Puerto Vallarta has hosted plenty of famous visitors, but few arrivals matched the one in February 1983. A dark-blue royal yacht steamed into Banderas Bay, and Queen Elizabeth II stepped ashore with Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The stop was short, but it came with the keys to the city, a wave from the city hall balcony, a serenade from a choir of local women and a state dinner on the water.
Below is the full story, pieced together from news reports of the time and later retrospectives: the politics behind the trip, the ship that carried her, what she did in town, what Vallarta looked like back then, and how to retrace her steps today. We also clear up two common mix-ups: the exact date, and the "dinner with Reagan" story.
For context: by 1983 the Queen had been on the throne for three decades (she was crowned in 1953), and Prince Philip, born on Corfu in 1921, had been her husband since 1947. He died in April 2021 and she died in September 2022, which is when Mexican media looked back fondly on that February in Vallarta.
The Queen's First Mexico Trip: 1975
Elizabeth II first came to Mexico from February 24 to March 1, 1975. It was the first official visit to Mexico by a British monarch, even though the two countries had diplomatic ties going back to the early 1800s. She arrived by sea at Cozumel aboard the same Royal Yacht Britannia, then flew to Mexico City to be welcomed by President Luis Echeverría.
That first tour packed a lot in. It coincided with Mexico's Flag Day, and the royals rode through the capital in an open car. They took the train to Guanajuato, where, according to Mexico News Daily, they sampled tlacoyos at the market. In Oaxaca they toured Monte Albán and attended a Guelaguetza; in Yucatán the Queen opened a zoo in Tizimín; and the trip ended in Veracruz.
Eight years later she returned for a completely different kind of visit: no highlands this time, only the Pacific coast, with President Miguel de la Madrid as host.
Queen Elizabeth's 1983 Mexico Tour, Port by Port
The 1983 Mexico visit was one leg of a long journey through the Americas. Just before it, the royal couple spent February 16 in the Cayman Islands, the first visit there by a reigning British monarch. On February 17 they flew on a Royal Air Force plane to Acapulco, where President de la Madrid greeted them, and from there they continued by sea aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia. The Mexican ports of call were:
- Acapulco, Guerrero
- Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, where Governor Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas met them
- Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco
- La Paz, Baja California Sur
The Mexico leg ran roughly from February 17 to 25. While the yacht sailed, Mexican Foreign Minister Bernardo Sepúlveda and British Foreign Secretary Francis Pym held three days of talks on board.
Why the Timing Mattered: The Falklands, Oil and Central America
This was not just ceremony. In 1982 Britain had fought Argentina in the Falklands War, and Pym had taken over the Foreign Office that April, in the middle of the crisis. On the Mexican side, de la Madrid had been president only since December 1, 1982, and he had inherited a severe economic crisis driven by falling oil prices and a foreign debt Mexico had been unable to pay. That same year, 1983, Mexico joined Colombia, Panama and Venezuela in launching the Contadora Group to push for peace in Central America's armed conflicts.
Little wonder that, according to Sepúlveda, the talks aboard Britannia covered the Falklands, oil prices and Central America, though he offered few details.
Royal Yacht Britannia: A Floating Palace in Banderas Bay
The ship that anchored off Vallarta was a symbol of the monarchy in its own right:
- Built in Scotland. She was built at John Brown & Company in Clydebank. The Queen herself launched her on April 16, 1953, and she was commissioned on January 11, 1954.
- Size and crew. At about 412 feet (126 m), she carried 21 officers and around 250 Royal Yachtsmen, plus a Royal Marines band contingent whenever she was on duty far from home.
- A wartime backup plan. She was designed to convert into a hospital ship, but was not used that way in the Falklands: she ran on a special fuel and had only about 200 beds, so an ocean liner was converted instead.
- A million miles. In 44 years of service she sailed more than a million nautical miles, made close to 700 foreign port visits in about 135 countries, and hosted four royal honeymoons.
- Where she is now. She was decommissioned on December 11, 1997, and has been a museum ship at Leith, Edinburgh, since 1998. The clocks on board are still stopped at 3:01, the moment the Queen last stepped off.
The Royal Yacht Britannia, now a museum ship in Leith, Edinburgh (2021). This is the ship that carried the Queen to Vallarta in 1983.
