Decameron Isla Coral

7 couples in total so 14 of us. Breakfast was always great, lunch okay and suppers iffy. You do not have to upgrade to Oceanview and pay extra as what you see is what you get. Very clean resort, only a select few speck English. The town is right outside the door, very safe & friendly. We mostly hung out by the beach, boogie boarded everyday and walked the beach. It was a very nice vacation to just relax. The peddlers did get annoying after a few days but we just kept saying no thank-you.

We are from Canada and booked this resort very last minute (just a week before we left) for our “babymoon.” We paid $2,200 each for the week which was a bit pricey for what you get, but maybe you can find cheaper pricing if you book far enough in advance. I would say this resort is probably worth spending around $1,800 for the week. The hotel is about an hour and a half ride on the bus from the airport in PVR and is mostly on a windy road. If you get car sick, this drive won’t be a good idea for you. We were torn between which of the three resorts to choose from, and I’m glad we went with Isla Coral as it was the smallest resort and the beach area was the quietest. The Marina had the exact same layout. Los Cocos seems to be a different style/layout but is not on the beach (you have to walk across the street). Arrival: We didn’t realize that there was a time change from Puerto Vallarta - the time is an hour behind. Not a huge deal but good to know! Most of the staff don’t speak English, so there is a language barrier. We got checked in but nothing was explained to us. We were simply provided our ID, got our room keys and a brochure and were left to our own devices. Food: We checked out the buffets at all 3 locations and everything was the same. The only difference between the food at the different resorts (aside from the speciality restaurants) was that Los Cocos had an official snack bar - but you can get the same burgers etc at the buffets. Buffets were good, but pretty basic. The food was good quality and we didn’t get sick, it was just repetitive. We did have two Mexican themed nights which were the best. We tried to get into the steakhouse speciality restaurant but it seemed to be closed everyday. We now think that it was only opened on Fridays, maybe Saturdays? The problems were that 1) we weren’t advised at check in of the dates the speciality restaurants were open - it seems they weren’t all open everyday 2) you have to go to the front desk at 9am in the morning to reserve a speciality restaurant, which we weren’t told about. We just got lucky one day when I went to ask about the restaurant booking procedure as the Marina was open that evening and still had a spot open for the evening and they let us book it. We aren’t big seafood fans, so we only ended up trying one speciality restaurant at the Marina called the El Dorado (Mediterranean), which was decent enough. You get access to an app where you are supposed to be able to book the seafood restaurant at Los Isla but it didn’t work for us. I would venture out for some food as the buffet gets repetitive and boring. Also, the drip coffee at the buffet was pretty weak, and there is a cappuccino machine hiding in the back of the speciality restaurant area but was pretty nasty tasting coffee. Here are some off resort recommendations, all within 10 minutes walking distance from the resort: #1 Juan's Place - actually so good. You must go here. On the beach. Cash only. #2 Toni

Accomadations were adequate, clean, and well maintain. Angelita, a server in the restaurant was always friendly, helpful, and attentive to our food service, filling refreshments and clearing the table when and as needed. Jorge, the bartender, mainly on the second level bar and occasionally at the bar across from the dining hall, was always cheerful, helpful, and willing to assist us to learn Spanish words and phrases. Both employees are a credit to the resort and raised our evaluation of the resort overall. We can't wait to return soon to the resort in part to see them.

Very few resort staff speak English food in buffet is redundant day after day only good was meeting Bitia and Cameron both have excellent service and went out of their way to be helpful this hotel needs a major upgrade to make it a 2 star the activities are all in Spanish and not geared to their customer base music loud all day and more geared to rap vs relaxing.

We just got back from The Decameron Isla Coral. Let me start by saying the staff were lovely, although most had very little English. I was not bothered by that as I have very little Spanish and I was in there country after all. The hotel was clean as was our room. The bed had a rubber mat under the sheets and the pillows had a rubber slip cover over them which were very uncomfortable. We took them off and fortunately the maid did not put them back on. The bottom sheet wasn’t fitted but it was a queen size on a king size bed and did not cover the whole mattress! Weird….. Breakfast was decent if you got the omelette lady to cook your eggs. They had 2 different women cooking, one was great, the other was so slow that I never bothered and made do with fresh fruit and toast. Coffee was not great. It goes downhill from there. I realize this is a 3 star hotel so I’m not expecting beef filet and shrimp, but I was expecting hot edible food. Most was cold or just warm, meat was over cooked or tenderized to the max. Salad bar was ok but some days didn’t include lettuce. They were slow to replenish empty dishes. Food was sub par and very disappointing. It was advertised as having 2 a La carte restaurants. That’s laughable. The bar tables turned into restaurant tables with some table cloths and fancy napkins. We were told it was open on mondays and Thursday. I tried to book it and they changed the dates to sundays and mondays. As it turned out we saw it dressed up as a restaurant 3 times in 2 weeks. Beer was good and cold, white wine was just ok red was drinkable. They had all the usual blended drinks but no grapefruit or cranberry juice for mix. It was advertised that they had yoga, water aerobics, Zumba, and dance lessons. None of these were available. I complained to the west jet rep how disappointed I was and they would have moved us to the Decameron in Bucerias or the samba but with a cancellation fee, a new reservation fee and transfer fees. As we had already spent $4500. On this holiday we declined and stuck it out. The pictures of the hotel are accurate. I don’t blame the staff as they tried their best, I blame westjet for not doing their job by rating this hotel appropriately. Location is good. Beach is great. Lounge chairs were covered in bird poop. They finally washed them the second week after complaints .

This was our first visit back to Rincón de Guayabitos in 4 years. We had previously stayed at a Royal DeCameron all inclusive resort in Bucerias, so my expectations were initially low. However, the Royal DeCameron Isla Coral certainly exceeded all expectations. We booked our 7 day trip through WestJet Vacations and the 4.5 hour flight from Regina to Puerto Vallarta went off without any delay or hiccups. The airport in PV was a breeze as we were the only flight to arrive. Once we retrieved our luggage, we scooted through the “shark tank” to locate our transport which was waiting outside the terminal for us, The only problem was the representative told the cab driver to take us to the RDC Los Cocos. Thankfully we had been in the area before and identified right away that the cab driver was going to the wrong resort. I directed the cabbie to our resort, because he was not familiar with the area. Disaster averted, no harm no foul. Room: We had a room on the 7th floor with a king sized bed. The bed was super comfortable. The shower had hot water for our entire stay. The TV had a couple of English channels. The free wifi worked well, except it seemed like you had to sign in every time you turned on your device. All the rooms balconies face inwards towards the pool which was a bit noisy during the day. The latch on our balcony door was malfunctioning and you could not keep it from locking so it was imperative that you did not shut it behind you while on the balcony. There was also three roosters on the property beside the resort that loved to start crowing at 0400 hours every morning. Buffet: We were really impressed with the quality of the food at the buffet. The lady making omelettes for breakfast was awesome and there was even bacon available. There was always lots of fresh fruit with a really varied selection. Each night there was a different theme night for dinner, the Chinese night was really good. Overall, the food at the buffet was excellent. Snack Bar: The food at the snack bar (hamburger’s, hotdogs, chicken nuggets and french fries) was quite good. My only complaint is that the invasion of pigeons was really annoying to the point of not wanting to sit in the snack bar. Housekeeping: The housekeeping service was touch and go. Most days if our room was not cleaned by 1500 hours we simply just got clean towels and other toiletries from the housekeeper. Overall we really enjoyed our stay at RDC Isla Coral. The staff really worked hard to make sure that we enjoyed our stay. Highly Recommended!