My friends and I really wanted an inexpensive all-inclusive get away at a decent place, and this place for really great for the money. The hotel is small so getting from room to the beach is GREAT. The rooms are highly lack-luster, but fortunately we were not in our rooms very much. Food was awesome, pool & grounds were great, and access to the beach was great.

Our main desires for the trip were beach, pool, drinks & grub, & this place delivered highly on these things so that I would very much go back for a quick weekend trip.

HOWEVER, a few things to note:

As other travelers have noted, the beds are hard. I personally don't mind a hard bed, but the bed at this hotel was by far the hardest bed I had ever slept on. The rooms were really clean, but there is very much a bleachy smell when they are cleaning. As for the decor and set up of the room, I have stayed at Comfort Inns & Motel 6's that are nicer, with the exception that they put really nice towel creations on your bed each day.

With the exception of the conceirge/tour booking people, the staff is really great. The lady and the bald man that work the booking are obnoxious. The lady greeted us and seemed like we were being warmly welcomed and shown the grounds, but instead she walked us to a desk and harassed us about buying some other trip deal and followed that with non-stop pressure about booking some day trip with her, after us repeating that we were not interested and just wanted to get to our rooms. We escaped to our rooms and when we went back out to the bar, she came back with this bald guy and they started in on us again. It was beyond aggravating, but thankfully the rest of the staff were so nice, it ended up not ruining our trip. Interesting enough, we walked past these two people several time over the course of our trip and they completely ignored us after that first encounter...which was GOOD.

Besides that, everyone else working there is really great. All of the wait staff is great & I was so amazed with how good the food was. The resort was really empty the last day we were there, so they had an al a carte menu to order from instead of the buffet at the main restaraunt, but there were still lots of options & all of the food was great.

We really appreciated the bartender, Jose, all of the activities staff & had a great pool side waiter, Salvador.

This place is not near town, and the taxi ride back was considerably more than the trip to town, but the beach was soo nice & is very close to Bucerias where there was tons of great little shops to pick up gifts. We walked down and cabbed back. The cab back was $7 and the walk there was about 45 mins to an hour. There are really good deals to be had in Bucerias where you can barter on the price.

The trip into town was about $18 from the hotel, and $27 on the way back. Get the cab driver in town to fully commit to the right price before getting in. Ours still pulled out a card to try to "show us" why it was more coming back...but it was really great to get into town to break up the night shows from the hotel.

The shows are a bit laughable, and not in a good way. It passes the time while you enjoy some of the all inclusive beverages though!

Food - Staff - Beach here = good deal for the price!

Just got back from our 1st trip to Samba. It's smaller and older than what we usually book, but still loved this place. The staff is warm, friendly and helpful. The room was clean, had everything we needed, iron, blowdryer, couch, coffee in room, TV. . .The pool was perfect for our 9 and 11 year old. Had 3 seperate pools that were connected by bridge, shallow area,medium area and deep areas. Activity areas close to eachother, we could sit by pool but watch our kids play pingpong, shuffleboard or giant chess. Kids comfortable getting their own smoothies. Great snack lunches. I wish it was allowed to eat near the pool, hamburgers, nachos, hotdogs. . .but guess it would get messy w/trash,birds. Nightly entertainment was fantastic, way more than I expected. Dance troup worked very hard. Colorful costumes,good music, very entertaining. Occupancy was down so we were limited to 1 restaurant at a time, which we understood, food very good.

We booked our trip on Orbitz this time, as an all inclusive, and there was a coupon we found for $200 off a 7 day hotel in the Carribbean or Mexico with airfare. The code was entertain200, and we (myself, 33, my friend, 33 and my sister, 31) got the trip for $557US each. The day after we booked, the news of the Swine Flue broke. We tossed around whether or not to go, but ended up going, as it was deemed not as dangerouse as originally thought. I guess other travelers didn't agree, as our resort was EMPTY! The Riu Jalisco, immediately next door was actually closed, and had caution tape to barricade it off. We arrived on a Friday, and were told that the Mexican would be open that night, and the Italian the next. Well, that didn't happen, as since the attendance was so low, between Friday, and when we left on Saturday, the restaurants were not open even once.
Other reviews score them down for this, but seriously, they were less than 20% full, had laid off their employees for weeks, and were losing tons of money. Do you really expect them to offer a buffet and restaurant for all of say, 50 guests?
2 nights were actually so slow that they offered us a menu IN the buffet to order from, as they didn't have enough people to make even a buffet for!
The breakfast buffet was consistently good. The omelette station is easy to find. You walk in the area, and the buffet and restaurant are straight ahead and to the left, and through a door on the right is the omelette lady. She is always smiling, and when we tipped her $5 at the end of the week, she almost fell over. I get the impression she doesn't often receive tips, so we gave her $4 more. :) The bar by the buffet opens at 9am, but if you want something like a smoothie before then, your server will take the fruit you pick and blend it up for you himself. Pancakes, french toast, quesadillas, etc. Breakfast is good.
For lunch, once again we ran into the problem of not enough guests, so they didn't open the buffet most of the week. Instead, we had the snack bar. The snack bar is on the back side of the pool bar, and faces the ocean. We didn't mind at all due to the wonderful view and breeze, and the fact that we were so close to our stuff at the pool we could leave it while we ate. The snack bar was about the same every day as well, and was really only mediocre. Pizza, fries, velveeta cheese dip, chips & salsa & guacamole, chicken, taquitos, etc.
As mentioned above, dinner was primarily buffet, and not a good one. It was like they took the stuff they had set aside for the restaurants, and when they didn't use it, they cooked it again for buffet. The meat choices although plentiful, were not tasty.
The evening entertainment was pretty fantastic! The dancers come in every morning by 8am to practice and the show at 9:15 is awesome. Except for one really odd remake of Roxanne where two men danced together. I'll never think of the song the same way...
Different vendors came in on different nights, and they were never pushy.
Javier by the bar recommended a Dirty Monkey to us, and we fell in love! Mario in the lobby bar made me a Toro (lime juice, sugar, dark rum & beer) and it was the best drink ever! (You can only have so many sweet drinks)
Beach towels were readily available, our room was always clean, the staff was very accomodating, the beach had dolphins jumping and pelicans dining. Of all of my trips, this was the most relaxing and at the most beautiful destination. It is amazing to stand in the water watching dolphins play, to see the mountains behind you, and realize that you are really in heaven!

We met 2 people from Nebraska, Anne and Greg, and took pictures of them to prove they were there together, as they only took them of each other, and appeared together in none of their own, but they left earlier than us on Saturday without sharing e-mail addresses. Annd & Greg - if you see this, e-mail me and I'll send you your photos! budelia2@yahoo.com

Go to this resort. We got it for a steal, but it really was worth much, much more.

Samba Vallarta is a smaller property so the staff has an opportunity to get to know the customers. The resort works very hard to please the customer and keep everyone entertained with nightly shows, vendors, games, etc. It is an older property but the grounds are very well kept - beautiful flowers and trees. The only disappointment was the lack of service around the pool - we found ourselves getting our own drinks too often. The resort was cutting back on staff while we were there due to low attendance so we had to sacrifice service around the pool. It didn't hurt us to get up and walk to the bar.