What Puerto Vallarta Looked Like in 1983
Vallarta began in 1851 as Las Peñas de Santa María de Guadalupe, a small port that supplied salt to the silver mines in the mountains. It became a municipality in 1918, named for Jalisco jurist Ignacio L. Vallarta, and was officially declared a city in 1968. (Our Puerto Vallarta history guide tells the whole story.)
The big changes came in the two decades before the royal visit:
- Hollywood fame. In 1963 The Night of the Iguana was filmed at Mismaloya, and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton put the village in newspapers worldwide. Even UPI's 1983 story on the Queen mentioned the film to tell readers where Vallarta was.
- An earlier summit. On August 20–21, 1970, the town hosted Presidents Gustavo Díaz Ordaz and Richard Nixon. For that meeting, stone arches were brought from a hacienda outside Guadalajara and set up on the seafront, and the international airport was inaugurated during the same visit.
- A recognizable downtown. The Malecón dated back to the 1930s, the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe already wore its crown (placed in 1965), and the Plaza de Armas next to city hall was the civic heart of town.
So the Queen arrived at a resort that was already famous but still small in scale. Marina Vallarta, for example, didn't break ground until 1986.
What Queen Elizabeth Did in Puerto Vallarta
Here is what contemporary and local accounts record:
- The arrival. Britannia sailed into a sun-drenched harbor, and the Queen and Prince Philip came ashore in a blue launch flying the royal and British flags. UPI reported she wore a peacock-blue and gray print dress with a matching hat. Hundreds of tourists packed the waterfront, and some applauded as she passed.
- The welcome party. She was greeted by President Miguel de la Madrid, Mayor Jorge Leobardo Lepe García and Jalisco Governor Flavio Romero Velasco, along with members of the local British community.
- Keys to the city. At a session of the city council, the royal couple was named guests of honor and presented with the keys to Puerto Vallarta. Afterward they waved to the crowd from the balcony of city hall, as children waved Mexican and British flags.
- A serenade. A state government bus took the royal party about two miles inland to a care center for the elderly, set among lush greenery. There a choir of 22 women in long, bougainvillea-red gowns sang a song UPI rendered as "An Old Love," with guitar accompaniment. The Queen received a painting, a record album and even food wrapped in a napkin. Next door, the couple also visited a children's home and youth center.
- Lunch and dinner. The schedule included lunch with President de la Madrid, and that evening the Queen hosted a dinner aboard Britannia for the president, his wife Paloma Cordero and other guests. The Guadalajara Reporter notes that a 21-gun salute was fired as the yacht left port.
From Vallarta, Britannia sailed on to La Paz, her last Mexican port before heading to the United States.
What Day Did the Queen Arrive? A Note on the Date
You will see two versions online. A 2022 retrospective in the Guadalajara Reporter gives February 23, 1983, and that date is widely repeated. However, the UPI story filed from Puerto Vallarta is dated February 21 and says the yacht arrived "Sunday" (February 20 in 1983), and a Baja California Sur account places the official La Paz visit on February 22. The safest way to put it: the Queen was in Puerto Vallarta sometime between February 20 and 23, 1983, near the end of her Mexico tour.
After Vallarta: La Paz, California and the Reagan Dinner
In La Paz, the Queen strolled the waterfront, visited the Cathedral of Our Lady of La Paz and had breakfast at Government House; local press says a plaque marking her landing was unveiled at the dock. The Baja leg also included Ojo de Liebre Lagoon, famous for its gray whales.
Then came the United States. A popular story claims the Queen had dinner with Ronald Reagan in Puerto Vallarta. She did not. The royal party reached San Diego on February 26, 1983, and spent about ten days in California under El Niño downpours so relentless that the press nicknamed it "the Scuba Tour." Quite a change from Vallarta's sunshine: in Santa Barbara, limousines had to be swapped for four-wheel-drive vehicles to reach Reagan's ranch.
The state dinner President Reagan hosted in her honor was held on March 3, 1983, at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. The next evening, the Reagans marked their wedding anniversary at a dinner aboard Britannia. On March 7 the royals sailed from Seattle for Victoria, British Columbia. The Queen never returned to Mexico.
The Reagan toast took place on March 3, 1983, at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, California, not in Puerto Vallarta.
Timeline: Queen Elizabeth II and Mexico
- Feb 24 – Mar 1, 1975: First official visit (Cozumel, Mexico City, Guanajuato, Oaxaca, Yucatán, Veracruz).
- Dec 1, 1982: Miguel de la Madrid becomes president of Mexico.
- Feb 16, 1983: The Queen visits the Cayman Islands.
