Video and DVD rentals in Puerto Vallarta

Happen to have a VCR or DVD player in your room, or maybe you’re bringing
your laptop along with you to Puerto Vallarta?

If you’re only here for a week or so, chances are your nights will be full enough with Puerto Vallarta’s fun that a ‘night in with a movie’ will be the last thing on your mind. If you’re here for a while though, it might be nice to spend a night away from the tourist crowds with your sweetie watching a movie…and learning a bit of Spanish while you’re at it. Latin America has an excellent emerging film industry, and many of these are subtitled in English and offer an opportunity to see a great film you’d never see ‘up north’.

 

Puerto Vallarta has two Blockbuster Video Stores here, and almost all ‘American’ movies are in English with Spanish subtitles. As a tourist you may be asked for a hefty deposit, but you’ll get it all back when you return the tape/disc. Long-term residents can have a free membership when they bring copies of their passport and utility bills.

 

One Blockbuster store is in the ‘hotel zone’ across from Plaza Genovese; and the other is at the south end of town in Viejo Vallarta, Puerto Vallarta’s beautiful ‘Old Town’, on Basilo Badillo just north of Insurgentes Street.

 

Regarding the accuracy of the subtitles as a resource for learning Spanish, be careful about using these as a learning guide. Quality of subtitling can vary wildly, even with the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. While we’re sure most Mexicans get the point of what’s being spoken in English on the screen, we’ve seen lots of sloppy subtitling…such as the character saying the word “four-thousand” and the Spanish subtitles reading "400,000". Based on these obvious mistakes, we’re pretty sure the rest of the dialog was less than perfectly translated.