The wife and I are planning a trip to Cabo in early June, but we've never been before. I'm not at all familiar with the Cabo geography, so can anyone recommend a region or specific hotel to stay at? We definitely don't want all-inclusive, and at this point we're leaning towards the Sheraton because we get SPG benefits. (the other SPG resort is the Westin, but it looks a little too artsy for our taste) According to tripadvisor, the Sheraton is located about 10-15 minutes from downtown Cabo San Lucas, which I'm not sure if that's good or not. Also, what should we expect to do while we're there? I'm thinking our length of stay will be 6 days / 5 nights, and I'll probably play a couple rounds of golf during that time. I'm also assuming my wife will be able to find a good spa and we'll spend a lot of time on the beach, but are there some specific activities we should plan for? Thanks in advance.
both hotels you mentioned are nice but you will be taking taxies everywhere. how old are y'all? try the newly renovated Melia
We are 24-25 years old. I was under the impression Melia resorts are all-inclusive, which we'd rather not do. When you say taxis, how much traveling do you expect we'll do? I guess I'm picturing a resort area where you can get places pretty quickly.
you can't go to cabo without 1) fishing 2) taking the wife on a sunset sail. i'm a big golfer but for the money ($250/round?) it is better spent trolling for mahi mahi. its the pebble beach of sportfishing. don't leave it off the list, you will thank me later. i took a buddy who never fished a day in his life and he reeled a marlin. as for hotels westin is kinda far out. stay closer to town, walking distance or bicitaxi from the marina.
those hotels are all by themselves so you will cab at $10 to $15 everytime you leave the property. the Melia is not all inclusive, it's been updated, it's right by the marina so yu can walk, and it has a Nikki Beach Club in it.
I second the Melia. It's now going under the name Me hotels and is part of the Sol Melia chain. I highly recommend you stay there. You won't be disappointed
Melia is for adults, not a lot of kids running around. Great pool scene, right on the beach and walking distance to the marina and downtown. Not cheap though. I stayed there last Feb and had a blast. Otherwise, as mentioned, you can get killed by cab fare unless you want to simply stay at the hotel/resort you book.
We've stayed at the Casa del Mar and loved it. It's a smaller boutique hotel that's outside of town, but they have a shuttle service to take you golf, town, etc. Very quiet and peaceful. Casa del Mar
The wife and I stayed at the Hilton Los Cabos which is in the resort area. Had Hilton not had a daily shuttle into town, we would have had to pay for cabs as well. The shuttle is actually a big charter bus and it runs at various times of the day. Next door to the Hilton is Las Ventanas, which has a killer restaurant. played Cabo del Sol - The Ocean course and it was awesome. However, had I not had money to blow, the $400 or however much it was for the round wasn't something I would do again.
What Boogity Boy said. You can walk to town and you're right on the only swimmable beach. If you can only play one golf course, I'd go for the Cabo Del Sol Ocean Course. If you want to go fishing, look up Pisces Sportfishing (www.piscessportfishing.com). I wouldn't count on catching any mahi mahi, but you might catch some dorados. The Tesoro used to be Plaza Las Glorias and is a dump compared to the Me Cabo (formerly the Melia San Lucas). Don't forget to eat dinner at the Lat22 Roadhouse.
i was watching the travel channel the other night and that Westin was in the "top ten resorts in Mexico".
The Westin is very nice. It's just way out in the middle of nowhere. Probably a 15 minute cab ride to Cabo proper. Here's a quick snapshot off of my balcony at the Me Cabo.
I appreciate all the input, but I see several problems: a) The wife gets seasick, even with medicine. We've done a couple of sunset cruises in other places, but I'm not sure what benefit there would be to doing another one in Cabo. I've never been deep sea fishing and have always wanted to, but that seems like something I should do with my guy buddies. I'd rather not have her puking off the side of a boat, so that kinda eliminates these activities. b) Wherever we go on this particular trip, I want to be able to play golf. If green fees are $250 at all the local courses then I will probably be limited to 1 round, but I still want to play. c) I usually rely on tripadvisor for my travel research, and they don't rate the Melia too highly. Meanwhile, the Sheraton is top 10 in Cabo and I also saw the Westin on a special by the Travel Channel. I think both of these have shuttle service to town, so wouldn't that mean cabs become a non-issue? The reason I'm partial to those 2 hotels is because I get 50% off at any Starwood resort, so I would need some really strong persuasion to switch to a non-Starwood resort. Not saying I won't switch, but cab fares seem like a weak reason, unless I should expect to go into town 2-3 times daily. Sorry just trying to clear some things up.