- Feb 17, 1983: Flies into Acapulco; the Pacific voyage aboard Britannia begins.
- Between Feb 20 and 23, 1983: Puerto Vallarta stop (keys to the city, serenade, dinner on board).
- Feb 22, 1983 (per local press): Official visit to La Paz.
- Feb 26, 1983: Arrives in San Diego, California.
- Mar 3, 1983: State dinner with Ronald Reagan in San Francisco.
- Mar 7, 1983: Leaves Seattle for Canada.
- September 2022: The Queen dies; Vallarta media recall the 1983 visit.
Following the Queen's Footsteps: A Self-Guided Old Town Walk
We are not aware of a plaque marking the visit in Vallarta (unlike in La Paz), but you can walk the same streets in half a day:
- Plaza de Armas. Start at the main square by the sea, with its bandstand and a bronze statue of Ignacio L. Vallarta, the jurist the city is named for.
- City hall. The Queen waved from its balcony in 1983. Inside is a large mural titled "Puerto Vallarta" by Manuel Lepe (1936–1984), the town's beloved naïve painter.
- Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Walk a block uphill to the crowned tower. Fun fact: the crown the Queen saw was the 1965 original. An earthquake toppled it in October 1995, and after a long restoration led by sculptor Carlos Terres it went back up on October 12, 2009.
- Los Arcos. The 1970 arches that stood here in 1983 were destroyed by Hurricane Kenna in 2002; today's arches are a replica installed that December.
- The Malecón. Finish by strolling north along the seawall, looking out over the bay where Britannia dropped anchor.
For sculptures and more Old Town history, see our guide to the Malecón and Old Town.
The crowned tower of the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, steps from city hall in downtown Vallarta (present day).
Explore Downtown on the Riviera Tours & Transfers City Tour
Want a local guide to bring the center of town to life? Our Puerto Vallarta City Tour runs every day, lasts about 7 hours and is offered in English and Spanish. It includes:
- A guided walking tour of downtown Puerto Vallarta
- A visit to a traditional jewelry workshop
- Free time for shopping
- A tequila stop
- A stop at a regional cuisine restaurant (meal not included)
Prefer lunch included? The Vallarta Plus City Tour adds a distillery visit, a tequila tasting and a meal at a regional cuisine restaurant.
Check dates and book the Puerto Vallarta City Tour →
Tips for a History Walk Downtown
- Pick your season. The Queen came in February, in the heart of the dry season (roughly November to May). January and February are also peak months for humpback whales in the bay, sometimes visible right from the Malecón.
- Go early or near sunset. June through October is the rainy season and the hottest stretch of the year.
- Wear comfortable shoes. Many Old Town streets are cobblestone and steep, especially the climb to the church.
- Be respectful inside the church. It is an active parish: if Mass is underway, enter quietly and skip the flash.
- Pair history with Hollywood. Read the story of Casa Kimberly, Taylor and Burton's home in the Gringo Gulch neighborhood, or browse our list of things to do in Puerto Vallarta.
FAQ
When did Queen Elizabeth II visit Puerto Vallarta? In February 1983, during her second visit to Mexico (roughly February 17–25). Sources place her Vallarta stop between February 20 and 23.
How did the Queen get to Puerto Vallarta? Aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, which carried her up the Pacific coast from Acapulco and Lázaro Cárdenas to Vallarta, and then on to La Paz.
Who welcomed Queen Elizabeth in Puerto Vallarta? President Miguel de la Madrid, Mayor Jorge Leobardo Lepe García and Jalisco Governor Flavio Romero Velasco. That night she hosted the president and his wife for dinner on the yacht.
How many times did Queen Elizabeth visit Mexico? Twice: in 1975, touring central and southeastern Mexico, and in 1983, along the Pacific coast.
Did the Queen have dinner with Ronald Reagan in Puerto Vallarta? No. Her state dinner with Reagan was on March 3, 1983, in San Francisco, during the U.S. part of the trip.
Is there a plaque or memorial of the visit in Puerto Vallarta? We have not found one. Local press reports a plaque on the dock in La Paz. In Vallarta, you can visit city hall and the Plaza de Armas, where the welcome took place.
Can you visit the Royal Yacht Britannia today? Yes. She has been open to the public as a museum ship in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland, since 1998.
Photos: Soly Moses / Pexels License via Pexels · Daniel Kraft / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons · White House Photographic Office / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons · Fernando González / Pexels License via Pexels
