Why It Took Us 3 Tries Finding Hotels in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Booking a hotel in Cabo was a bit tricky when we went back in April 2015. We were looking for the following features in our accommodations:

• Enough living space for 5 people (trickier than you would think)
• Affordable
• Convenient location
• All-inclusive vs. Not all-inclusive

I kept jumping the gun and booking different hotels for our group, which I kept having to cancel because I continuously overlooked certain cons of each stay. To book the right hotel in Cabo, learn from my mistakes by reading this post!

Here is why it took 3 tries finding hotels in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico:

Bel Air Collection Resort & Spa Cabos, San Jose Del Cabo

Bel Air Resort looked beautiful. I was excited to book this hotel as the photos of the place looked amazing, and the rooms were on sale so we were getting a good price for the hotel. It featured a deluxe studio with 2 double beds, which we hoped would be enough for the 5 of us. With a beautiful pool and all inclusive options, we thought it would be a luxurious place of stay. Though we had 5 of us and they could only accommodate all inclusive options for 4 people, we were unsure of how this would work out but we went ahead with it anyway.

I booked the deluxe studio at Bel Air Collection Resort & Spa for $398.31 for 3 nights (for 5 people).

 

2 weeks before the trip, I realized this hotel was very far from the action in Cabo! And frankly, location is everything. I didn’t want to spend my days and nights taking a bus to the places we wanted to go to. We knew that even a crappier place in the midst of all the action would be better than being far away from the attractions.

We decided to just scrap this hotel and try another place. Our next choice was…

Tesoro Los Cabos, Cabo San Lucas

Still a pretty nice hotel, Tesoro Los Cabos seemed to fulfill our requirements for the trip. The hotel was still all-inclusive, and it featured 2 deluxe beds and a decent pool for us to lounge out in. The best thing was, it was walking distance from the beach, the bars, and attractions.

I booked the Junior Suite at Tesoro Los Cabos Hotel for $388.13 for 3 nights (for 5 people).

A DAY before our trip, we discovered the hotel is stringent in terms of sneaking extra people in hotels. I know, this is not good practice, but fitting an extra person shouldn’t be a huge issue right? We were still paying for the room.

However, the Tesoro Hotel is very strict in terms of inviting other people to your room. Reading the reviews, we were appalled and worried. Long story short, the hotel security apparently checks all-inclusive wristbands very heavily so you can’t even get in the hotel without one. That means even friends you could potentially meet on the trip were not allowed to hang out at the hotel. The Tesoro Hotel would definitely not allow 5 of us to stay in this room.

In this event, we decided to cancel this booking, and we booked our final hotel at…

Hotel Mar de Cortez, San Jose Del Cabo

It was definitely a nerve racking experience trying to cancel a SECOND hotel and book a THIRD HOTEL, a DAY BEFORE our trip. But we did it!

From the pictures, Hotel Mar de Cortez definitely did not look as nice as the previous options. It was not all-inclusive, but we received a free breakfast option. And for the price of the place, we were able to book 2 hotel rooms – one for the guys and one for the girls at a similar price. It was also ridiculously close to Squid Roe and the other bars.

When our crew arrived to the hotel we were thoroughly pleased. The convenience of the location made our trip to Cabo amazing. We didn’t even need the all inclusive option because everything was so cheap around Cabo. We would buy tacos at Tacos Guss for $1, drinks and shots for $1-2, and we would walk (rather than bus) to get to our main destinations. The accommodations were also decent, no complaints there.

I booked the Hotel Mar de Cortez for $168.24 for 3 nights (for 2 people). I only booked one room, for me and my other girl friend, while the boys booked their own room. So overall, I paid $28.04 per night for myself, for a total of $84.12.

 

Conclusion

When staying in Cabo San Lucas, I would I thoroughly recommend staying at a location close to El Squid Roe, which is conveniently close to all of the other spots you would most likely check out in Cabo. And I would highly recommend Hotel Mar de Cortez for your hotel accommodations, especially if you’re not looking to pay a whole lot and you plan to be out and about most of the time.

In case you don’t know where the optimal location is, it’s basically the location in red in the image below, and more specifically, the area around the arrow: