A Relaxing Vacation or an Exploration Vacation? Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

My husband and I have this debate all the time…

Do you prefer a relaxing vacation or an exploration one?

My husband is team relaxation all the way. Give him a pool deck or beach and a tropical location for two weeks and he’s in heaven…

I, on the other hand, can only “relax” for so long. I much prefer the kind of vacation where you get to explore and learn new things. I love to walk around and see things. I love finding beautiful hikes and landscapes, I love beautiful buildings and I love history and culture.

So you can understand why we always have so much trouble picking vacations… He wants to lie on a beach and do nothing and I want to do EVERYTHING.

But we do eventually select a vacation and we pretty evenly split relaxing and exploring.

Our first real relaxation vacation was to Peurto Vallarta, Mexico (or just outside). We stayed at the Grand Palladium all-inclusive resort.

Panorama photo taken of the beautiful Grand Palladium resort in Mexico with the ocean and beach in the background

Photo taken by Scott Hennessey

We loved this trip because it was our first trip together out of Canada and the trip we realized we actually loved travelling together. I had taken a big international trip in 2014 to Scotland and absolutely fell in love with travelling. The freedom, the sense of adventure, the new sights and experiences, all of it. My husband had been all over Canada and to parts of the US but nothing past that. And we had never gone out of the country together.

To us this was thrilling and full of excitement and honestly this trip and the resort did not disappoint.

The Grand Palladium was a bit pricy (although we got an incredible deal on Expedia!) but it was well worth the price (especially after comparing to another all-inclusive in Mexico years later).

There are some great excursions you can take in Mexico but for the most part Mexico counts as a relaxation vacation, especially this trip as we did not do any excursions.

We accidentally were conned into doing a timeshare presentation that took all day and they did not hold up their end of the bargain. We ended up losing a whole day and we were a bit uneasy about leaving the resort again. We talked about an excursion but we ended up being happy just staying there.

Me looking out at the beautiful beach and ocean

Photo taken on iPhone 6

We arrived in the late afternoon/evening so we just took some time to really take in that we were in Mexico, an incredibly beautiful place. It really took our breath away. We also explored a little bit (we like to acquaint ourselves with the resort). I recommend doing this whenever you travel somewhere like Mexico. Find the food places, the pools, the routes to the different places you’ll want to go, the entertainment (and figure out what entertainment is) and look to see if they have in resort activities.

This particular resort had incredible nightly entertainment, fairly tame, just shows and such in an outdoor theatre. They also had a great schedule of activities you could do. We chose archery, salsa lessons, a trampoline exercise, beach volleyball and I did some pool deck yoga. They also had an assortment of other activities you could do on your own such as, tennis (which we did at the hottest part of the day… mistake!) and my husband tried snorkling.

Photos taken on iPhone 6

The one reason I like relaxing vacations is that it feels a lot more casual and less time constrained.

You can make plans and change them quite easily (except for the excursions you should stick with those timings) but if you choose not to do an activity and just lying on the pool deck instead you’re free to do that. While an exploration vacation feels a lot more rigid with timings. If you’re going to explore a certain city that day it’s harder to reschedule because there is often so much to do and see.

I also did enjoy having more free time to just sit and read and less time being spent on my phone. Unplugging from the “real world” was a really amazing benefit. I do not get a SIM card when we stay at a resort like this.

Reasons why my husband loves relaxing vacations… He can literally do nothing and it’s the best thing he can imagine.

Since this was our first time in Mexico and an all-inclusive we didn’t really know what to expect but if we had expectations it would have blown ours out of the water. It was an incredible first experience.

As someone with a lot of food allergies and restrictions, I was completely comfortable and taken care of. A travel agent told me just to let them know about my allergies and they could walk me through and that was accurate. At this particular resort, they had a huge variety as well. They had different stations in their buffet such as a breakfast bar and a separate egg station where they cooked your eggs from scratch, there was a salad bar, a fruit station, a pasta bar, a meat station, a Mexican food station and more. They also had an incredible dessert station! They also had other restaurants that you could reserve a time for as well as a snack shack for alternate times of the day if you got hungry - we always did!

Oh, and don’t forget the fabulous 24/7 Room Service… A personal fave!

Photos taken on iPhone 6

A few things we did not expect:

Which ended up being some of our favourites…

The resort randomly had a crocodile at the front. We decided he was our pet. We visited him a couple of times a day, each day we were there. I had never seen a crocodile in “real life” before so this felt like such a novelty.

On top of that, they also had a Zoo in the resort. Just a small one but it was kind of fun to see something so different. They used it as a sanctuary/rescue for the animals and they had caretakers looking after them.

Photos taken on iPhone 6

Another unexpected thing that we ended up loving was the Hemingway Bar. Surprisingly not that busy. It was a little indoor bar near the entrance of the resort (and our crocodile friend - we always visited before heading into the Hemingway Bar). It was a nice relaxed atmosphere with games and comfy chairs and we made friends with the bartender Martin (pronounced Mar-teen).

We loved coming here after dinner when we didn’t want to go to the pool while we waited for the nightly entertainment. Scott and I enjoyed many games (in which we were far too competitive) and used it as a time to just talk without being distracted by screens and other things we had at home.

I think some of my favourite moments were spent here.

Photo of husband taken on iPhone 6. Photo of me taken on some kind of Samsung phone.

We also loved that this particular resort had an adult-only pool. We realized how much of a luxury that was when we later went to another resort and they did not have one. This resort had a kids club (which honestly looked like so much I kind of wanted to join in. The kids were able to go play in a rec room type of environment with so many amazingly cool things. But you’d also always see the kids club going around the resort on adventures with the staff. It’s like the coolest summer camp you’ve ever seen).

But many of the pools ended up being so busy and crowded with kids it was hard to read and relax and often the kids would splash water on the deck. It was great that they were having fun but I can say it was nice to have an adults-only pool so that the main sounds you hear were the sounds of the waves lapping over themselves.

Finally, the best recommendation I could give you if you’re choosing an all-inclusive for your relaxing vacation…

Find a resort that has a good spa.

No seriously…

Look online to see if the resort you’re looking at has a spa and if it does go check out some of the reviews. We ended up having two massages each in the 7 days we were there and they were amazing. Some of the best massages we had ever had.

And what we particularly loved about getting those massages is it then gave us access to the spa’s relaxing personal pool. We were the only ones when it went. The noise of the resort was blocked out, there was relaxing music and a waterfall, the temperature of the water was perfect and there were amazing chairs and beds if you wanted. There was also no time limit for how long you could stay.

No phones or cameras were allowed so there are no photos. Those memories simply live in our heads.

While my preference is exploration vacations I think relaxing vacations definitely have a place. I enjoyed Puerto Vallarta and The Grand Palladium resort.

Staying at an all-inclusive where food and everything was included was an incredible way to go. All of the cost was in one and with an incredible Expedia deal it made this vacation one of my all-time faves!

So let me ask you?…

Are you team relaxation or team exploration?