Many times a new hotel or resort, especially an independent one, takes some time to get it’s bearings. If you stay there in the first year or two of operation, you may have to overlook a few problems you can chalk up to newness.

That is not the case with the Puerto Vallarta region’s Garza Blanca Preserve Resort, just south of the city near the Los Arcos rock formations. Led by a skilled manager who used to be at Las Alamandas in Costalegre, this is a finely tuned operation with great staffers and two terrific restaurants. These support large and well-equipped rooms, many of them suites or sprawling multi-bedroom penthouse-type condos with wraparound terraces. Every room has a balcony of some kind with a direct ocean view.

I’ve already raved enough about it in our review to repeat it all here, so go check out the photos and see our full review of Garza Blanca Resort.

When it comes to golf destinations in Mexico, the Puerto Vallarta region is one of the most popular. So in the name of duty, I played 36 holes on my recent visit there and have a round-up of the other options. See the full article here: Golf in Puerto Vallarta and Riviera Nayarit.

With two Jack Nicklaus courses and some stunning sea views, the Punta Mita peninsula is the prestige spot to play. It’s only open to hotel guests, villa renters, and residents. Others are closer to the string of hotels around the Marina or Nuevo Vallarta. More golf courses are on the way further north, closer to Sayulita. We’ll keep you posted on those as they spring up in the future.

After spending a week in the Puerto Vallarta region in rainy season, after visiting it before in the dry season, the most astounding thing to me was how much the water changes from beach to beach depending on the month. This time of year, it’s raining every day or two for at least an hour, so the silty rivers are bloated and running down the Sierra Madres. Where most of them empty out—in the middle of the bay—this has a major impact on the beaches and the water itself.

I stayed first in the Nuevo Vallarta area, where crews were busy removing limbs and tree trunks that had washed ashore and the water (pictured here) was closer to brown than blue. It’s still a great beach, and not as chocolate brown as in Puerto Vallarta’s center, but certainly not postcard blue.

The next shot is from the beach in front of the Four Seasons Punta Mita and this far up the bay it’s a very different story. The beaches are powdery white, the sea is clear blue, and visibility is good enough to go snorkeling.

That’s kind of expected, but here’s the odd thing: if you go a bit south from Puerto Vallarta to where Garza Blanca Resort is (review coming soon), close to Mismaloya, the water gets clear blue again and the beach is white. See the photo below. There are still a few streams emptying out here, but the water is coming through the jungle (clear) and apparently the currents move toward the middle of the bay and Nuevo Vallarta. So if crystal clear water and a white beach are important to you and it’s the rainy off-season, head to the end of the bay up north or head south.

We like to circle back through hotels we’ve reviews in Luxury Latin America every couple of years to make sure they’re still pleasing picky guests and keeping things looking great. Sometimes we’re disappointed, but in some cases I know that I don’t have to worry—as with Villa Ganz in Guadalajara.

Despite having only 10 rooms, this fine inn frequently comes out on top in guidebooks and magazine articles as “the best hotel in Guadalajara” and you won’t get any argument from me on that point. In a city dominated by boxy chain hotels with little charm and historic buildings that have only half-heartedly been restored, Villa Ganz is a standout for its close attention to detail on the aesthetics and its excellent personal service.

It all depends on how you define luxury, of course, but to me—and I hope many of our readers—it goes well beyond chain hotel loyalty point upgrades and who has the biggest presidential suite. When you’re treated like a VIP no matter which room you are in and no matter how many nights you’ve racked up on someone’s computer readout, that’s a mark of a hotel that really gets it.

Villa Ganz gets it, and you’ll feel that as soon as you walk in the door. Book here with confidence when you’ll be in Guadalajara, next week or three more years from now.

If you’re immersed in social media and have a big tribe of followers, you might be able to turn that into a free trip to Ixtapa, Mexico. The top Latino social site, Quepasa.com, is giving away five trips for two to the area of Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo. There aren’t a lot of details posted on what you get exactly, but judging by the sponsors, there will be plenty of adventure excursions involved.

Basically you sign up or sign in (if you’re already a member) of this tri-lingual site, then use their slideshow maker to create a collage of why you would go there and what you’d like to do. Judging is based on four factors, with one being votes (ballot stuffing encouraged) and one being how “viral” your entry was—as in how much you spread the word.

Hey, I’m not saying you luxe readers of this site have the time and patience for this kind of thing, but I bet you have a kid who does…

Sign up here: Quepasa.com Ixtapa Giveaway

See our reviews of the top hotels in Zihuatenajo: La Casa que Canta and Tides Zihuatanejo (their beach pictured at the top.)