Grand Bliss and Massages on the Beach
Massages in Mexico and our last full day
A chunk was taken out of our last day in Mexico by a meeting regarding our business. Later we wandered over to the Luxxe pools for a quieter environment to read and relax. We had Luxxe bands because our Grand Bliss was booked with a Luxxe contract. For our last night we decided to eat at our favorite on site restaurant, the Epazote. You can find more details on our trip report from Christmas 2010.
Massages on the beach in Mexico
Since our last day was dull I will use this space to talk about Massages on a mexican vacation. I have had 3 massages in my life and they were all in Mexico.
Mexico Massage #1
The first one was part of a timeshare tour incentive in Los Cabos. I asked for a deep tissue massage. It had the expected new age music and aroma therapy. It was just a bit intense in some spots, but really i had been on vacation a week and wasn’t all that tense.Mexico Massage #2
The second one was at the Riviera Maya Grand Mayan and (I know, it’s shameful) was another timeshare incentive. This time (in my foolish ignorance) i requested a Swedish Massage. This something my wife would like, but for me it was so gentle it didn’t do any good. It was a pleasant relaxing hour, but not really worth the time. Surely glad I didn’t pay the going rate of $100. So ladies (or men I suppose) with sensitive muscles, go Swedish. The third time was the charm. As mentioned earlier, we were walking around Bucerias (small town North of Puerto Vallarta) and took a small walk down the beach. I spotted the classic white tent and a, how can I say it…umm…. hearty Mexican woman standing outside. It was only $60 for an hour and $30 for a half hour.
Nohemi was a wonderful, friendly person. She explained that a deep tissue massage was just like it sounded and a “Sports Massage” had more fo the karate chop / pummeling action. I asked for a 30 minute combination, mentioning that my calves were especially tight. After 20 minutes or so I asked her how much for an hour and she said 450 pesos !! What a deal !! That is less than $38 dollars for an hour massage on a sunny beach. She even wafted a little lavendar under my nose to start. The ocean waves were one step better than the New Age music of previous times.
Getting down to my skivvies was a bit of challenge that the big towels overcame pretty well. “It’s OK, I no care” was Nohemi’s reassurance technique.
This was right on the beach near the Plaza and it is called Blue Sky Massage. Nohemi and Laura are the two women that do the massages. The owners full name is Mireida Nohemi Ramirez Torres. Mexican folks sure can put a string of names together !!
I should mention, you can get an excellent and more private massage at the Mayan Resort spa , but it will be a bit more than $38.There are many phrases that have brought people here, such as....
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Grand Bliss Nuevo Vallarta Part Two
Day Three and Four
After I took a morning run around the whole resort, day three was pool day. We hung out by the pool, Linda in the sun with a book, me in the shade with my kindle. It really does work in bright daylight. We took an occasional break from reading to take a couple laps in the lazy river on tubes. Why is that so incredibly relaxing?
ATV Tour
One day around the pool and we are now ready for a little light adventure. We signed up for an ATV tour into the Sierra Madre mountains. It took a $20 cab ride to get to Old Town in Puerto Vallarta. We went with Unique ATV tours. This tour takes you on dirt roads through villages. No off road. Things went fairly smoothly except for a small altercation I had with the guide who was going around corners literally balancing on two wheels and then told me i had to stop gassing it and sliding occasionally. I took great exception to this hypocrisy and after a bit of heated discussion a compromise was reached. I would bring up the rear where I wouldn’t affect anyone else. I could slide around to my heart’s content. We visited the River Canopy zip line and had a introduction to Tequila making and also Tequila tasting. Tequila tasting in the middle of driving a fairly powerful motorized toy….. only in Mexico.
The tour ended at a small open air restaurant by a river. We met a couple from northern california who were on the tour with us. They were singing the praises of JoJack’s Fish Shack and their two for one Mojito’s in the afternoon. Soon we were discussing every topic imaginable over said Mojito’s . After the second Mojito, they let out that they didn’t like me at first due to the episode with the tour guide. Guess my sparkling personality won out in the end because that was just the beginning. From the mojito’s, they took us to places they had discovered in Old Town. First a bakery that didn’t open until 7PM and we got fresh baked loaves right out of the oven . Next a classic taco stand with 6 or 7 different salsa choices. I am proud to say I tried one or two from the hot side. In a store front next to the taco stand they made crepes !! We split one filled with banana and nutella. Basic. And delicious. Finally our new found friends helped us sort out which bus went to Walmart (the cental hub for all busses in the area). From there we chose the convenience of a taxi back to the resort.
