The best time to visit Puerto Vallarta is the first ten days of December. The rain has stopped, the sea is still 80F, the humpbacks arrive on the 8th, and the Christmas price surge has not started. Everything else is a trade: the whales, the warm water and the dry skies peak in three different windows, and they only truly overlap at Christmas.
We book boats in Banderas Bay all year, including the months the guidebooks tell you not to come. That is how we know the thing nobody writes down: in Puerto Vallarta the rain has a schedule, and it is not the one you are afraid of.
Why every guide tells you something different
Search this question and you get three answers. November to April. December to March. “The shoulder season.”
They are all technically right, because they are all quietly answering a different question. “November to April” is the hotel answer, and it means the months it does not rain. “December to March” is the whale answer. “Shoulder season” is the price answer, and it means May and June, when the water is beautiful and the rooms are cheap and nobody tells you why.
Nobody tells you that these three windows barely overlap. That is the actual answer to the question, so we are going to start there.
The year, with the numbers nobody publishes
Here is Puerto Vallarta month by month, from a long-run climate record for the city. Sea temperature is the column every other page leaves out, and it is the one that decides whether a boat day is a swim or a sit.
| Month | High | Sea | Rain | Rainy days | Sun per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 80F | 77F | 1.4 in | 2 | 7.5 hrs |
| February | 80F | 76F | 0.2 in | 1 | 8.5 hrs |
| March | 81F | 75F | 0 in | 1 | 8.5 hrs |
| April | 82F | 76F | 0 in | 0 | 8.5 hrs |
| May | 85F | 80F | 0.6 in | 1 | 9 hrs |
| June | 88F | 82F | 7.5 in | 11 | 7.5 hrs |
| July | 90F | 85F | 13 in | 16 | 6.5 hrs |
| August | 90F | 86F | 12.2 in | 15 | 6.5 hrs |
| September | 90F | 85F | 14.6 in | 16 | 6 hrs |
| October | 89F | 85F | 3.7 in | 5 | 7.5 hrs |
| November | 86F | 82F | 0.8 in | 1 | 8 hrs |
| December | 82F | 80F | 1 in | 2 | 6.5 hrs |
Three things in that table are worth stopping on, and all three contradict something you have been told.
The three things you came for peak in three different months
Almost everybody flying to Puerto Vallarta wants some combination of three things: see a whale, get in warm water, not get rained on. Here is when each one is actually available.
- Humpback whales: December 8 to March 23. Those are the dates the season is run to, and they move by a few days year to year.
- Water above 82F: June through November. It peaks at 86F in August.
- Under an inch of rain: November through May. March and April get essentially none.
Lay those over each other and the overlap is almost nothing. Whale season runs through the four coldest months the sea gets all year. The warmest water of the year sits inside the wettest four months. The driest, sunniest stretch has no whales in it at all.
There is exactly one window where all three line up, and it is the back half of December. Whales in, water still 80F, rain finished.
It is also Christmas, which is the single most expensive and most crowded fortnight on the Mexican Pacific. The calendar’s one perfect answer is the one the entire northern hemisphere has already booked.
Which is why our actual recommendation is the ten days just before it.
The window nobody recommends, and we think they are wrong
December 1 to December 10.
The rain stopped in November. The sea is still holding 80F from the summer, because water loses heat slowly and the bay spent four months being cooked. The whales start arriving on the 8th. And the holiday pricing has not switched on yet, because the holiday has not started.
You get a dry, 82F day on water that is genuinely warm, with a reasonable chance of a humpback in the last three days of it, at a price that is not the Christmas price. We have never seen that combination written up as a recommendation anywhere, and we book into it every year.
The honest catch, and it is a real one: December is a surprisingly dim month. Six and a half hours of sun a day, which ties it with July and August for second-gloomiest in the year. The days are short and the light goes early. If your picture of Puerto Vallarta is a nine-hour blaze of sunshine, that is May, and May has no whales.
April is the best month on paper and almost nobody says so
April is the only month of the year in Puerto Vallarta with zero rainy days. Not “barely any”. Zero. Eight and a half hours of sun a day, a high of 82F, and no rain at all.
On a weather chart it is the cleanest month on the Mexican Pacific.
So why does nobody lead with it? Two reasons, and they are both about water.
The whales have gone. The season closes on March 23, so April misses them by a week. And the sea is at 76F, a degree off its annual low, because the ocean runs about two months behind the air. The sunniest, driest month of the year is also one of the chilliest the bay ever gets.
