Recommendation: Do not stay here. Now that that is out of the way, here are some more detail.

Just last week I took my wife and 2 year old daughter to Puerto Vallarta Mexico. We stayed at the Friendly Holy Vallarta. All in all we had a great time. The weather was fantastic, the water was warm, and had a good, fun, relaxing vacation.
First here are some pro’s and Cons

Pros

• The pools were heated
• The staff is very friendly (one exception)
• The place is very clean
• Great views
• Quick cab ride to town

Cons

• Rooms are clean but VERY dated and very rough around the edges. The drain in our friends bathroom backed up every time they ran the shower!!
• Pools close at 8:00pm!!
• Food was “okay” but beef was usually very tough.
• Blender drinks (Pina Coladas etc) were not blended properly, and often not blended at all.
• Not permitted to take meals up to the rooms
• We were charged $20 USD in order to eat on our final day!!! This was supposed to be all inclusive! More on this below.
• Bell boy service did NOT lock up bags as promised.

Our $20 BS Charge
This was our BIGGEST complaint, and it is all principle. Our flight to go home left at 8:15 PM on the Saturday and checkout time is noon. We checked out and turned in our keys etc at 11:00 that morning. In order to keep our bracelets so that we could use the facilities and still eat on our final day the front desk staff required a $20 “refundable” deposit. I asked three times about it being refundable, and they assured me that it was.

When we went to turn in our bracelets and head for the bus to the airport, they refused to refund the $20 deposit saying that it is never refundable!!!

When one stays at an All inclusive, you are supposed to get just that, All inclusive. There should be no charges for food on the final day. Our package price should cover everything from arrival to departure.

This incident put a very sour taste in our mouths and as a result we will NOT be recommending this place to anyone. $20 is not a lot of money, but to be blatantly lied to about it being refundable is total BS (and everyone on our flight had the same thing happen to them).

We’ll be complaining to West Jet Vacations about this, and if they will not refund the $20, then we will be contesting the charge to Visa. We love Puerto Vallarta, this is not our first time going and we will go again, but we will also never stay at this resort again.

Bell Boy Service
On the final day, you can check your bags with the bell boy. They say that all bags are stored in a safe locked room. They lie… They kept everyone’s bags in the lobby unattended. I never heard of anything being stolen, but if you trust them to leave your bags in the lobby be sure to keep your valuables safe with you.

Blender Drinks
For the first time in my life I had a pina colada where the ice was not crushed at all, just the mix poured onto full ice cubes. That is just plain lazy. Most of the time the drinks were also under-blended with huge chunks of ice getting stuck in the straw.  The taste was just “okay”. We had a pina colada at a restuarant in town and it was amazing, almost milkshake consistency… too bad the resort can’t figure that out.

Food
The food was okay. Not terrible, and some dishes were actually quite good. My problem with the food is that whenever they did anything beef, it was usually way overcooked and incredibly tough. The food was definitely 3 star quality, no extra effort here.

The Pool
The pool is warm, big, and recently re-tiled. Its a great pool. Only problem here is that it closed at 8:00 PM!! Are you kidding me? Should be open till midnight. Dinner is at 6:30, so it is near impossible to go for dinner then a swim.

The Staff
The staff was VERY friendly (with the exception of the front desk staff when checking out). The staff is very inviting and very welcoming of kids. The friendly staff made the cons bearable…

So my wife and I are trying to win a trip for 8 to Jamaica. To celebrate the launch of a new lottery game, the BC Lottery Corp has put out the Lotto Max Video Contest, where contestants submit their video of what they would do with the money if they won. The winning video gets the trip – The top 10 videos with the most votes are then hand picked by the judges for a winner to be determined.

Here are the videos my wife and I have submitted, and the links to view them on the site and Vote for us. You can vote again every day. I am BEGGING for the support of my readers. Log in and vote each and every day! Please?

Here is my video (User Name: ScottBlogs):
View Official Site and VOTE HERE!

You can also view my Lotto Max submission at YouTube Here, or my wife’s Lotto Max Contest Submission here.

Okay, here is a list of some of my predictions for 91 years from now. Keep in mind I have no education relating to any of this stuff, I am just making it up off the seat of my pants.

Electricity
Forget Solar, Wind Power, and all those. We are going to be powered by the reaction caused by collision of atoms in the air and cosmic rays from space. All our appliances etc, will not need to be plugged in, they will just feed off the energy present around them. We wont be “off the grid” because there simply will be no grid. The grid will be a thing of the past.

Computers
Computers as we know them will cease to exist. Everything will be controlled with a simple and microscopic implant that will allow the unused portion of our brains to be our permanent computers. Our brains will do everything that modern computers today do – that and a 1000x more.

Exercise
Life will get a little boring, as everyone with the money to buy there computer implant, will have a health program installed. When you think that you are putting on a little too much weight, you will just run your “body-defrag” and the computer in your brain will remove the excess weight, tone your muscles, and keep you trim and healthy. There will be no more obesity.

This program is a welcome change too, considering the lack of exercise we will face with the advancements in transportation.

Transportation
Star Trekkies rejoice. Teleportation will be here, and there will be no more need for mass transit, cars, planes, or any of that junk. Heck, even now, we have built the technology to teleport information between two separate atoms. Just imagine where this will take us in 100 years from now. The impossible just may not be impossible.

Food
You’re going to miss that steak dinner. Global warming will cause mass chaos in the food chain and we will survive off of proteins grown in the lab, fake meat laced with all kinds of chemicals mimicking vitamins and other essential nutrients.

Sun Burns
You know those bad sunburns you get in the summer these days? They will be a thing of the past. We humans will evolve to make us immune to sunburns by causing our body’s to emit their own version of sun block.

That’s it for my predictions today. I will write a part 2 later when I am feeling creative again. I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on these crazy ideas, and would also love to hear your far-out predictions. Leave them in a comment to this post, or contact me!

When you are eating dinner and the phone rings, do you answer it? I know some people that don’t, but I for some reason, do – and in most cases will talk with the person, at least briefly, interrupting my dinner. The telephone interrupts my favorite TV programs, family time, work hours, and sleep. – it’s really a nuisance.

Sure I could unplug it, or turn off the ringer – but then how would people call me? I am learning to hate this device, but the reliance on it, and all technology has me hooked. I can’t even leave home without my cell phone – what if something happens, I have to have my phone with me. I hardly ever use our cell, but yet it follows me everywhere. What’s going on with this world? It’s almost like the telephone is a virus we can’t escape. When it rings I think, “Ah crap, who is it now.”

I am constantly checking my email, and spend probably half my life sitting in front of a computer or television. Sure I work on the computer, so that’s an easy 8 hours a day – but why must I watch TV, or use my laptop during my free time. I am sure that all this technology is causing mass tumors to grow in my brain.

My favorite part of vacations is that we often go to places without telephones. We’ll hit up Pacific Village in Tofino once a year – beach front cabins without TV’s, radios, or telephones. I leave my cell turned off, and watch in the car. Complete isolation from technology. Those vacations are the best times of my life. No email, no phone calls, no commercials telling me I need to call Sam. (That lawyer guy in Michigan – you know the jingle: “You can talk to Sam. 1-800-call Sam”. Grrr. Go away Sam Bernstein.).

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time to a land before all this dependence on technology – but then how would I watch Judge Judy?

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