About the Resort
Fiesta Americana is a contemporary resort overlooking Banderas Bay, complete with activities for both adults and families. Enjoy the world-class spa, amazing gold courses, or dine at one of six charming restaurants and bars.
Key Property Facts
Our Experience
First Impressions
You will notice right off the bat flying into Puerto Vallarta that it’s a very unique city and very different than many of the other tourist cities in Mexico. Unlike the vast deserts in other parts of Mexico, Puerto Vallarta is surrounded by mountains with a lot of greenery and a lot of natural bays.
If you haven’t been here before, it’d be hard to believe that you’re in Mexico. While the scenery is definitely different, the climate is very comparable to other parts of Mexico, so you’ll still get that great sunshine you’re expecting.
The first and maybe most important thing that I loved has to be the location! Centered 10 minutes from the airport, theres much to be desired in going from the plane, to being on the resort in less than an hour!
The local airport provides numerous ways to get to Fiesta Americana, and you can always call the resort to get a ride arranged ahead of time. This is what I did and the communication and pickup were beyond simple.
Driving to the resort from the airport you pass some cool local art, a high end mall, and a marina. Outside of the resort being only 10 minutes from the airport, it’s also only a ten minute ride to Puerto Vallarta’s downtown.
With Fiesta Americana being one of the first resorts in PV, it had likely the best real estate option, explaining the ten minute commute from both the airport and downtown center. Most resorts in this area it will be a trek to get to the downtown or other areas. The proximity to everything made all our commutes to our excursions very quick.
While Covid hurt all of Mexico’s tourism industry, Fiesta Americana took advantage of the downtime to do extensive renovations to an already feature filled resort. While most of the construction has been wrapped up, there are still a few more instances of ongoing work.
More on that in a bit. During conversations with some of the staff, I learned that the company gave out extra stipends to the workers to cover missed tips during the pandemic. All of these jobs were kept, and the company went the extra mile with all of their staff. There were numerous employees who expressed their gratitude for working at this company, with some of them working there over a decade.
It’s not very often I visit a place where there is any suggestions of employee loyalty; usually it’s just a job to them. While I wouldn’t necessarily describe the staff as “a family”, they definitely are a cohesive unit who enjoys who they work for. This most likely explains why they’ve retained AAA four diamond status for 21 consecutive years.
When you enter the resort, there is a massive palapa that covers the registration area. There is a seating area in the center as well as a few shops as well as a coffee shop, ATM, bell desk, and restrooms.
When I say it’s a big palapa, I mean it was literally the biggest in Mexico for years. It has to stand at least a hundred feet high. I found out the resort actually gets it replaced every couple years as well. It definitely is one of the most unique lobbies I’ve been to and is a staple for this resort.
The check in process is very simple, with all their staff speaking both Spanish and English. There was no wait and the staff were very knowledgable and explained the resort in great detail to me. They also answered all of my questions I had honestly.
The layout is really simple with the elevators for all the rooms being just a hundred feet from the registration. Most places I stay at you have to go through a maze just to find your room, so it’s nice to have the simplicity of Fiesta Americana’s layout.
The resort has a couple of elevators, both which take a lot longer than most elevators. This was one of my only gripes with the resort. I got stuck on the elevator a couple times with it refusing to go down, or waiting five minutes for an elevator. Not the biggest deal, but a bit of an annoyance.
Our Accomodations
There are nine floors to Fiesta Americana with different room packages to accommodate your specific needs. During my stay, I was on the 9th floor, which, being the top floor, had vaulted ceilings that gave the room a really unique feel to it.
The rooms are spacious, offering the expected resort amenities, with the added perk of all-inclusive food and drinks. There’s a free mini bar in the room with a couple of beer options as well as sodas. There are a couple other candy and chip options that are left on the desk as well.
Alongside this, there is 24/7 room service. I was able to use room service a few times, and everything I had, I really enjoyed. I was also surprised by the speed of the delivery which never took more than twenty minutes.
The room I stayed in had an extremely comfortable bed. It wasn’t too soft or hard, although I’m sure others may have different preferences than me. There are plenty of drawers and hangars for all of your clothes, as well as a fairly spacious bathroom area. There is a small table for eating snacks as well as a balcony that overlooks the ocean.
I believe all rooms in the resort have balconies with ocean views. The sunsets are absolutely beautiful, and sitting out on the balcony in the mornings was wonderful.