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Beware the Jewelry Store at the Entrance to the Restaurant 
Puerto Vallarta Bus Trip
As we mentioned we usually rent a car, so we haven’t used the busses in mexico much. We wanted to spend a day in town, so we again headed down to the Sea Garden and asked about the bus. Turns out there are 2 or 3 busses to town and we had to ask a couple of people before we found out the most direct route. It cost us a whopping $3 for both of us. If you try this, you will need to go past the Walmart, past the cruise ships, past the Marina and wait until the street turns one way for a few blocks before getting off. We got off early through small language mixup with the driver. After walking a few blocks we opted to swallow our pride and spend an extra $5 for a cab ride into the main part of town. The Malecon is the walkway along the ocean it was full of Christmas activities. There were sand sculptures and this crazy guy balancing rocks that varied from softball to bowling ball size 6 to10 rocks high ! We could have sworn he was using mortar. Then there was the Mexican version of the flying Walendas that hung from 50 foot pole and swung around by their feet.
We wandered our way south to a place we found last time we were there. It is where the road in front of the ocean crosses the river into Old Town. Right on the bridge is a walkway down to an island in the river with shops and a very cool restaurant called the River Cafe…… . It is a beautiful open air cafe with trees growing in the middle of it. Last time we were here we didn’t know the perils of Mexican two for one. We thought we ordered 4 drinks for for people. When the ladies came back from the restroom, my buddy and I were sitting there sheepishly with a table full of eight margaritas ! We said then , the only thing preventing it from being perfect was the lack of a live jazz band. Well this time they had a live jazz band!! Good food, warm hospitality and cool jazz. What great time. Warning gentleman, there is a jewelry shop attached to the restaurant. A word to the wise is sufficient.
That’s it for this trip report, but don’t despair, we made another unscheduled trip to Puerto/Neuvo Vallarta in March and another trip report will be posted by early May 2011
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Because we had meetings and we were only there for 6 days, we didn’t rent a car this time. That gave us a chance to try some different things. I’ll tell you about the best two. One in this post and one in the next.
Whale Watching
HUmp Back Whale Up Close and Personal
We did the Vallarta adventures whale watching trip. We walked over to the nearby Vallarta Adventures Nuevo Vallarta location. You can click here to see our Whale Watching in Vallarta Photos. We stopped at a restuarant overlooking the marina and had a lovely late breakfast. When we got there we found out that we were in the swim with dolphins area and the whale watching went out of the dock on the opposite side of the marina. Fortunately, they have a pontoon boat for just such an occasiona and they cheerfully ferried us over. Vallarta Adventures www.vallarta-adventures.com is a bit of a tourist tour machine. but they really do proviide very nice, well organized excursions. The trip is 4 hours in a 20 person inflatable raft. They are fast and smooth. December is a bit on the cool side in the morning, especially at 20 miles an hour, so we had wisely chosen to do the afternoon trip. We don’t always think this clearly.
The guide was a total ham and kept us entertained between pods of whales, but he really was very knowledgable and provided a monologue of humpback whale information that didn’t sound like the tourist drivel that you are sometimes fed on, well… tourist trips. Because they are very concientious, you don’t get close enough to the whales to look them in the eye, but you do get close enough to a WHOLE LOT of humpback whales to really make it worthwhile and get some excellent photos. We will post photos soon and put a link here.
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nuevo vallarta/christmas, vallarta adventures photosTwo Women in Mexico
I couldn’t get off work and so Linda decided to head to Puerto Vallarta with our friend and sometime travel partner, Mary. They headed to Puerto Vallarta Mayan Palace because we hadn’t stayed there yet and couldn’t answer questions from folks that wanted to rent a week there. They spent a week and explored the area.
However, I have had difficulty getting a Trip report from them, so this is the only post at the moment. They did get lots of photos, so you can see our photo collection while you wait for the “rest of the story”. Hopefully very soon !! Click here for Puerto Vallarta Photos
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puerto penasco com, Mexico Leave a Reply Name (required) Mail (will not be published) WebsiteGrand Bliss Nuevo Vallarta
Day One
It happened again! I won’t bore you with the details, but circumstances conspired to generate a trip to Mexico with literally 4 hours notice. We packed, found frequent flyer flights, and drove to Detroit for a park and fly hotel. Late next morning we were blinking in pure sunshine and 85 degrees. Before you get too jealous, we did have to truncate this trip t a ridiculously short 5 nights. We started the first afternoon with a futile attempt to arrange an ocean view room (apparently they aren’t impressed with “night before” bookings), followed by the requisite margarita by the pool. For dinner we took a leisurely stroll in the dimly lit Mayan garden / jungle down to the Havana Moon restaurant. It was a beautiful meal overlooking a wedding on the beach in progress.
Day Two
We decided to take a downgrade in room from a one bedroom suite to a studio unit on the ocean side. The deciding factor was that all the Grand Bliss studios come with a coffee maker and a fridge. The coffee maker is particulary important, since there is no restaurant in the Grand Bliss.
