Jalisco's 2026 Día de Muertos program for Puerto Vallarta names two featured installations at the south end of downtown. One is a flower-and-light piece on Muelle de Los Muertos. The other is an installation of copal and candlelight among the trees of Isla del Cuale. Last year, Puerto Vallarta's Catrina parade also finished at the pier. So most write-ups center on the giant Catrina on the Malecón, but much of the celebration now ends in Zona Romántica.
Last year, the parade finished on our pier
On Sunday, November 2, 2025, the Día de Muertos parade left the cemetery in colonia 5 de Diciembre around 5:00 p.m. It ended at the Muelle de la Playa Los Muertos. The city's tourism office reported more than 35,000 attendees, a record. Floats, live music, charros on horseback and dancers followed the Catrinas through the city. According to the same recap from Visita Puerto Vallarta, hundreds of people claimed sidewalk spots early in the day along the Centro, the Malecón and the Zona Romántica.
That same recap says the pier was already part of the state program. Jalisco's Festival de las Almas turned the Los Muertos Pier into a themed walkway with its own decorations and lighting for the holiday. A few blocks inland, Parque Lázaro Cárdenas hosted dance, music and theater. Los Arcos and Plaza de Armas did the same farther north.
Two organizers ran those 2025 events. The city's second Festival Recuérdame ran from October 30 to November 3 and ended on that Monday with the "Huellitas del Más Allá" dog walk. The state's Festival de las Almas was running in its first year. The 2026 program grows out of that state festival.
What the state announced on September 28
Governor Pablo Lemus Navarro presented the second edition of the Festival de las Almas on September 28 at Guadalajara's Panteón de Belén. It grows from six host municipalities to 11, with about 350 activities statewide between October 24 and November 15. Puerto Vallarta was one of the original six. The Agencia Estatal de Entretenimiento de Jalisco organizes the festival together with the state tourism secretariat, and the experiences are free.
El Informador reported 28 activities for Puerto Vallarta. That puts the city fourth among the host municipalities, behind San Pedro Tlaquepaque with about 80, Lagos de Moreno with 31 and Sayula with 30. Vallarta's program is called "La Orilla de las Ánimas." Its theme is the sea and the shoreline of the Bay of Banderas, framed as the place where the dead return.
The state's Puerto Vallarta festival page is narrower than that statewide window. It lists the local dates as October 31 to November 2, with "more than 28 experiences." It names six sites:
- Malecón
- Centro Histórico
- Los Arcos
- Muelle de Los Muertos
- Isla del Cuale
- Casa de la Cultura
The list is weighted toward the north. But two of the six sites, the pier and the island, sit on the south side of the Río Cuale or on the river itself. Both have featured installations with their own names.
The pier's 2026 installation has a name and a lighthouse
In 2025 the state decorated the pier and lit it as a walkway. For 2026 the program gives it a named piece, "El Último Umbral," which translates as "the last threshold." The state describes it this way:
"Intervención de flores y luz que conduce al Faro de las Ánimas al final del muelle."
In English, that is a flower-and-light installation leading to a "Lighthouse of the Souls" at the end of the pier. The name fits the statewide structure. The press release says every host city's program follows five shared stages: El Umbral, El Camino, La Ofrenda, El Encuentro and La Memoria. Vallarta has put the threshold stage at the foot of Playa Los Muertos.
Other featured pieces on the city's list will appear across the whole program area, including Zona Romántica. "La Hora Dorada de las Almas" is a daily sunset candle-lighting ritual. "Voces desde el Balcón" offers surprise five-to-ten-minute concerts from balconies in the Centro Histórico. "La Marea de las Ánimas" is billed as a large parade in five "universes," led by Catrinas and Catrines dressed in the style of old Vallarta. The page does not give a route for that parade yet.
Isla Cuale now has two events tied to it
The newer addition is Isla del Cuale. None of the 2025 sources reviewed for this post list the island as a Festival de las Almas site. For 2026, the state lists "El Jardín de los Susurros" there. The name means "the garden of whispers," and the state describes it as an immersive experience among trees and water, with copal, candles, shadows and legends.