As for the cleanliness of the rooms, I didn’t encounter any issues during my stay. My room was very clean, and housekeeping did a great job each day. They were also thorough in restocking any items I removed from the mini bar, and were in and out in no time.
I was thankfully able to get this VIP room. If it’s in the budget for you or your family, it definitely is worth the upgrade. Not only is the room a bit bigger and nicer, but you also get some perks on the resort as well. For instance, there is a VIP pool and and hot tub area on top of the buffet area.
This area was much less crowded than the regular pool and had a lot of of staff available for drinks or other requests. I also liked the view a lot better from this area as it overlooked the beach. While none of the rooms are anything to scoff at, the extra amenities, view from the top floor, and space of the room definitely makes it an easy upgrade.
Outside of the rooms on each floor there are tables for chatting during a social hour. I was never around for one of these social hours, but they have a whole set up for snacks and drinks and it seems like it’d be a great way to meet new people or to hang out with group you came with.
The Rest of Our Stay
The Food
Now for the food. There are several options for food here, and I was able to try almost all of them. There are a few sit down restaurants, a buffet, as well as some self-serve stations around the resort. After going to most of them, there wasn’t a place where I thought the quality suffered.
You definitely will get better quality at the sit down locations, but the self serve stations and buffet were also very tasty. One of my favorites was a restaurant called L’Isola which surrounded by water features and is accompanied by live piano music. All courses here were incredible, and the ambiance of a night dinner here is unmatched.
The meals here are multiple courses, with each course being extremely tasty. Here you will have bread, a salad, steak, wine, dessert, and coffee. Every item I ate was great, but the Filet Mignon was incredible.
Outside of that restaurant though, there is a Hibachi restaurant, a taco restaurant, a buffet, a burger bar, and a few other options. Some of these places have options for added experiences. At the Hibachi restaurant, we were lucky enough to get our own chef who made our fried rice, meats, and other dishes right in front of us.
This was a really fun atmosphere as we all were seated around the chef and got to see every part of the cooking. The food here was also fantastic. The fried rice was the freshest I’ve ever had, and they also had sushi that was excellent as well. The atmosphere here was very different than L’lsola, but it was great in it’s own way.
For the self serve options, there were a couple of food stations that were nearby the pool. At these stations there was a variety of kid friendly food as well as hand food for easy eating. Most of the food was American comfort food, comprising of hot dogs, burgers, chicken nuggets, and a couple other items.
I enjoyed the food here and it was nice to just grab something quickly and sit down wherever you wanted to eat if you needed a quick bite. Here as well, the quality was pretty good.
For the buffet option there is a big enclosed dining room that has doors open to the outside. There were quite a few options for breakfast as well as lunch/dinner. I also enjoyed the food here as well although I only came by here a couple of times.
The Bars
Along with all these food options, there were a handful of different bars as well. There is a big sports bar right before the pool area where they show many different live sporting events, as well as have local bands playing great music. This bar I really ended up enjoying throughout my stay.
There was also a swim up bar as well as another pool bar. Each bar had a good range of drink options with the bartenders having great familiarity with any of the drinks I requested. From frozen drinks, to cocktails, to beer, to wine, they had pretty much everything I could have wanted from a bar.
With Fiesta Americana being an all inclusive, it was great being able to get as many drinks as I wanted without having to worry about breaking the bank.
At my favorite bar, I was able to catch some football games here each night and meet some great people. This is something I like to do when I’m home in the states, and it’s great that there are areas of the resort that intentionally create an environment where people can feel comfortable to mix and mingle with one another.
The people I would meet there were also very diverse, coming from different parts of North, South, and Central America. There were definitely a good handful of American tourists, but we definitely weren’t the only ones, which I thought was cool.
The live music playing in the bar was great. Each night there was a different band, and every one was unique and talented. No matter if you’re dancing or watching a game, the staff was always attentive and frequently came by to make sure I had what I needed.
The Entertainment & Activities
Outside of the drinks and the food, there are many activities you can partake at Fiesta Americana during your stay. There is a huge pool, ping pong, volleyball, a kids area, spa area, as well as the ocean right by the pool.
You can get free towels for the beach or pool, as well as rent a cabana if you wish to do so. There are plenty of beach chairs everywhere, making relaxing at the pool or beach very easy and enjoyable. The staff was extremely helpful here as well, periodically checking if you wanted anything to eat or drink.
