After much anticipation, reviewing every review on this site about the Westin Puerto Vallarta and weighing it against the Marriott, we selected the Westin in the end.
Part of the reason for our choice was that the pool area looked much more spread out and large, compared to the one huge pool at the Marriott.
I also wrote to the hotel and expressed some of the concerns I had read about on Tripadvior (one towel per guest at the pool, smelly rooms, and various other problems). Mr. Perez, Reservations Manager at the hotel was very accomodating and helpful! The hotel General Manager, Ms. Luna was equally helpful.
Before launching in to our review, let me state that we are fans of Starwood hotels in general and that our all-time favorite hotel (Laguna Nusa Dua Bali) is a Starwood property. We have also had a few really awful experiences at Starwood hotels (Four Points Sheraton LAX and Westin St. John come to mind).
Overall, we would rank this hotel as a solid four star property. Here's why:
We arrived slightly early (about 2PM) but our room was ready for us (no waiting as mentioned by some past reviews). Check-in was relatively efficient and quick. Peter, the door-man was as friendly and helpful as everyone has said! He always greeted us with a "Welcome home" (we thought maybe it was fake, but the more we watched him, the more we came to think that he may really be just that friendly!).
Upon entering our room, we were pleased! It was clean, the bath was spotless and fully stocked, and it appeared just as the photos present on the Starwood website! It was room 813. We made a special effort to communicate with Mr. Perez ahead of time to insure that we were housed in one of the recently refurbished rooms. And he delivered! While we know that there are problems that people can encounter at even the best hotels, we simply did not experience any such issues. As far as the room was concerned, it was exactly as promised!
The grounds were equally immaculate! We watched the staff power-wash the pool area yesterday, trim the bushes, etc. It was perfectly manicured! And the pool itself was spoltless...clean!
We also did not notice any real signs of wear on the hotel itself. The elevator appeared modern, clean and in good working order, public spaces were spotless, etc. They use lots of tile both indoors and out. It rained a lot while we were there, and these floors are EXTREMELY slippery (in fact, we each slipped and almost fell each and every day!). Be very careful!
Here's where we become a little critical of a few things about this particular hotel.
As people have previously mentioned, prices are simply outrageous, even for a Westin, W, or St. Regis hotel! We know from our travels that nice hotels contain nice (aka, expensive) restaurants. But nothing quite prepared us for this. Here's the breakdown:
1. Breakfast buffet...$23 per person. This is not an unheard of price. But the food quality on the "Americanized" food was pretty bad (extremly greasy!!). The Mexican dishes were quite good, however. So, this was kind of a mixed-bag.
2. Lunch/dinner at the same restaurant was just a bit much. We usually had between the two of us, one hamburger, bowl of soup, and soda. Bill....$55-60!
3. Our least favorite experience was at the hotel's Nikki Beach restaurant. The ambiance was actually quite nice! Like other areas of the hotel, it was clean, orderly, and in good condition. I ordered a Sprite and chicken stir fry. My partner ordered "surf and turf" a water,and a drink. We split a chocolate cake. Bill....$122. The food was not horrible here, but it was not that great either (something a little nicer than Coco's or slightly higher quality, but not horribly different food quality). Again, it just didn't merit the rates charged.
But the thing that angered me more than anything else on this entire trip was that our waiter forced his tip on to the bill! Let me be clear. He drew a line through the "propina/tip" line, and tacked on $20US to the total. He didn't ask...he simply "told us" that the tip was added in. I think the thing that irritated and angered me most about this was the dishonesty involved, and the fact that we were VERY generous tippers in every way (maid, wait staff, etc). Needless to say, we didn't return.
Other fees that simply are unjustified in our opinion is a $2.30 for local call charge, a fee of $7.50 to use the hotel's own gym (I don't think I've ever stayed at any hotel and been charged a fee to use the gym my room rate should cover), $4.50 for the single bottle of water (we got larger bottles across the street at OXXO for 0.60 cents!), etc. The most outrageous was the $4.60 fee to access a TOLL FREE telephone number within Mexico! Unfortunately, this leaves us feeling that the Westin is looking for any way to make a buck, even if there is no real justification for it.
Much less difficult to take, but something we wish we had been informed of is that one of the pools is closed for what appears to be resurfacing. It would have been nice if we would have been told that. I know that on the Hilton website or Marriott, they will often tell you that sort of information. We did spend some of our time on the balcony, watching the world go by. One of the things we observed were the workers in the pool. Given the volume of work going on down there, I would expect that it won't be completed until next year.
Also, we are a couple who were hoping for at least some quite time at the pool. There was no such thing. Screaming kids running all over. Parents who really didn't seem to care all that much (lets be clear here....this is a parenting issue and not the hotel's fault). But most annoying was that there was suppose to be an adult pool, but each had screaming kids in them (including the one with the swim-up bar). No one seemed to care (something that the hotel can excercise some control over).
So in summary, this is a very nice hotel. We had a fabulous room, we found all of the staff to be friendly and helpful. Everything was immaculately kept. When our a/c stopped working on the last day, we called and maintenance was in our room within 5 minutes and fixed the problem. All of the staff were equally attentive, warm, and seemed to enjoy their work.
The down side though has to be the food prices! In order to justify the food quality, the rates really do need to be slashed 40-60% in total cost! The gym fee needs to be eliminated. Etc.
The way around this is to dine out! We did eat at the famous Victor's and very much enjoyed it! Breakfast was around $21 and dinner was around $33 (best chicken tacos I've had in a while). We stumbled on a place further down the marina (about a five minute walk from Victors) called Tikul. It was elegant, the staff were top-notch, and the food was out-of-this-world!! I literally have never had Chilean sea bass that had the texture of butter. We loved it so much we returned two nights later and tried entirely different dishes, and they too were equally well prepared. We HIGHLY recommend this restaurant! Dinner was around $80-100 for food, but unlike the hotel's restaurants, this place warrants the price!!
Are we in a hurry to return to PV? Probably not. Would we stay in this hotel again if we had to stay in that part of town (which by the way is 30 minutes from the center of PV)? Probably. Are the rooms and grounds worth the price? Sure! Is the food quality good with matching prices? Definately not! Does the hotel appear to try to take it's guests "for a ride" (financially) every chance it gets? Pretty much.