The island already has its own Día de Muertos tradition. The community-run Isla de los Muertos Festival held its fourth edition on Saturday, November 1, 2025, from 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. The listing promised ofrendas, Catrinas, entertainment, food, drinks and face painting. Proceeds benefited Vallarta Garden Club and Vallarta Cares.
As of October 2, we had not found an announcement of a fifth edition of the community festival. Nothing published so far says whether the state's garden installation is connected to it. In 2025, the published sources described the pier walkway and the island festival as separate programs. That says how they were presented, not whether their organizers worked together. Organizations that have supported the island event in past years will have the most reliable word on whether a 2026 edition is coming.
| South-side site | 2025 | 2026, as announced so far |
|---|---|---|
| Muelle de Los Muertos | State festival walkway with decorations and lighting; finish line of the November 2 parade | "El Último Umbral," flowers and light leading to the "Faro de las Ánimas" |
| Isla del Cuale | Fourth Isla de los Muertos Festival, November 1, community event | "El Jardín de los Susurros" on the state list |
| Parque Lázaro Cárdenas | Dance, music and theater during the festivities | Not on the state's 2026 site list |
Leaving Parque Lázaro Cárdenas off the state list does not mean the park will be quiet. The 2025 activities there came from the city's broader program, and the city has not published its 2026 schedule.
A calendar for south of the river
The confirmed dates for the neighborhood fit into one long weekend. The 2026 calendar falls differently from last year's, which matters for any event that kept its 2025 date. November 2 falls on a Monday this year. In 2025 it was a Sunday, and that Sunday evening was when the parade ran.
- Friday, October 30, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Watercolor artist Ricardo Sánchez unveils his 2026 Día de los Muertos collection at Galleria Dante, Basilio Badillo 269. Admission is free, and wine or sangria will be served. The gallery represents more than 60 artists in a hacienda-style villa, with a tapas and wine bar on the second floor and a rooftop Italian restaurant on the third. The collection stays on display after the opening night.
- Saturday, October 31 to Monday, November 2. Puerto Vallarta's Festival de las Almas runs, with "El Último Umbral" on the pier and "El Jardín de los Susurros" on Isla del Cuale.
- Through November 15. The statewide festival window stays open across all 11 host municipalities.
Last year, several Zona Romántica businesses scheduled their own events, and their 2025 dates are a guide to what to watch for. Coco Cabaret, at Francisco I. Madero 289, staged "Día de Muertos – Traditions of Life and Death" on Saturdays at 5:00 p.m., including November 1. On November 2, La Catrina Cantina, at Lázaro Cárdenas 315B, held face painting, a concert, a Catrina contest and an open mic. The same evening, Nacho Daddy, at Basilio Badillo 287, hosted a 5:00 p.m. concert by Brenda Gaviño. None of these has announced a 2026 date in the sources reviewed here, so check directly with each venue.
Still unannounced as of October 2
The state says the full program for each city will be posted on official channels. Its Puerto Vallarta page says the programming may change and that times for each activity should be confirmed with the municipality during the festival. Puerto Vallarta's travel news site PuertoVallarta.net suggests confirming listings closer to late October. As of today, these details are still open:
- The parade date, start time and route. In 2025 the parade ended at Los Muertos Pier. The 2026 "La Marea de las Ánimas" listing does not yet give a route or day.
- Hours for the pier and island installations. The state page lists them as featured experiences but gives no hours.
- A third Festival Recuérdame. The city's own festival ran from October 30 to November 3 last year. No 2026 dates have appeared.
- A fifth Isla de los Muertos Festival. No date, organizer or beneficiary has been announced, and its relationship to the state's new installation on the island is unclear.
What's confirmed so far favors the south side of the river. Last year the city's largest Día de Muertos crowd walked to Los Muertos Pier. The pier gets a named state installation this year, and Isla del Cuale has been added as a new festival site.
If you own a home or condo near Basilio Badillo, Olas Altas or the pier, this weekend is a useful look at how festival foot traffic moves past your building, and at what that means for your own use or for guests that week. Our team at Daniel Alvarez Real Estate keeps up with how events like this shape the rhythm of Emiliano Zapata. We're glad to talk through it whenever you'd like to Get in Touch.