The beach is very relaxing, and was relatively quiet depending on where you were seated. I was able to wind down fairly easily here. The only disruption were occasional peddlers of hand crafted arts who would walk along the beach trying to sell their stuff.
While this was a little annoying, I’ve encountered this pretty much everywhere else I’ve stayed, and this is not unique to Fiesta Americana nor is it something they probably want.
One of the other activities I really wanted to do but never got the chance was playing some beach volleyball. While I was bummed I didn’t get to, the setup was awesome, with the court being very close to the water. I could see big groups having a blast playing for hours right on the beach.
The Spa & Gym
Aside from the outdoor activities, I got a chance to check out the spa as well during my stay. For some context, a lot of the spa was under construction while I was there so my experience may not be applicable to people traveling there now as the construction is likely finished.
During my massage session, there was loud circular saw, jackhammering, and other constructions tools going on. It was hard for me to get relaxed in any way, but again, this was probably an unusual situation that won’t happen to most people.
There was a bit of a language barrier here with the masseuse as well, and the massage ended up being on the lighter side. Overall it wasn’t a bad experience at the spa, and I’d be excited to see what it looks like once the construction has been concluded.
Next to the spa there is also a fitness facility. I was able to go here a couple times as well and get a pretty good workout in. The facility isn’t massive, but it definitely bigger than I figured it’d be. I didn’t have much of a wait for any of the equipment, and most of the machines were relatively new.
The state of the facility was also very clean and I didn’t have any problems here either. There are some machines or workout items that they don’t have, but for a resort fitness center, I was more than impressed with what they did have.
Other Activities Available
If you are getting stir crazy and can’t find enough to do on site, there are plenty of options in the city of Puerto Vallarta. During my stay I got to experience a handful of these. There is a really cool whale watching tour where you can see humpback whales as well as dolphins right up close.
There are guided city tours where you can peruse street vendors, as well as sightsee in their downtown district. There are plenty of options for snacks and souvenirs. Also make sure to keep an eye out for iguanas and other animals! Another great option is a world famous show that is similar to a Cirque Du Soleil performance.
It’s a river cruise that takes you to an island off of Puerto Vallarta where you eat a wonderful dinner buffet before walking to an open-air theater. Once you take your seat, you will be treated to acrobatic and athletic performances. The show and entire experience was very well done.
Each of these excursions the resort is able to schedule for you as well as provide transportation and other needs. I got to experience first hand how simple everything was with them taking care of all the details. You’re given a time for an event, you go down to the lobby, you get in a shuttle van, and then you’re taken to whatever is on the itinerary.
It was a level of simplicity that I could really use on all of my trips. If you want to take the hassle out of an already relatively hassle-free all inclusive, then I’d highly recommend using them for planning out and coordinating any excursions you may want to go on.
Final Thoughts
I was very impressed with my stay here. Out of all the things I’ve listed I’m going to have to say that the location was my favorite asset of Fiesta Americana. By being so close to the local excursions, it gave me the flexibility and time to do more on my trip.
Many other resorts I’ve been to have lengthy commutes to local excursions, and not having to deal with that can extend those quick Mexico vacations out to give you more time to relax and do what you want.
Overall Fiesta Americana has a little bit of everything, and will surely give each person something they can truly enjoy. The variety will help big groups, couples, and families alike spend their time together in the most comfortable way possible.
Although someone could never leave the resort and still have a great time, knowing there are so many local activities to do so nearby really adds to an already great experience. With Fiesta Americana’s unique location, convenience, and value, it made for one of my favorite Mexico getaways, and I’m sure it can for you too.
We Liked
Convenient central location
Fantastic amenities and service
Amazing restaurants and drink options
We Didn't Like
Some of the building is a bit older
There may be ongoing construction or old infrastructure you run into
Why You Should Upgrade Rooms
I was thankfully able to get this VIP room. If it’s in the budget for you or your family, it definitely is worth the upgrade. Not only is the room a bit bigger and nicer, but you also get some perks on the resort as well.
For instance, there is a VIP pool and and hot tub area on top of the buffet area. This area was much less crowded than the regular pool and had a lot of of staff available for drinks or other requests.
I also liked the view a lot better from this area as it overlooked the beach. While none of the rooms are anything to scoff at, the extra amenities, view from the top floor, and space of the room definitely makes it an easy upgrade.