Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo Questions

[mattsey9]

Anybody ever been there that would be willing to share their experiences? I'm going there for a week in November and would like to know if anyone can offer any restaurant recommendations. Also we're looking to spend a day fishing down there and would appreciate a good referral for a chartered boat. I've done the on-line research, but would appreciate any hidden insights that anyone could provide.

Thanks!

[Wad]

My wife and I along with another couple spent a week there in February of 2005. While I can't help you with any suggestions to charter a fishing boat, I will share the experience we had there.

I don't know your age so I'm not sure what you might expect in Ixtapa. The age range of our group was 34-39 and we enjoyed it immensely. There's not a lot of college age kids around, even at the bars we went to, although that could be because of the time of year too. It seems to be geared towards a middle aged crowd.

Our vacation was a one week all inclusive which is definitely the way to go. We stayed at the Costa Real Hotel. The rooms were decent enough sized and reasonably clean and comfortable. Great breakfast buffet in the morning with plenty of choices for both Mexican and American foods. The restaurants in the hotel also had plenty of menu choices and the food was good to excellent. They also had a burger and taco bar out by the pool in the afternoons.

As for other activities, there's always something to do, day or night. Parasailing was available on the beach for $20, skydiving for about $150. You could also get an hour long massage from cute little Mexican girls for about $25. We also took a tour to Ixtapa island to go snorkeling. Lunch and a beer was included and was about $15 a person. About a quarter mile from our hotel you could go swimming with the dolphins in a pool for about $120. You're in the pool with them for about 45 minutes or so. There's a couple of golf courses nearby also. Contrary to what most of the hotel websites say, you really can't swim in the ocean right off the back of the strip of hotels unless you are a very good swimmer. Signs were up at the back of every hotel warning of this. The ocean was pretty rough and drops off quickly.

We took a cab ride ($4.00) over to Zihuatanejo for a day and browsed the various shops and whatnot.

As for nightlife, plenty to choose from. We went to Carlos & Charlie's a few nights and while it was busy, it was never overly crowded. Senor Frog's was more the place to be, one of the nights we were there I don't remember how we got back to our hotel. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

There's good food everywhere, I would recommend Bogart's which was right next door to our hotel. Another place was Mama Norma's, I think it was near Senor Frog's. I don't eat seafood so I had a steak which was excellent and the rest of the group I was with loved the various seafood they had there. Emilios' Pizza was good too, a couple of us had pizza but they also had awesome ribs.

All in all we had a great time, I would recommend it to anyone. I'll try to post a few pictures later if I can.

[mattsey9]

Thanks for the update. We are roughly the same age as you are, so the information will come in handy.

Mattsey9