Once we got our room changed we headed out to Bucerias, our favorite local resort town. The cab cost only $130 pesos and dropped us in the central plaza. It was sunday so it was family day and it was bustling with activity. We wandered the streets and of course my wife found a very creative necklace that I was allowed to bargain for. After some great fresh guacamole overlooking the beach at Adauto’s , things evened out. I spotted a massage on the beach (see details in the last post for this trip ) after stripping to my skivvy’s behind a towel (much to my wife’s amusement), I spent the next hour getting accelerated into total vacation mode. A couple we had met mentioned they liked Guido’s which is right across from the Sea Garden. They were not wrong. There was a singer / guitar player doing covers like Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney. The menu had all the standard Italian choices , which are a little spartan for us. That’s why I opted for the pesto penne pollo. say that three time’s fast. Linda had a marinara and pasta based dish with sausage , mushrooms etc. The group behind us was extolling the pizza as the best in the area. Getting to the near side of Nuevo Vallarta from the resort is a bit more of a bother at the moment. You have to catch a shuttle from the Grand Mayan to the gate and walk down the road to the Sea Garden area (less than a 10 minute walk) if such a pedestrian approach offends your sense of a leisure vacation, a taxi ride is only around $5 each way.
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It all started at a family Christmas on December 18. All three of our children informed us that they had in-law obligations for Christmas eve and Christmas day. Fine, we said. Don’t look for us, we said. We’ll be in Mexico. That was Saturday. On Monday morning we were on a plane headed south. It worked out that opportunities to meed with Mayan Resort folks about our business took up a bit too much of our 6 days,so we will just give you the highlights for this trip.
through some bizarre fluke we were able to get into the Grand Luxxe in a one bedroom villa. Wow. They really are impressive. You can check out the Grand Luxxe Nuevo Vallarta pages for details on that. We actually took all of our Luxxe pictures on that trip. A couple of things do deserve mentioning.
First, the concierge delivering free coffee to the room every morning is something we could really get used to. Technically they only give you one cup, but if you walk out to the desk they generally won’t refuse you a second cup.
The other item is the Epazote restaurant. Even if you are not staying in the Luxxe, it is worth a shuttle ride or leisurely walk through the spectaular landscaped garden/jungle to eat there once. First of all, they seem to have hired the friendliest people in Vallarta as staff. And that is saying something. We felt like honored guests. They serve upscale mexican cuisine that is some of the best we have had. Especially the mole. If you haven’t had mole, you can read about it in our Mole primer. It is definitely our favorite Mexican food item. During the meal they are always bringing some complimentary little savory item for you to sample. They have an appetizer with refried beans , plantains, cactus leaves and (you guessed it) mole sauce that can easily be shared by two or small tastes for three or four. Their favorite dish is a Mexican style beef short ribs, which are both fabulous and a bit pricey. Lots of seafood dishes in variety a sauces. the Red Snapper Veracruz looked great, but we will have to wait until next time to try it. Honestly, everything we tried was great including dessert. For our money, the Epazote is hands down the best restaurant on the Mayan Resort in Neuvo Vallarta.
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Not much to our final day. We got up to another splendid mexican sunrise and had breakfast at our favorite spot one last time. You guessed it: Balche. Then we checked out which was fast and totally painless. We opted to take the shuttle from the resort back to the airport (150 pesos/person) which was totally worth it. Then we flew home without incident.
Overall, Grand Mayan Riviera Maya was one of the best vacations I ever took. I would recommend it to any adventure seeker or someone seeking rest and relaxation alike.
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So our sixth day had a little hiccup. We had been enjoying ourselves so much that we decided to go (voluntarily) to one of the timeshare presentations. When you first get to Grand Mayan and Mayan Palace (at any of their locations) they will offer a 10% discount on everything you spend during that week plus special discounts on the tour company present at their location. So along with that and sincere interest in finding out how to invest in some weeks for ourselves we signed up.
It started off ok. They take you to breakfast at Del Lago (the more expensive buffet). They tell you it will be only 90 minutes and no pressure. It was more than 90 minutes. Unless you are willing to spend some extra time or are willing to simply walk out, you might want to give it a miss.
So after that we spent the rest of the day laying by the pool and then had another wonderful dinner at Havana Moon.
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Another great day that started off by taking a walk of the beautiful Grand Mayan grounds.
Then another breakfast at Balche. The thing that makes the breakfasts there good is that they are cheaper than Del Lago and you can eat as much as possible. Plus there are lots of different options. I didn’t get any pictures, but they have breads, fruits, veggies, eggs, meats, everything!
Then we spend the afternoon laying by the pool again.
And we finished our day with our second meal at Havana Moon. It was excellent food again, which is why we came back. We really enjoyed this place. It had american, asian, pizza, and mexican.