I think the hotel has a lot higher opinion of itself than I do. They boast about having these amenities that "refresh the body and soul", but in my mind, I think it would be best if they focused on some very basic things first. For one, the beds are too small. My wife and I are not big people, but we were not comfortable in those small beds. Further, the beds are hard, which, night after night, takes away from whole experience. The air-conditioner makes noise. The food in the restaurants was okay, but sometimes we had to wait around for it for more than an hour. At the Nikki Beach restaurant, we waited about an hour and a half for our salads. The pools are nice, but one of them was being remodeled. So as soon as the sun comes up, you can hear the workmen banging away at it. Boy, that's relaxing! The stone floors were not the cleanest, and echo everything. The Royal Beach club, that has the happy hour and breakfast, it is okay too, but the buffet is pretty limited. .

I recently stayed at the Westin Puerto Vallarta over the 4th of July Holidays. I have high standards for the Westin and did quite a bit of research on the hotel before going. I had booked a package deal through Orbitz for a flight and hotel. It was quite a good deal putting the room below $100 including taxes! We had booked a Deluxe Room with Ocean View. If you look at the rooms online, they are quite nice and updated with flat screens...... When we arrived we were given a room that was not updated. The room smelled terrible (moldy and wet), the floor was dirty, a towel was dirty, the robe had something red on it, the headboard to the bed had what appeared to be mold, and it was just a run down room. The room number was 600 something. I called the front desk to ask if we could be changed to an updated room. I was transferred three times and then told they would check and call right back. They called back half hour later saying no, so I asked to be put on the waiting list for a new updated room. They said they would call back. After 45 minutes of no call back, I went to the front desk. They then gave me an updated room. It is a huge difference. It was clean, smelled good, and everything in the room is updated and modern. It was room number 700 something. The moral of that story is to get and updated room and if they don't give it to you originally - push to get one. There is a huge difference and it makes the hotel a lot better. I by no means expect perfection from hotel rooms, but there is such a drastic difference.

As far as location - everything is easy to get to by bus and it picks up right outside the hotel. Some people complained of music from Nikki Beach. They no longer have loud music pumping out of there and the Nikki Beach restaurant is moving relatively soon. The music is no longer a problem. We did eat dinner at the restaurant and it was very good and the service was great.

The only other thing I would avoid/suggest is to avoid the Bahia Alegre snorkle tour. It is a new tour company. You snorkle for maybe 25 minutes and don't see many fish. They then take you to a terrible beach. I would recommend the Canopy tour by Canopy Los Veranos. Great time if interested in canopy tours. You can book Canopy Los Veranos through the Westin.

I am on my 6th day at the Westin in Puerto Vallarta and cannot wait to leave tomorrow. There is construction all around and the rooms provide absolutely no protection against all the noise from neighboring cranes and jackhammers - which isn't much appreciated at 7 in the morning. Aside from the construction noise is the constant screaming by the DJ at the pool. This starts around noon and carries on throughout the day. The disco music is so loud that you cannot escape it even when in your room. The pool itself is full of families with infants who do not have the benefit of wearing diapers, so you can guess what bacteria inhabits the pool. The one "quiet" pool is closed for construction - which is part of what you hear all day. Should you go to the small, dirty beach - plenty of empty cans and bottles laying around - you can plan on being bothered by locals trying to get you to buy their junk.

I have travelled many places in the world and stayed at a variety of resorts, but this by far is the worst.