PDF is great as anyone can view it and it embeds the font within the file and digital printers shouldn't have any problem with it. You run into problems when anyone wants to edit the file in Illustrator again. The fonts are only embedded for viewing, not editing (licensing issues). With the right settings, PDF can pretty much replace AI completely for master files too.
Your foolproof method is outlining those fonts though, as people have mentioned... But if the file is also viewed on screen then you'll have removed all the typographic hinting that makes fonts look good on screen. It seems, for the most part, fine for printing though. Just check that nothing has vanished while doing so! The biggest downside of outlining is loss of editability so make sure you save a master file separately.
Some people seem to think that printers who demand outlined fonts on PDFs should be shot but we should give them a break. If you're printing any sort of spot colours where plates or screens are being made (especially stuff like labels) then it's likely that the printer will need to rip apart your file and rebuild it to a way that works with their systems. This is when they'll end up replacing fonts for similar ones without saying anything (which they SHOULD be shot for) because they're rushing too much to have the time to ask (price we pay for low prices).
The printer shouldn't need fonts outlining in a PDF at all though. They can File > Place and then Object > Flatten Transparency... which will use the embedded fonts to give them the outlined should they need them. (No one seems to know that though so I'd outline the text anyway)
pdf
files are made for.