If your trip is about the town, the food, the hiking and the beach rather than being in the water, April is the right answer and you should stop reading. If it is about getting wet, keep going.
The water is coldest when the weather is nicest
This is the single most useful thing on this page and it takes one sentence: the sea in Banderas Bay runs about two months behind the air.
The air bottoms out in January. The water bottoms out in March, at 75F. The air peaks in July and August. The water peaks in August at 86F and then stays at 85F all the way through October, weeks after the hot weather has gone.
What that means in practice is that the two months everyone recommends for weather – March and April – are the two months the bay is least pleasant to swim in, and the month almost nobody recommends – October – has 85F water, under four inches of rain and seven and a half hours of sun a day.
October is, by the numbers, one of the best boat months of the year in Puerto Vallarta. It gets written off because it sits next to September.
What really ruins a boat day here, and it is not the rain total
Look at September again. Fourteen and a half inches of rain, sixteen rainy days.
Now look at the last column. Six hours of sun a day. In the wettest month of the year.
Both of those are true at once because Puerto Vallarta’s rainy season is not a season of rain. It is a season of afternoons. The Sierra Madre sits straight behind the city, the day heats up, the moisture goes up the mountains and comes back down as a storm in the late afternoon or overnight. Mornings in August are frequently clear.
That is why a morning charter in the rainy season works far more often than the rain figures suggest, and why an afternoon one in the same week is a coin toss. Sixteen rainy days in September does not mean sixteen lost days. It means sixteen afternoons.
We book the summer around it. Out at eight, back by one, and the storm can have the rest of the day. Anyone selling you a 3pm sunset cruise in August without mentioning this is selling you a coin toss.
For what it is worth, the thing that genuinely cancels a day here is swell, not rainfall. Banderas Bay is big, deep and open to the southwest, and a distant Pacific system can put a long swell into it under a perfectly blue sky. That is the call the captain makes on the morning, and it is the main reason a trip here gets moved.
Hurricane season, stated plainly
the eastern Pacific season runs from May 15 to November 30, and the most active stretch is generally August into early October. Those are dates, not predictions. Most of those months pass without anything reaching the bay.
What it means for planning is simple. If you are booking between August and early October, buy the trip insurance and pick an operator who will move your date rather than keep your deposit. We put that in writing before anyone pays, because in those months it is the term that actually matters.
Outside that window, from December through May, it is not a consideration at all.
Whale season has real dates, and the tour sites round them off
Humpbacks come to Banderas Bay to calve. The season is run to December 8 through March 23, and those dates shift slightly year to year.
You will see shorter windows advertised. One major cruise line lists December 20 to March 1, which is not the season, it is that company’s excursion calendar. You will also see claims of sightings from November, which do happen, and in May, which happen about as often as you would expect.
The reliable middle is January and February. That is when the bay has the most animals in it and when the mothers with new calves are easiest to find close in. After the middle of March sightings thin out and operators start cutting departures, so a late-March trip sold as whale watching is a real gamble on a real season’s last week.
One thing worth knowing before you book a Puerto Vallarta whale watching trip: it is regulated. There are limits on how close a boat may go, how long it may stay and how many boats may work one animal. An operator promising you a close approach is promising you something they are not allowed to deliver.
If you came to fish, the calendar is completely different
Everything above is about weather and whales. Fishing inverts most of it.
From what we see across the charter calendar here, the busiest offshore stretch is the back half of the year, roughly June through November, which is exactly the period the weather guides tell you to avoid. That tracks the water temperature column above rather than the rainfall one. This is our booking experience and the local fleet’s pattern, not a published season, so treat it as a strong steer rather than a rule.
Winter does not stop the fishing, it changes it. The water drops to the mid-seventies, the offshore boats get quieter and the inshore work carries the season.
So if the trip is built around a Puerto Vallarta fishing charter, go in the rainy season on purpose, book the morning, and read our guide to fishing in Mexico for how the coasts compare across the year.
The honest cost of going in September
September is the worst month in Puerto Vallarta by every single measure on that table. Most rain, most rainy days, least sunshine, highest humidity, and a 90F high on top of it.
It is also the cheapest, and the short-term rental trackers put it among the lowest-earning months of the year, which is the same fact seen from the other side of the till.
