Garza Blanca Preserve Resort & Spa

Excellent service, great installations, ocean view and ambiance top of the line. The service at the restaurant Bocados was amazing with the service of Gio, Javier, Ricardo and all of the staff exquisite food in all restaurant of the resort.

The service was excellent and the food was wonderful! The only thing we didn’t like was the beach…too small and too rocky. Our rooms were beautiful, housekeeping was awesome, your waiters and waitresses were the best. Our rooms and views were so nice. We hired one of the resort’s babysitters and she was so nice and our grandson loved her.

They will try every tactic in the book to scam you at the end of your stay. The “deals” that you are online are definitely too good to be true. Then, when you get the explanation at check-in, they still withhold information and the check-out experience is horrible! Look at other reviews (and cross-reference! Be a smart traveler); you will see that management is giving stock responses and is doing nothing to respond to people’s concerns. Our story: We book a Cyber Monday deal that promises many things for our 4-night room-only (non-all-inclusive) stay. Specifically: free breakfast, $320 USD in resort credit, and one-way airport transfer. We had to fight to get any of those benefits, even though they were promised in an email. I did everything right: called in advance, worked with our pre-arrival concierge, and in the end I figure that they scammed us into paying an additional $350USD… and they tried to scam us over $1,000USD!! They’re actively looking for people to not pay attention. Here’s how they do it: all of the pre-arrival conversations were unhelpful and we were told “not to worry, we will take care of you.” Well, except for booking airport transport. Despite our initial confirmation saying that we had a one-way transfer covered, they changed the terms and said that now only applies for +5night stays. There’s an extra $55 to pay. Then, when we arrived, it took 40 minutes with manager approval to get free breakfasts and they couldn’t even tell us where they would be. Finally and worst of all, the $320 resort credit only applies to 20% of your food and beverage charges and doesn’t apply to anything else. They force you to sign a document at check-in with the full terms and conditions of the resort credit, which is stated NOWHERE ELSE (I’ve checked the website, my emails, and when I called ahead they never responded to my questions about this), so as other reviewers have stated they are extorting people daily. After a very stressful 45-minute checkout experience, I convinced them to clear all of the breakfast charges. Oh, and one more trick in their book: during the check out-from-hell, they were trying to explain that our final bill seemed “off” because of the MXN - USD conversion. Hah, no, not even close. What really happened was that our check-out bill ADDED the resort credit as a charge, instead of removing it as a credit! The customer service agent did not apologize, he simply said “oh, you are right.” There are many reviews that you need to check out here with low star ratings. Garza Blanca is charging peoples credit cards in USD instead of MXN. They’re extorting people as a baseline, and hoping that people don’t do the math to see if the final bill is accurate. Even during our awful checkout, there were at least two other conversations happening on either side of us with upset customers. Aside from the extortion and over-charging, this resort is beautiful and the food and beverage team is great. We tipped 15-25% frequently because the service was great for food and beverage. I will update this review if they actually address the major concerns I’ve outlined here.

We’re just concluding our second stay at Garza Blanca Puerto Vallarta and once again have all good things to say about this terrific resort. The service is consistently outstanding; in particular, from Mike, Roberto, Ronie, Salvador, Tito and Tony at the pool and from Martin who makes the absolute best tableside Caesar salad at Bocados steakhouse. The resort is huge, with access to both the Garza Blanca and Moussai hotels’ facilities and restaurants (although Moussai is adults only), and takes you from the top floors of high rises that sit atop lush mountains all the way down to pools overlooking the beautiful waters of Banderas Bay. Rooms are extremely clean and well-appointed (we stay in a one bedroom waterfront suite replete with full kitchen, dining room, living room, two full bathrooms, laundry and wraparound balcony; it really can’t be beat if you want to spread out). And the restaurants are truly nice - nicer than almost any other all-inclusive out there, with thoughtful, creative menus and, as I mentioned earlier, great service. The only downsides to this otherwise highly recommended resort are: (1) this is also a timeshare resort, so you may be asked upon arrival if you’re interested in becoming a “member.” But the pressure is imperceptible, so it’s easily avoided. And (2) the beach is on the smaller side (but there are lots and lots of chairs and umbrellas on the sand, and the beautiful pools more than make up for it). Finally, special shout out to Bonnie, our concierge from our last stay, who was fantastic. Garza Blanca really is an incredible find. We’ll be back for our third visit soon enough!

I am writing to formally express my profound disappointment with the experience my party endured during our recent trip. Despite booking and paying for a ‘Junior Panoramic Suite’ described as having “spectacular ocean views”, we were instead placed in a room with a jungle view upon arrival. This was a clear failure to deliver on the agreement and a significant downgrade from what we had reasonable expected based on our reservation and your description of the room. To compound the frustration, no one has taken responsibility for this misrepresentation. Neither Tafer Resorts (who is ultimately responsible for the accuracy of the descriptions they provide of their property accommodations as indicated on their website) or United Vacations/United Packages/Priceline (or any other alias United is operating under who advertise and sell vacations based on Tafer Resorts description) has provided any resolution, let alone the compensation we are rightfully owed for the difference in room accommodations. The complete lack of accountability among all parties involved is unacceptable. We attempted to resolve this issue asking to either (1) be moved to a room with the view we paid for or (2) stay in our room and be charged for a garden/jungle view. We spoke with the following personnel at your front desk: Eugene, Nicole, Yasselin, and Adriana over several days and to no avail. Ultimately Adriana directed us to discuss our concerns with Ulises Pardo. Our vacation was meant to be a stress-free, memorable experience, but instead, it became a series of frustrating conversations with Tafer and United representatives unwilling or unable to resolve the issues. It is inconceivable that a mistake of this magnitude would not be addressed promptly and professionally.