Amoslionhorse
29 Nov 2025
We so looked forward to this tour, and were delighted when our van picked us up at 9:20 am sharp near our hotel in Nuevo Vallarta. We were with one other English speaking couple, and our tour guide immediately greeted us warmly and we got on our way. He said we were making a stop in Puerto Vallarta on the way to pick up more guests, and he would start the presentation after pickup. (no problem). We arrived in PV and picked up 6 more guests, plus we had another person in the van who we were tehn introduced to as Daniel, who was shadowing today as he was going to be a new tour guide with Riviera Tours. (all good). Our main guide, informed us when we left PV (about 10 am) that it would be about 1 hour 40 minutes drive to San Sebastian. (we expected that - again, no problem). He began his presentation in the van with a good speaker system so all could hear, but this is when the problems began. He would excitedly share something in Spanish for about 5 minutes, then translate into about 30 seconds of English, and then revert back to Spanish. I picked up a few words here and there in Spanish, and knew he was skipping a lot for us English speakers. So I would ask a couple of questions to see if he would circle back to what he missed.. (ie.. I noticed you said "arboles"... can you tell us about the trees?) Our first stop, he asked if anyone needed to use the baños, and we did, so a bunch of us piled out at this roadside restaurant (this is at the 45 min mark approx, so we thought almost halfway) and we filed to the washrooms. I then saw our main guide and all the Mexican men in our van hovering over an open grill, and they all came back to the van with food, and the men gave some to their wives. Whatever this part of the stop was, he did not share it with the English speakers. We didn't know this was available to us.
Our next stop, he had our very wonderful and capable driver, (shout out to Eric, he really was great) stop at Las Palmas, where we filed out and stood at a town square and learned the connection between Las Palmas and San Sebastian. Here our main guide engaged Daniel (the newbie, but seriously very capable and will be an EXCELLENT tour guide) to be his translater, although he really didn't need one. Our main guide spoke perfect english, he just for some reason chose not to much more after this. Thankfully Daniel translated almost everything for us and things got much better and we didn't feel anymore like we were being left out.
Just before 12 noon (2 hours 40 min in) we made a stop at a Panederia (bakery) beside the beautiful bridge and were able to buy delicious baked goods and coffee. We were hungry, but he wisely told us not to eat too much because we would spoil our lunch which was coming soon. We stopped here for about 20 minutes and then made our way across the bridge to the tequila distillery. This was the best stop of the day. Alex was our host and did a fantastic job telling us all about his family's production and about how tequila and raicilla are distilled. He was very generous with his portions and his story telling was delightful. We left around 1 pm (still not in San Sebastian yet..) and drove the next hour and 15 min or so until we arrived in San Sebastian.. .our first stop at a jewellry store. We filed out of the van and into a very expensive silver and opal store. We thought we were getting a tour and the rich history of the silver mining in San Sebastian, but it was just a very beautiful and expensive jewelry store. (It was truly beautiful and well laid out)
Lunch was the next stop at 2:45 pm (2 hours and 45 min after he told us not to spoil our lunch at the bakery). We sat down, waiting nearly half an hour (they served the tour guides and driver first, then the guests) at a very lovely restaurant and had an authentic Mexican meal that was very good. I was done before some of the guests, so I wandered out and across the street to an open courtyard inside a building that seemed to be the mining museum. The others soon joined and followed me, and our main guide very quickly told us a bit of the history in this building - and that it was a library now, but we didn't have opportunity to go into the museum itself. (this was something we most wanted to see, and were told we would be able to visit the mining museum when we booked the trip).
Next we walked the cobbled streets about town, went into another store selling mouth watering peanut brittle and beautiful Mexican pottery and art. More walking about the beautiful town and seeing some of the original buildings, into the old jail where we learned about how bandits and /murderers/rapists were executed there. This was interesting, chilling and surreal.
Lastly, just before 5 pm, we went into the beautiful church, and learned the incredible history of Saint Sebastian from Spain during the 3rd century, for whom this town was named (after the town San Sebastian in Spain). This and the tequila tasting were the 2 main highlights of the trip.
Our main guide asked if anyone had to use the baños before we left town, and we were told the coffee plantation was still coming, so i knew i could wait. As we got into the van and were leaving town, we learned we were too late, and we had to skip the coffee plantation and would head straight home. An hour and about 45 punishing minutes later we were dropped off at our hotel. The ride was mostly silent the whole way back as our Mexican friends all fell asleep (i'm not sure how?) but we were constantly holding on through all the twists and turns. I tried a few times to engage our guide in conversation, asking questions, but received curt answers.
We expected the long drive and the curvy bumpy drive and were prepared for that. We also expected a stop along the way for a break to use washrooms (we had this on the way, but not on the way back) We expected the hilly cobblestone rough streets to walk on and were prepared for that.
What we were not expecting was a guide that catered to Spanish speakers, and told us that "lunch was coming" at noon when there were 3 more stops first, and that we would arrive in San Sebastian in 1 hour 40 min and it was closer to 5 hours. What we did not expect was to miss two of the stops (mining museum and coffee plantation) and for the trip to be mostly a shopping trip. I would have loved to have been able to stop roadside to take beautiful photos of the Agave fields we passed by or the mountain vistas. (costs nothing!)
As I mentioned to my husband, I'm glad I took the trip, once. We did see a lot of lovely things, and learned some history, and saw a beautiful colonial town.
At the end of the trip, he said lightly and jokingly if we wanted to tip our guide and driver, that would be welcome. We made a mistake here and i guess we didn't tip enough, and his response to it left a very bad taste in our mouth and truly ruined our evening. We paid considerably to go on this trip, and we bought things and tipped along the way to the different stops. We were not overly impressed with our guide, and didn't feel he did his best for us. I had never been on a trip like this, and assumed that we were paying them by booking the trip, and didn't realize he was expecting a hefty tip as well. The other English speaking couple with us did tip him very generously, and we only know this because he very angrily showed us their tip beside ours - and said loudly that ours was not good enough, and how dare we call that a tip. We were flabbergasted.. and didn't know what to say.. so we walked away.
I wish in hindsight we had personally thanked and tipped Daniel, our english translater and the shadow guide.. as well as Eric, our amazing driver. They are amazing. I am not mentioning the name of our guide, because I'm hoping that he was just having a bad day - and this is not the norm for him.
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