It all started a year earlier when we decided to look into the benefits of having a destination wedding. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and since I am from Chile I struggled with the idea of getting married here and not having many of my friends and family present. If they were to come to the U.S. they would have to go to Uncle Sam’s embassy in Chile to get a Visa, throw down a lot of money for a round trip flight, book an expensive hotel in the City, and figure out how to get around in another language. I started to think that the only thing from Chile that I would enjoy on my wedding day would be the wine.

In addition, the cost of doing our wedding here in the Bay Area started to scare me as well. When we began to compare prices for different venues, it seemed like they were trying to sell you the place as opposed to rent it to you for a day.

As a result we started to explore the possibility of looking into a destination wedding. Our options here in the U.S. weren’t looking great, and we started to realize that for the same price we would pay to sweat like pigs at my wife’s uncle’s ranch in Stockton, we could actually have an oceanfront luxury villa wedding. And it didn’t stop there. When I told my friends from Chile that we were thinking of getting hitched in paradise, they talked about joining us for the big day. They started to realize that it was also a great opportunity to take a week of vacation. For our American attendees, the idea sounded good as well. Many of our friends and family here are used to travel to another state for a wedding, so traveling two hours to Mexico wasn’t a big deal (especially since going that route gave you more than a bag of peanuts and a napkin).

Our Journey to the big date

We began our plans for the big day by deciding on the venue. We had in mind that approximately 100 people were going to attend. At first we thought that the only option for that amount of people was doing it at a hotel. However, we thought if we were going to do something different, let’s really make it unique! We began to look at the possibility of celebrating our wedding at a villa. We realized then many of the villas for rent in Puerto Vallarta had the capacity to accommodate that many people (and in many cases, more). After looking at different options we decided that Casa Azul Profundo, a beautiful villa that overlooks the serene Bay in the Mismaloya area was our best shot. This house in nothing short of spectacular!

Once we secured the place, finding a wedding coordinator was our next mission. There were a lot of U.S.-based, destination wedding coordinators, but we thought that nobody could help us better to organize a wedding than a local coordinator. We wanted someone with local knowledge, with the capacity to give us several options for each type of amenity we needed, at a price that locals would pay, amigo. With a great recommendation we found DMC VALLARTA . The owner, Viviana Curel, was very helpful from the beginning. We contacted her about seven months before the wedding and explained to her what we wanted in terms of decoration, food, ambience, etc. We decided that every two weeks she was going to contact us to discuss alternatives so we could keep moving forward. For a period of 3-4 months we spoke every couple of weeks with her and we always felt like we were making significant progress. Two months before the wedding we had everything in place, including the chef, the menu, the drinks (including a barman), decoration, a DJ, a mariachi band, etc.

As the date approached and we knew exactly who was coming, we started to help our guests to find their accommodations. Since we were staying at the Villa where the event was taking place, renting other villas in the area was the most popular option among our guests as well. The comfort and privacy associated with staying at a villa sounded very attractive to most of them, not to mention that it was a better option in terms of price as well. We were able to get them villas at discounted rates; Casa Valparaiso and Villa los Arcos, 2 neighbor villas, were the most popular options. Other gusts stayed at local hotels and condos in the vicinity.

By Simon Marin, owner of The Caribbean Villas

For rates per bedroom very competitive with hotels and condos, you can enjoy your own private resort home complete with professional staff ; non-intrusive day employees who provide a comfortable mix of personalized service and privacy.

You will find there is no comparison to spending your long awaited holiday in a well appointed vacation home to a room with a bed.

At a villa you will enjoy:

A trained cook to cater to your fancy without having to do the grocery shopping or cleaning…

A butler to prepare drinks poolside in the evening as you watch sunset…

Catered dinner parties for your houseguests in the luxury of your own home…

The convenience of dining out only when you want to…at a villa you do not have to eat out every meal and you only pay for the groceries and tips; not restaurant prices….

Lounging in comfort with no schedules to meet…. At a hotel, you can only enjoy breakfast in your pajamas by ordering room service.

To ensure the success of your villa experience, contact Vacation Villas of Mexico. A professional villa specialist will guide you through the process, make educated recommendations based on your needs and budget and generally take the worry out of your planning.  

What you see is what you get in Puerto Vallarta, and that’s what we like most about it. There is not photoshopping or photos at awkwardly flattering angles. If we saw the Eiffel tower in a photo of a Puerto Vallarta beach, well, we’d expect there to be one jutting out from the sand, come our next visit; that’s how stoic its beaches are.

Although Puerto Vallarta already flaunts some pretty spectacular sights, like any scenario with the potential for competition, there are some that outshine others.

Destiladeras – A wide, white beach situated between the town of La Crus and Punta Mita (near Rancho Banderas). Along the shore are 2 or 3 restaurants. The crowd never gets too large and the waves are ideal for surfing and skimboarding.

Punta Mita – Home of two beaches; the beach at El Ancolte and the one at Emiliano Zapata. The specialty here is abnormally clear-blue water; generally calm and inviting. Although they are popular with the tourists, the beach never gets uncomfortably crowded.

