Cabo San Lucas: Day 1

Day One in Cabo San Lucas

My husband and I recently returned from a fun-filled trip to fabulous Cabo San Lucas. We did so much in the six days we were there, and there is so much to write about, I’m going to break this segment of my blog down by each day.

We actually started our trip in Seattle. Our flight was at 5:15 am Pacific Time so we drove into Seattle the night before and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express so we didn’t have to get up and drive 2 hours through the Cascades in the middle of the night. We went to bed at 8:30 pm, but didn’t get much sleep thanks to the people with the colicky baby staying on the floor above us. I really appreciated that since we had to get up at 2:30 to catch the shuttle at 3:00. I’m not sure I got much rest to make up for this while we were on our trip either. It was really cold in Seattle that morning so I wore jeans, a black tank top, and a light long sleeve black shirt, the latter coming off as soon as we landed in Cabo. I wore my tennis shoes so I wouldn’t have to pack them and also because it was a little cold for flip flops. I also wore a light denim black jacket, which I never wore again or the light sweater I brought, because it never got cool enough in Cabo to wear them. In fact, it was pretty warm in the evenings when we were there, contrary to what some people had advised. We departed on time in Seattle and changed planes in Phoenix for the hour and a half flight to our destination. When you’re on this flight they will hand out a tourist card to everyone. Don’t forget to bring a pen so you can fill this out. And do not lose it, because you can’t get back to the States without it. It is a big hassle to get one replaced and will also cost you about $60.

We arrived at the airport in San Jose Del Cabo about 12:30 Mountain Time. We actually paid extra to get to Cabo in about 6 hours. This was definitely worth the price. The other flights wanted us to layover overnight and would have taken a total of 12 -20 hours depending on which one we picked. When we landed and got through customs we walked out into another large room with counters on three sides and several people behind the counters. There are a group of people in the middle of the room who will catch you as you walk in and lead you to one of the people at the counter. They lead you to believe they are there to help you arrange transportation, but they are all time-share representatives. Every one of them. If you go there just walk straight outside and ignore anyone who comes up to talk to you. We had to walk away from about 3 or 4 guys, one of which I thought was going to chase after Mark as we walked out the door. There are also a horde of people outside all trying to convince you to sign up for timeshare meetings. This is the most annoying part of the trip. It’s best to make transportation arrangements before you leave and remember to print off the confirmation. It saves a lot of stress. And don’t do what my husband did and look at the travel paperwork after you arrive at the hotel and paid $40 for a shuttle, only to find out that transportation was already included in your package with a different shuttle company. So we made arrangements with a shuttle to take us to our hotel and we rode with 3 other couples, and two of them were from the Fort Worth Metroplex, and staying in the same hotel. We kept running into one of the couples a lot and ended up hanging out with them and another couple from Indiana on several occasions. One thing that I found out is, even if you don’t go with anyone else, you will definitely meet people here. We met several couples that we are now friends with.

It takes about 50 minutes to get to The Pueblo Bonito Sunset in Cabo San Lucas from the airport in San Jose Del Cabo. I’ll warn you, apparently stop signs are just a suggestion in Cabo. The cab drivers would just drive right through them. I would be grabbing the back of the seat and mouthing Oh My God! The whole trip. The intersections that didn’t have signs were the ones that everyone stopped at. Or should I say “slowed down at” more or less. Our shuttle driver slowed down at one intersection then continued through, and this truck coming the other way saw us go into the intersection and he just kept coming. He didn’t even slow down. So our driver stopped and let him through. Thank goodness. I said “Are you serious!?” Our driver said “Welcome to Cabo San Lucas!” and we all just laughed. But it is kind of a scary ride. I tried not to pay attention when we were taking a cab. otherwise I would be a nervous wreck. I was kind of glad we decided not to rent a car, because we probably would have been killed. And renting a Harley, which we were debating on doing, was out of the question now. We managed to arrive safely at the Pueblo Bonito Sunset and checked in at about 2:00 in the afternoon. We supposedly received $400 in credit to use at the resort. This is a scam. They send you to this other desk to get it validated by another person, who just happens to be, guess what, a time-share representative. And they ended only being for coupons of things we weren’t even interested in. Like $30 off fitness center, $30 off a facial, or $50 off a beach bed. If it was for a massage, or even restaurant, it would have been worth it. We finally gave the girl $20 to set up a meeting just to get her to leave us alone. You supposedly get your money back at the meeting. We ended up not going because our other friends told us later they went to one and it wasn’t worth it. It was a waste of 3 hours of precious vacation time. They only did it to get the discounts for the massage, and other activities, like the snorkeling and dinner cruise. But she said she would rather just pay the full price than sit through that again. And they wanted $90,000 for one week a year. Excuse me? If I’m going to spend $90,000 it’s going to be on a house that I can stay in every week a year. Anyway, after this we were never bothered by time-share people, other than having them call our room everyday after we didn’t show up to the meeting. Since we were never in our room. this didn’t bother us too much. We just had a message on our voice mail everyday.

Everyone at the Pueblo Bonito Sunset is very friendly, with exception of a few persons working at the Sky Pool, especially Andreas, the waiter. He really needs to find another job since he seems so unhappy here. The Sunset is a HUGE resort. It’s so spread out you can’t go anywhere without taking a cart, which are available 24/7. They don’t tell you this in any of the brochures. At first we were a little daunted by this. But, we got used to it. If you leave your room, make sure you have everything you will need, because going back can be a hassle not to mention time consuming. All the cart drivers were friendly and helpful, though. We learned real quick you can’t tip every time you ride. You will spend a fortune. They have a tip jar in the lobby and we contributed to that. The only time we really personally tipped the driver was when we first arrived; the driver of the cart brought our bags up and showed us the room and where everything was. One of the cool things about the rooms is when you open the door you put your key in this slot on the wall, and when you take it out when you leave it turns off all the lights, the fan and the a/c. None of these will work if you don’t put the key in the slot. They also have a safe in each room, which I highly recommend taking advantage of. We put our passports and tourist cards in here, along with our cameras when we weren’t using them, and my jewelry. The other time we tipped the driver personally was when we brought groceries back from Wal Mart and he helped us bring those up. We tipped about $10 each time and they seemed pleased with that. We also tipped the maids each day anywhere from 20 to 50 pesos depending on how messed up the room was. One day we had to leave early and I didn’t have time to clean the breakfast dishes so I left 50 pesos. And I think we left 100 pesos the day we left. She did a really good job.

The hotel boasts 5 pools. We went straight to the middle pool after settling in. There are two pools in this area one right above the other. One is adult only, but it doesn’t have a bar. We ended up at the “family pool” which had a swim-up bar, which didn’t make sense to us. We sat at the swim-up bar and drank some Pina Coladas. This swim-up bar seems to be the only one in the resort with a TV, and they just happened to have the Cowboys game on. I mean, how cool is it to sit at the bar, in the water, drink Pina Coladas, and watch football. We thought it was great, until the Cowboys lost. Good thing we had a steady supply of Pina Coladas. The bartenders, Omar and Federico, were very friendly and outgoing. We had a great time sitting there chatting with them. That evening we ate at The Manila, a restaurant that sits right by the main pool and looks out over the ocean. It has a wonderful atmosphere and excellent food. Mark had the steak and I had grilled shrimp. The only thing I didn’t like was the way they cut my potato. They cut it 3 times across instead of straight down the middle. So I had 4 round pieces of potato which is difficult to spread the butter and sour cream they provided on. Other than that it was an enjoyable experience and a perfect ending to our first day.

Tomorrow: Day two in Cabo San Lucas