Our trip from Mazatlan to the Puerto Vallarta area started off with a big drama. We thought we had booked a screaming deal on a luxury resort for a week and were all set to kick back and relax when we arrived. Kim’s parents had very helpfully found this deal online for us, and even called the place to make sure they took dogs and ask other questions. So we figured it would be OK to get in a little late since we could check into our two bedroom luxury condo and relax.  We stopped in Sayulita, about 40 minutes north of our destination, for dinner since that’s one of the places we’re considering spending more time.  Then we drove on toward Puerto Vallarta to check in.  To start we went to the wrong place because there’s multiple places called “Luxury Resorts” and I had picked the wrong one on Google maps. By the time we figured that out it had gotten dark and begun to pour rain, so we ended up driving around in circles trying to find the correct place.  It turned out their sign was barely lit at all and wasn’t what we were expecting.  We finally followed the poor directions in our confirmation email and pulled up at the guard house to the place.  We told the guard we were looking for Luxury Resorts and had a reservation, and when he said Luxury Resorts were here we yelled for joy since everyone was ready to get out of the car.

However,then he said he didn’t know of any reservations and would have to call someone since he didn’t have keys to any of the places.  So he starts calling someone and it turns out the entire place is closed for renovations and they don’t know anything about our booking.  Kim gets on the phone with the lady managing the place and trying to figure out what in the world happened and what we can do while I frantically start trying to find a backup plan with the spotty mobile internet I can muster up.  Basically the lady on the phone says there’s nothing she can do, but she’ll try to figure something out and call us in the morning, which is basically code for tough shit, go somewhere else.  We at least get the lady to recommend a place that takes pets, but it’s 40 minutes away on the opposite side of Puerto Vallarta.  I call them to confirm that they have space and actually take pets, and we load everyone back into the car in the pouring rain.  Geneveve has started to cry a little since she can sense we’re obviously stressed out, but at least Xena went to sleep as it’s super late at this point.  On the way toward Puerto Vallarta I see a hotel, the Cactus Inn, and Kim looks it up online and asks if they take dogs.  They say no, but Kim says Ubu is very well behaved and we need a place right now.  I think her Spanish gets better under pressure, since she starts saying how Ubu isn’t noisy and very well behaved.  Finally they say, sure, come on over so I turn the car around and we check in.  Thank goodness, we found a place to pass out and it was only $750 pesos (less than $50 US). Turns out there’s a water slide to the pool so Geneveve is excited for tomorrow.

The next day the resort is absolutely no help and can’t find anything comparable for us, so we just end up getting a refund for the week.  We were expecting as much, but are pretty pissed that instead of having a luxurious home base for a week we’re back to finding a place.  While I take the kids to the pool to try out the kinda sketchy water slide, Kim finds some Airbnb stuff in Sayulita and figure we might as well go there to see if it’s somewhere we’d like to spend more time.  However we’re noticing nothing in Sayulita is cheap, and anything nice is going to cost hundreds of dollars a night.  So we’re booking something more modest as a base to start our research on the area and that’s where we are now.  We’ll have to do the relaxing, luxury week some other time, hopefully soon as moving around every few days is getting exhausting.