You might check the times that those shuttles run. If it's sun up to sun down or such, you might end up in cabs more than you think if you plan on going to town for any of the clubs or dinner.
lat- that picture you posted just made me sad that I'm stuck in an office....f**k I want to go to cabo and sit by the pool/beach
Well there might be a change of plans in order. I was doing a little reading on a travel forum, and people mentioned that the Cabo beaches aren't safe for swimming. Evidently it's not uncommon for people to be swept in and killed, just from walking down the surf. I'd rather go someplace that allows me to use the beach, rather than just looking at it from a lounge chair at the hotel pool. So........back to square one, looking for a nice tropical place with good beaches and golf.
can't swim in the beaches? headed there in May for a wedding. staying at the Westin. had not heard that about the beaches. that sux. there is cheaper golf than $250/loop. Google.
Might be a seasonal issue or certain location issue, but there were lots of people in the water when I went. Swimming, jet skiing, parasailing, etc. Even went to a lagoon for some snorkling. Water was fantastic.
We went to Cabo for our honeymoon. We stayed at the Sheraton Hacienda and it was one of the nicest hotels we have ever stayed at if not the nicest. We had an Ocean Front room, not Ocean View but Ocean Front. It was definitely not all-inclusive but the prices were not horrendous. Like I was told, think California prices. The Sheraton is more like 10 miles to town, we rented a car and I would do that again. I say that b/c the airport was a good 30min drive as it was. And parking was free at our hotel. We drove to town almost every day to check out the shopping (tons of silver), eating, and hanging out at Playa Medano (the only swimmable beach in Cabo as Lat22 mentions). I actually swam some at our hotel but it was very rough. After that, we just hung out there at the beach a few times but mostly at our pool. We spent probably half of our days at either Mango Deck or the Office; the rest at our pool. Both are beach-side bars that are at Playa Medano. I think $5 to rent the beach-side furniture and then both of those places (which are right next to each other) have great drink prices. Most were 2-for-1 deals during the day. Spent quite a bit of time doing that and then swimming at Playa Medano. It is too bad your wife is sea-sick, we did the sunset cruise and that was alright. But what was really cool was taking the boat ferry to El Arco. They dump you off on the beach there but before they do, they take you on either side and that was cool. We then hung out at the beach there (there is nothing there but a beach) and then went back to the Office. For a honeymoon or very romantic trip, Sheraton is hard to beat. The restaurants were amazing, my wife loves sushi and they had a nice sushi bar there. They had at least 2 different pools including a great infinity pool, basically no kids. Very quiet. They didn't have a loud speaker blasting music at the pool either (ie, not Cancun). And of course great service. There was also a golf course right there although I didn't play golf. If I were to go again, I might stay at the former Melia San Lucas but I have no regrets doing Sheraton for our honeymoon. We aren't going to party but it would be nice to be walking distance to town.
I've now read in a couple places that the beaches aren't swimmable, which sends up a read flag to me. I dunno, maybe these people have been to the wrong place or they were there during a bad time, but it's still kinda odd. I think I'll keep my options open to see if a better vacation destination comes along.
Playa Medano is swimmable. So was Sheraton if you are a good swimmer but honeslty I recommend Playa Medano. That said, I was in Cancun for a bachelor party back in October and we stayed at the Omni. The beach was just as bad as Sheraton. I had only been 1 other time back 4 years back and the beach in Cancun was super swimmable then. But apparently some hurricane sat over Cancun and really eroded the beaches.
Thanks TheFied, your post was really helpful. If we stick with Cabo, we might do exactly like you said - stay at the Sheraton and then rent a car to help us get around. I've also heard there's a nice day trip up the coast that would be helpful to have a car for. Any tips on car rentals in Mexico, or is it just like anywhere else?
