I absolutely loved the Palladium Vallarta. The location was breathtaking, the staff were very friendly, the beach was amazing, the food was good, and our room was beautiful. I have nothing but great things to say about this hotel and I would go back in a minute.

Spent a week at this place. I had been to Puerto Vallarta a few times before (going back to 1975) and had no interest in seeing the town again. That is why this hotel's location is fantastic. Set in a jungle local it seems more like Costa Rica than Mexico. The grounds are superb, and the small beach coves are great - no vendors, and beautiful warm water.
The buffet food was not great. We were at the El Cid in Mazatlan in March and this place rates a distant second place. However the a la carte restaurants are quite good here - though you need to watch out for the dress code (long pants only for men).
The place is rather spread out so you will be walking quite a bit. Definitely not for the sedentary.
No problems with the staff - quite friendly.
If you want to eat out, Bucerias is a town about 15 minutes away on the bus, which passes by the main road (about 200 meters from the hotel) every 15 minutes or so (only about 15 pesos or a buck fifty). The taxis will ding you for about fifteen bucks each way. There are stores there and some half decent resaturants and bars.
If you want to take a lot of tours you should take care though. Most tours don't pick you up from the hotel, and you will need to taxi out to get to them - this will add to the cost.
All in all, if you want to get a way from it all, this might be the place for you. If you're looking for a lot of town nightlife, bring lots of money, because the cab is going to run you sixty dollars return to Puerto Vallarta.

When we were looking at the Palladium Resort for our vacation, I read alot of reviews myself and found them to be very helpful. I must have read a dozen or more reviews that reccomended upgrading to the Punta Minta section of the resort. Upon talking to our travel agent, she insisted that was not neccesary and was a waste of money. What we found out after we arrived was that the travel agent was not able to book us at the Punta Minta due to her connections with the booking agency. Our travel agent also reccomended this resort over others that we were looking at because she said that there would be very few Mexican nationals vacationing here. Upon arriving at the resort lobby we were shocked to walk into a sea of Mexican nationals!! It was at least 99% (NO EXAGERATION)
It was like a zoo in there. Hundreds of little kids running around all over the place and the swimming pool was so crowded that you wouldn't of even been able to get in without bumping into several people. It was loud and in no way relaxing!!
We were forced to stay on that side of the resort for the first night, but were able (and lucky) to transfer over to the Punta Minta for the rest of our trip. It cost us an additional $20 per person, per night, but was more than worth the extra cost !!!! The Punta Minta area has its own restaurant and pool and was awesome compared to the other side. The staff was outstanding at all the restaurants and the rooms were kept very clean. The pool was never crowded and it was so relaxing at the beach and the pool.
My reccomendation would be to not trust the travel agent if they try to get you to do anything other than stay in the Punta Minta section.

It's sad how such a beautiful hotel, in such a spectacular site can has such BAD SERVICE. I blame mostly management and their lack of proper communications with the guests. The actual worker were good. The location is in a secluded beach about 45 minute north of Puerto Vallarta. The beach was great, and the "regular" rooms were O.K.. If you are going, make sure you stay in their "Royal Suites" (for adults only) - much better service and the ability to make reservations in their specialty restaurants. I can't begin to tell you how bad things are there since the first day we got there to the time we checked out (three nights, four days) at a cost of $2,200.00 US dollars for my family of 6 adults, 3 children. in terms of the cost, it's not bad if you factor in the food and drinks. However, they had stricted dress code policies (which were not told to us until we got kick out of their restaurants). They state "adequate atire", for a beach resort, it's interesting how they interpret that. Also, only the "Royal Suite" guests could make reservations in the fancy restaurants, but noone told us that, so good luck getting seated - I guess they really want you to eat at their buffet, three meals a day while you're there. The lights went out for four hours, no air conditioning at night. Then the next day, the water went out in the entire hotel for 8 hours. Pools close at 8:00 pm (way too early for a summer beach resort. Except the adult pool closes at midnight - NO KIDS! I complained all the way up to the general manager to no avail. They just don't care, they figured they've got your money already. I WILL NEVER GO BACK. Try Marival's in Nuevo Vallarta or Dream, much, much better service!