What you are actually buying in September: 85F water, which is as warm as it ever gets, six hours of sun a day, empty restaurants, and mornings that are usually fine. What you are paying with: the afternoons, the humidity, and the need to be flexible about which day you go out.
For a water trip with a movable date, that is a genuinely good deal. For a fixed one-shot afternoon sunset cruise booked from home, it is the worst month to pick, and the savings are not worth it.
What we see when people book
We are a broker. We book other operators’ boats rather than owning any, so we see the same mistakes repeat across a lot of them.
March bookings are the most disappointed. Not because the weather is bad, it is lovely. Because the water is 75F and nobody told them. People arrive expecting Caribbean bathwater and get a bracing Pacific. We now say the number out loud before anyone pays.
Summer bookings that go out in the morning almost never get moved. Summer bookings that go out at four get moved constantly. Same week, same boat, same weather. The only variable is the hour.
October is the best value month of the year and we have to sell it. Nobody asks for October. The water is 85F, the rain has mostly gone, and the high-season price has not landed yet.
Whale trips get booked too late in the season. The requests pile into the second half of March, which is the last week of a season that closes on the 23rd. January and February have more animals and fewer people asking.
For what any of it costs, how much it costs to rent a yacht in Mexico has the real numbers by city, and the Puerto Vallarta figures in there are the ones we quote.
The dates to avoid, and one that is worth the crowd
- Christmas and New Year. The best fortnight on the calendar and the most expensive. Book boats two or three months out or do not expect a choice.
- Semana Santa, the week before Easter. Domestic peak. The bay is full of Mexican families on holiday and prices follow.
- Mid-March long weekends. The Benito Juarez holiday weekend ran 84 percent hotel occupancy in 2026. A three-day weekend in high season fills the boats.
- Worth the crowd: the Festival Gourmet Internacional, November 12 to 22 per the city tourism board, with more than sixty visiting chefs. It lands in the driest, warmest-water month of the dry season. If you are picking a November date, pick that one.
Common questions
What is the best month to visit Puerto Vallarta?
December, and specifically the first ten days of it. The rain has stopped, the sea is still 80F from the summer, whale season opens on the 8th and Christmas pricing has not started. April is the best month for pure weather, with zero rainy days, but the whales have gone and the water is down to 76F.
What is the rainy season in Puerto Vallarta?
June through October, concentrated in July, August and September. Those three months take about 40 of the year’s 55 inches. The rain mostly falls in the late afternoon and overnight, so mornings are often clear even in September.
When is the water warmest in Puerto Vallarta?
August, at about 86F, and it holds 85F through September and October. The coldest is March at 75F. The sea runs roughly two months behind the air temperature, which is why October water is warmer than June water.
When can you see whales in Puerto Vallarta?
The season runs December 8 to March 23, with the dates moving slightly each year. January and February are the most reliable. Sightings after mid-March get sparse and operators start reducing departures.
Is September a bad time to visit Puerto Vallarta?
It is the wettest, most humid and least sunny month, and the cheapest. If your plans are flexible and you go out in the mornings, the 85F water and empty restaurants are a real bargain. For a single fixed afternoon trip booked from home, pick another month.
When is hurricane season in Puerto Vallarta?
The eastern Pacific season runs May 15 to November 30, with the most active stretch from August into early October. Most of those months pass without anything reaching the bay, but it is the window where a movable booking date is worth having.
What is the cheapest time to visit Puerto Vallarta?
September, followed by May and June. May is the sweet spot of the three: nine hours of sun a day, the most in the year, 80F water and barely any rain, at low-season prices. The city hit 70 percent hotel occupancy across 2025, and these are the months that pull the average down.
Tell us your dates and we will tell you the truth about them
Send us the week you are looking at and what you want out of it – whales, warm water, fishing, or a quiet afternoon on the bay – and we will tell you what that week actually gives you. Including when the answer is “move it by a fortnight and you get twice the trip.”
We book across the operators in Banderas Bay rather than owning a boat, so we have no reason to talk you into the wrong month. Boat rentals in Puerto Vallarta, bay tours, snorkelling and whale watching all leave from the same marinas, and how it works covers the booking in a minute.
Comparing coasts? The best time to visit Cabo San Lucas is the same exercise for the other end of the Pacific, where the wind matters more than the rain, and Cabo versus Cancun is the one to read if you have not settled on a coast yet.
Tell us your dates and we will be straight with you about them.