Sayulita – The best place to surf in Puerto Vallarta. Features a large number of restaurants and a bordering community.

San Pancho (San Francisco) – The most striking beach of Puerto Vallarta. Excellent for walking, or just observing. The town that neighbors it is set in something of a Walt Whitman poem; it is sleepy and quaint.

The beaches of Puerto Vallarta are unlike those of Cabo, Cancun, or Miami. They are not stuffed to the brim with tourists or tourism. They prefer to be enjoyed and experienced, rather than accommodated or tolerated.

However, with the advancement of technology and the methodologies utilized to develop cutting edge websites, many of the Puerto Vallarta booking services have been left behind. Many still offer websites based off of FrontPage, a formerly widely used system for developing websites from Microsoft. The problem is, that this system is extremely outdated, obsolete, and worst of all opens visitors up to potential identity theft through the multiple security holes prevalent in the system. It also greets visitors with archaic web designs, and a navigation that is often hard to get through, if it even works at all in today’s modern browsers.

Enter, the new age of booking in Puerto Vallarta. One which utilizes the most modern of technologies and overcomes the poor security standard set by tour providers in Puerto Vallarta. Vallarta Discovery, one of Puerto Vallarta’s most modern booking services, offers a stream lined approach to booking tours online. The site offers a beautiful design that is pleasing aesthetically, as well as an intuitive navigation that allows for an extremely user friendly experience.

The checkout is also extremely useful, allowing you complete control over what you are purchasing. Not to mention the SSL (Secured Socket Layer) secured checkout processed by a world renown credit card processing system.

Enjoy Puerto Vallarta like never before: booking Puerto Vallarta Tours will never be the same.

“Vallarta’s Whale”, sculpted by Octavio Gonzalez, was born solely from observation and imagination.  Said one Gonzalez’s students, “Master Octavio has a tape measure in his eyes, lead in his forehead, and volume in his hands.”  The weight of the bronzed whale rests on a point whose surface measures less than one square meter; a homage to women as an essential point of balance in the family and a monumental signifier of Puerto Vallarta’s bustling art scene.

On January 31, 2008, Bridged and Brian Lott opened doors to Gallery Internacional in Vallarta Marina, showcasing a worldwide variety of art and attracting an endless crowd.  That night, in particular, the works of celebrated

Wandering from the night’s focal exhibit, I was given the opportunity to sample the Gallery’s other attractions; lending definition to the International name.  The collection spans the likes of Shona sculptures, stone carvings and basketry from

The night would eventually wane to memory to the music of Joe King Carrasco.  His unique style of “Nuevo Wavo-Surfer-Reggae” tranced a generous crowd, even enticing a few to dance along.  And so as the event neared its slated conclusion, people casually broke away and off elsewhere.  It was one of those situations where you don’t know everyone is leaving until you are the only one left.  I stuck around a little while longer, as though waiting for notification of a secret after-party or for the band to play one last song, but the doors closed and I was alone, walking back to my room at Melia Puerto Vallarta, engrained with a newfound understanding of the Puerto Vallarta Art Community’s passion.

About Gallery Internacional:

There is something to be said about someone who spends the first thirty years of their life in a field of science, only to devote the next thirty to art.  Not that she was unable to make up her mind, but that as she became enamored by something unfamiliar, she found it in her to drop what she was doing and dedicate all of her resources, and essentially a familiar life, to painting.

Bridged Lott, the Gallery’s curator that I speak of, expressed an exceptional pride in her sidelined status.  “I am so lucky,” said Bridged, “having lived in Africa and Europe and now in Canada and

What has the tourists that visited Cancun, traveling now to the drowsy little town of Puerto Vallarta?  Canopy

They have been called a “fun and enjoyable team,” in many of the reviews and it goes without saying that a tour is only as good as its guides’ experience and rapport.  They move you through each stage as though you were a family member—carefully, never rushed.The tour is about 4 hours in length and can be experienced by both the not-so adventurous as well as the adventurous.  While the latter participates in the thrills of fast paced zip lines and coming face-to-face with exotic animals; something a bit more tamed and relaxing can be had when you stay behind to enjoy waterslides and swimming, shopping at the tienda, eating at Pancho’s Last Resort restaurant, or sampling over 80 brands of tequila at the palapa bar.

There are a few elements to take into consideration, however, when considering Canopy Tours de los Veranos as apart of your vacation’s itinerary.

You will see a number of unique animal and plant species.

79 USD for adults.

58 USD for children 6-12.

20-25 USD for non-participants.

You should consider: a tshirt and shorts, a camera, bug repellant, and a swimsuit and towel.

The Canopy Tours’ first priority is the safety of their guests and equipment.

It is worth nothing that if you are entertaining the idea of adding the tour to your next vacation, you could benefit greatly from booking online to save 15 percent.  If there is one thing that “you must do” on your visit to Puerto Vallarta, make sure it’s the Canopy Tour; the only way to satisfy that hunger without bursting your budget.

read more | digg story