Found these 2001 Renaissance Festival pictures of Mandy on an old hard drive.
 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 3:34 PM 0 comments

 

Found these 2001 Renaissance Festival pictures of Mandy on an old hard drive.
 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 3:34 PM 0 comments

 

Found these 2001 Renaissance Festival pictures of Mandy on an old hard drive.
 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 3:34 PM 0 comments

 

Found these 2001 Renaissance Festival pictures of Mandy on an old hard drive.
 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 3:34 PM 0 comments

 

Found these 2001 Renaissance Festival pictures of Mandy on an old hard drive.
 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 3:33 PM 0 comments

 

Found these 2001 Renaissance Festival pictures of Mandy on an old hard drive. 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 3:33 PM 0 comments

 

Another view from our hotel room. You can see the rain coming in the distance. 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 9:44 AM 0 comments

 

Another shot from the hallway out front. Pretty mountainous jungle area here. Reminds me a bit of Dominica. 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 9:42 AM 0 comments

 

A view from the front of the hotel. Its actually taken from the hallway outside of our room. 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 9:38 AM 0 comments

 
PV Sunday
Well, it was a bit rainy on Sunday so I did not get to take many photos. I did take a couple, but I haven't transfered them from my camera yet. I'll do that later today.

They have several restaurants here.

The first one we ate at was a buffet for lunch. It was not bad. Drink service was slow though. I didn't get a drink until after I had finished.

We had dinner the first night at Oceana, a seafood restaurant. I had tenderloin and shrimp. Again, the food was good but service was slow, both for drinks and for bringing out the courses. Teresa actually ordered a salad and never got it.

For lunch the next day we ate at the Seaside Grill. They open at 11am, we arrived around 1pm. Teresa ordered the Pizza, and they said they didn't have them made yet, so she switched to the Panini sandwich. Our food came out, and the Panini was just a regular sandwich. Meanwhile the guy beside us got a pizza! I ordered an appetizer "deep fried Jalepeno filled with Queso served with a side of tomato sauce". It came without the tomato sauce. I asked if I could have the tomato sauce, and they said to use the ketchup. Weird. For my main meal I ordered a "steak sandwich with melted cheese smothered in grilled onions, mushrooms, and peppers". It came out as a long steak you might get on a philly cheesesteak, only served on a hamburger bun. There was sliced onion, but no mushrooms or peppers, and no cheese to be found. I just took the steak out of the bun and ate it like that. The Seaside Grill was a bit disappointing to me, no idea why Teresa liked it.

Then for dinner yesterday we went to El Patio, which is their mexican restaurant. I think we should have started there. I thought everything was excellent. They had a good kid's menu for Mandy, and the food was very good. I ordered Grilled chicken with Adobo sauce, but I no longer expect anything to come out the way they say. There was no Adobo sauce, more of a rub. It was tasty though.

Anyway, we are switching rooms today to see what the suites are like. I'll write about that tonight. Mandy has discovered the "Kid's Club" and won't spend time with us anymore! She's off playing there most of the day. I think on Tuesday we'll do a swim with the dolphins tour. She'll like that.
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 9:16 AM 0 comments

 

"Dreams" has two towers, the old and the new. We were supposed to be in the new tower, but ended up in the old one. This is the new tower with some Mexican scenery in the background, taken from our hotel room. 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 9:00 PM 0 comments

 

Looks like the new image system didn't work. Here is Mandy on the beach taken with my camera zoom. 
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 8:55 PM 0 comments

 
Puerto Vallarta "Dreams" - Day 1
We arrived at our hotel "Dreams" last night at about 2am. The flight kept moving back and back until it finally left at about 10pm. The director of the transportation and tour company Teresa had lined up to meet us was there as planned, and was very friendly. She had one of her drivers take us to our hotel.

The hotel though did not have our reservations. I should say that eventually the clerk found the reservations but they had us arriving on Jun 13, when we are actually leaving. That was not fun. We ended up in a room with two double beds, no balcony. Originally we were supposed to get a Junior Suite with a balcony and in-room jacuzzi. Oh well. The room is not bad, just not what was expected. I get the feeling they are not being totally honest with us -- they say there are no suites available but the reservation systems that Teresa uses say there is plenty of availability. The hotel is nowhere near full here, it is off-season.

Anyhow, it was a late night and Teresa got up early to speak to the person who she originally arranged things with. They said they'd move us into a suite on Monday. Honestly, it doesn't matter to Mandy or I, but Teresa is supposed to be evaluating this hotel for a group reservation one of her larger corporate clients are preparing for in December. The hotel knows this and should be putting their best foot forward. If that's their best foot, I'd hate to see the bad one.

So this morning Teresa and Mandy went and got breakfast, and then they went to laze around on the beach. I lazed around in the hotel room until noon. Then Teresa took an afternoon nap and Mandy and I went to the beach and the pools. The grounds are very nice here, pools are nice, hotel is generally well done in my opinion. The food and service have been decent. Its different for everything to be free -- food, drinks, etc. Beach is beautiful. I haven't seen much outside of the resort, so I can't say much about my first "real" trip to Mexico (every other time was just a day trip on a cruise ship). One thing, a lot of reviews I read said the beds were hard. They weren't kidding. But I like the bed firm, so its good for me.

Attached a couple of pictures that I snapped from the 9th floor hotel room window. Haven't been much of a shutterbug today. Maybe I'll get some good scenery pics tomorrow.

I'm trying the new image system at blogger, so I'm not sure how they will look. Hopefully okay.
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 8:35 PM 0 comments

 
Dallas
We safely landed in Dallas. I'm at the gate area waiting. Our aircraft had an issue, so they're fetching a new one. Looks like the flight may be delayed as a result. We're currently supposed to get into PV at 10:30pm local time (which must be pacific), so now it might be even later.

Mandy is doing a great job travelling. I think she's finally at the stage where she can handle sitting still for a couple hours without driving everyone crazy ;)

I'll post photos and text either from my phone or my computer over the next five days just for fun. Stay tuned!
- posted by Tim Stewart @ 5:28 PM 0 comments

 
Flight to Puerto Vallarta

Snapped in the airport parking lot in Killeen. We fly through Dallas to PV

- posted by Tim Stewart @ 2:10 PM 0 comments