lot of people but it was particularly bad at this resort. There should be something that can be done about this issue. 2. Not being able to book restaurants for the same night. We arrived the day before my daughter's special birthday and couldn't get a reservation for any of the specialty restaurants and ended up eating not particularly good pizza. Because my daughter and son in law had a suite, they had the services of an amazing concierge who managed to get us two dinner reservations and my son in law managed to book one dinner reservation, but other than that we were stuck eating dinner at the not so good buffet. 3. My daughter needed to do laundry and some of the machines weren't working and it took a while to get someone to help. It took so long to sort out the issue that she missed out on dinner with the family. 4. The Kids Club was lacking and my granddaughter is a very easy child to please. All in all, we had a very enjoyable week at the Marival Emotions

Amazing Family Oriented Resort

Staff consistently work to keep the resort refreshed. The Staff, Food, Accommodation, Well-Known Liquor Brands/ Pools, and Restaurants were wonderful. The majority of guests are Canadian with many from Alberta & Vancouver. Very friendly staff who work hard to provide an excellent vacation. Kid Friendly Resort with a Kids Club, water-slide pool; kids' evening buffet with a chocolate fountain for marshmallows & fruit. Sandwiches appear as characters, coloured buns for hot dogs, etc. Popcor [... read more]n or crispy corn snacks are prepared nightly. Bungy-Jumping Trampoline ($) Teen Activity Centre with video games, air hockey, pool table, ping-pong, and fuzeball. Mini-Golf Course (very simple) and shuffleboard and bocce ball courts. Adult pool. Two other larger pools with swim-up bars. A-la-carte restaurants serve delicious food, in particular, the La Bamba & Almalfe & Mai-Tai. Arrive early morning to book your al-la-cartes. An abundance of lounges and beach umbrellas on the beach. An air mattress to place on lounges will provide comfort as some are saggy.

Great Resort

The resort is well kept. It is spotless on the grounds, in the restaurants, in the public washrooms, by the beach, vegetation is well manicured. All the staff were super friendly and accommodating. They would always offer a friendly ‘Ola’ with a smile whenever they passed you. Not all of them spoke English and for me that made what Mexico is all about: a new experience. Very small inconvenience: only 3 restaurants and smorgasbord. Reservations need to be done for the 3 restaurants from 3: [... read more]30 pm and at times they cannot accommodate everyone. The resort is advertised as all inclusive and it is not as all 3 restaurants’s menu have items that if ordered bear an extra charge. Also, the Time share agression on new comers has to stop.

Home away from home

We have been to this resort many times & find the service & choice of food excellent. The staff are very friendly & with the exception of the Mexican restaurant, the food at the a la carte restaurants is delicious

Great Value

An excellent 4 star resort. Food was great. Service was excellent, very friendly and accommodating staff. Beach is great, umbrella guys are amazing. Rooms and grounds super clean. Animation staff was out of this world.

Simply the best

Finally, a resort we were fully enjoying in every aspect (as an extended family): - 20-30 minutes away (depending on the traffic) from the airport - clean rooms with functional A/C; furniture reasonably dated - thoughoutful layout and scenic view - clean territory and amenities - AWESOME food selection at the buffet and snack bar - WARM swimming pools - lively animation - quality Kids/Teens club (arcades, pool, pingpong, air hockey) - convenient ocean access My only issue was quite a [... read more] bit of smoking by the pools and at the lounge area. Overall, amazing. Definitely coming back.

Family fun

This was our third family vacation at the Marival and a great time was had by all. Marival is family friendly, staff is exemplary, efficient, and always helpful! We had special requests due to allergies and all a la cart chefs and captains were venry accommodating. Entertainment was family friendly and enjoyed by all. Cleaning staff and gardeners do a great job of keeping the place in tip top shape! We had a lovely vacation!

Good for the price

Nice hotel , food was good but not great..Birds were a problem at the outside food restaurants. Really great a la carte options. Friendly staff and great location. Have been here twice but will try somewhere else next time to switch it up.

Family friendly

Lots for kids to do, Kids club has a good variety of crafts, games, shows. good variety of food, average food, room was not the cleanest. Service was average nothing above and beyond. Could not book the restaurants as they were all full for the week!

Mixed Feelings

We really enjoyed the grounds, pools, and beach. However this resort is full of timeshare salespeople. At check-in we were passed along to a timeshare salesperson before receiving our wrist bands and room key - this was a huge turn-off. Because of this scheme we will not stay at this resort again.

Lovely resort!

Beautiful weather, pools and beach. Hotel is a little tired, especially the club section. Whoever designed this resort gave no thought to how noise carries. The first night my friend and I couldn’t even talk as the band in the bar was so loud. Fortunately they stopped at 10pm but then we had to contend with those continuing to party until 3am. When we spoke to the concierge in the morning she was good enough to move us immediately. Still in the club section so some faint bar noise but what  [... read more]was worse was that we were above the kitchen/buffet restaurant so were awakened each morning at 5am. By the way stay away from the club section if you can’t do stairs....no elevator. Having said this the staff everywhere were amazing! Very attentive and courteous.

Nice resort

Beautiful grounds - nice pools and surroundings Friendly employees - very nice ala carte restaurants with good food and service Special thanks to bartenders Eduardo Flores and David Bajaras in pizza bar and Dalia in Lobby bar. Buffet was not to up 5* resort - needs more selection and see food. Not entertainment in adults pool area. At the arrival Instead of welcome drink first we were send to person who who try to sell us time share with out seeing the resort and the fasciitis Not very  [... read more]professional from the management of the resort!