Best Things Nearby:
The charming old Mexican village of Puerto Vallarta. All the activities that are possible where the mountains meet the beach: swimming, boating, diving, parasailing, cruises, horesback riding, and hiking.

Best Things About the Resort:
The award-winning architecture is completely open to the expansive view and ocean breezes, but yet sheltered and private. There's your own private pool to relax in, even while still enjoying the view.

Resort Experience:
The timeshare resort Ocho Cascadas (Eight Waterfalls in English) is the most romantic getaway in the world. The resort is located in the fashionable Conchas Chinas neighborhood on the southern edge of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It is built into the hillside in a stairway design, allowing each villa to be totally open to the beautiful views of Banderas Bay while maintaining privacy. Each villa has a private pool, which cascades into the pool below.

The gorgeous view consists of the blue-tiled pools below, the cascading Bougainvillea and Copa de Oro (Cup of Gold) flowers everywhere, the red-tile roofs of the Conchas Chinas neighborhood, and the turquoise waters of Banderas Bay.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I have included a few photos with this review. For many more detailed photos, I suggest that you take a look at our personal website VacationLovers.

There are two bedrooms, each with a queen-size bed. A fifth person could sleep comfortably on the very large sofa in the living room, and the maids are happy to make it into a bed.

All villas are equipped with a stove, oven, refrigerator, juicer, blender, toaster, coffee pot, sugar, salt and pepper, coffee filters, endless supplies of bottled water and ice (even though the tap water here is pretty good), and receive maid service twice daily (they have to keep sweeping up all the flower petals that rain down from above).

Note: there's no microwave, TV, or radio. We like to bring a CD/MP3 player and small speakers.

The resort has a Welcome Party on Friday evenings. Be sure to attend and meet your neighbors. If you're lucky, the party will be held in the huge two-level penthouse villa.

The resort itself doesn't have a restaurant, but there is the “floating chef.” The charge is about $15 per meal (not per person), plus the cost of food. She does shopping, cooking, serving, and cleaning up. She leaves you the leftover food, which is usually enough for another meal.

There is one restaurant a short walk above the resort, but you would need to take a taxi into town for more restaurants. A taxi to downtown would be about $3.