Local first
Every captain, guide and driver we work with is a local business. We pay them properly and we do not sell a tour we would not put our own family on.
Vallarta Cruises
A cruise agency that actually lives at the destination.
We are a Puerto Vallarta company. Our office is in Marina Vallarta, a ten-minute walk from the cruise pier, and most of our team was born in Jalisco. That geography is the whole point: when you ask us whether a tour is worth it, you are asking someone who did it last Sunday.
Vallarta Cruises began in 2011 as a two-person excursion desk for passengers who had been sold a generic shore tour and wanted something better. Guests kept asking us to book the cruise itself — so we did. Today we plan full Mexican Riviera sailings, run port-day excursions for a dozen ships a week, and keep the bay tours that started it all.
14+
Years in Puerto Vallarta
120k
Guests hosted
4.9/5
Average guest rating
38
Local operator partners
Vallarta Cruises
Every captain, guide and driver we work with is a local business. We pay them properly and we do not sell a tour we would not put our own family on.
We will tell you when the Hidden Beach permit is unlikely, when the whales have left, and when a cheaper tour is the better tour. Trust compounds; upselling does not.
Reef-safe sunscreen policies, federal wildlife distances and park caps are not marketing for us. Banderas Bay is where we live.
A real phone number, a real office, real names. If something goes wrong on a tour we booked, we are twenty minutes away.
Vallarta Cruises
Founder & cruise planning
Born in Puerto Vallarta, thirty years in Mexican Riviera travel. Started the company with one desk at the marina and answers the complicated quotes personally.
ESEN
Port operations
Reads the terminal feed every morning at six and knows every ship’s agent by name. If a tour is going to be tight, he is the one who moves it.
ESEN
Guest relations (FR/EN)
Came for a season in 2016 and stayed. Looks after French-speaking guests from first enquiry through to the day of the tour.
FRENES
Charters & groups
Captain’s licence and fifteen years on the bay before moving ashore. Matches groups to boats and knows which captain suits which crowd.
ESEN
Contact us
Mexican Riviera cruises, back-to-ship guaranteed port excursions and Banderas Bay day tours — planned by the people who live here.