David and I have just returned from a brief vacation in Cabo. If you don’t know the place, it’s located at the tip of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. It’s a pretty popular vacation destination – especially for those on the west coast of the states – and features many all-inclusive resorts that provide as much food and alcohol as you want to consume.

In 2006 we went to Mazatlan, which is on the mainland just across the way from Cabo. The experiences were vastly different, and although Mazatlan was not all-inclusive, I have to say that it was much more enjoyable than the Cabo experience overall.

So here is the run-down of our trip…

We left on Wednesday morning and flew through Phoenix into Los Cabos. Uneventful flight and we arrived at the Melia Cabo Real resort in mid-afternoon.

The lobby was very impressive – a completely open room with incense burning in large wicker and wood containers, a comfortable lobby bar with a cornucopia of couches/chairs/sofas, and a very friendly reception staff including bellhops. The check-in process was quick, and we were off to our garden view room on the west side of the facility. I immediately noted that the grounds were about 1/4th the size of the Mazatlan location, but still very pleasant.

The first thing we did was take a tour of the pool and bar area.

As you can see, the place was covered in palm trees and cactus of a number of varieties. The cactus gardens were very impressive and many of them were in bloom. The groundskeepers were constantly pruning and raking areas to make them look their best.

Off to the beach…

The beaches went on and on and on. They were very wide and made up of sand, crushed rocks, and shells. There was no swimming allowed on the first day due to the undertow – flags alerted people as to the “threat level” of the ocean.

Now some thoughts on the next couple of days. The normal restaurants at the resort focused on buffet style eating, and for the most part were pretty good. The very first night we had a delicious seafood buffet with the highlight being Octopus in Garlic. Yum! I can’t speak so highly about the two “premier” restaurants on-site. You received vouchers for those two and for a 5 day stay could visit them only once. The first was Kujira, a Japanese place with food so bad we sent it all back and went down for a real dinner at the beach party. The second was La Terraza – I enjoyed my steak but David didn’t like his at all and thought the wine tasted like it had tequila in it. We decided at that point to stick with the masses and do the buffets which were generally very good, if not better.

For the rest of the trip, save for two things, we relaxed in the pool with some folks we met who are from “West Idaho”. Those two things that pulled us away were horseback riding on the beach, and snorkeling once it was safe to do so. I don’t have any pictures of snorkeling because my camera is not waterproof and the water was pretty rough, but here is a picture and a video from the horseback riding trip…

All in all it was a pretty good vacation. We had mostly good food, great hospitality/service, moderately watered down drinks (although I learned about a new drink that has become my favourite), and generally good weather (although it was VERY windy and somewhat chilly in the afternoons). I’m not sure if I would recommend this specific place again – and we won’t be going back because we like to go to different places each time – but for families and couples this resort is “pretty good”.

We’re glad to be home.