Tag: San Jose Del Cabo

Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos

Posted on by David Cox

The Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos is a fairly large all-inclusive resort along the beach where the Sea of Cortez slams into San Jose Del Cabo. Yes, I mean slams! The slope into the ocean here creates violent and thunderous waves. Because of the waves, the beach probably isn’t suitable for most people to swim, but don’t worry, there are plenty of pools.

We paid for our two nights with 43,000 Hyatt points which I was able to get with a signup bonus with the Chase World of Hyatt Card, about $5,000 in spending on that card, plus I did have to buy about $50 worth of points to get the last scraps of points necessary to secure the room. They were listing our room for about $600 per night so that means we got somewhere in the vicinity of 3 cents per point on the redemption, and I’m not at all mad about that. Since it was a point redemption, we weren’t able to be too picky about the room, and even though it was for our anniversary, I had to break it to my wife that we couldn’t get a king bed and we were stuck with two queen beds. She looked at me and said “I don’t have to share a bed with you? That sounds amazing!” So yeah, she loves me.

Someone was about to get married, I don’t recommend it.

We arrived to the hotel a little disheveled after an experience on the Ruta de Desierto that had Jenn maybe a touch mad at me. When we finally made it to the resort gates and they asked for our names and then escorted us into an office where they offered us a couple of beers while they finished the paperwork. Then a bellhop escorted us to our room while informing us about about every restaurant and bar in the resort, which was very helpful. I was trying very hard to pay close attention to him but I was so distracted by the views of the beach and the enormous pools.

The Bohemia Pilsner was a nice beer, but once I discovered Bohemia Oscura, that became my go-to Mexican beer.

We came to San Jose Del Cabo in January when the temperatures were in the low 60s at night and in the upper 70s during the day with cloudless skies, otherwise known as gorgeous weather. Unfortunately, that’s a little too cool for the pools to stay warm on their own. There was only one heated pool at the Hyatt Ziva, so everyone basically hung out at that pool. This wasn’t really a problem though because the hotel wasn’t crowded and the pool was pretty large.

View from our room’s balcony

The room itself was lovely. It was spacious and had a nice balcony overlooking the children’s pool and the Sea of Cortez. It was modern and had a nice walk-in shower and a separate spa tub. It had all of the things you would expect like a small table, desk and a little mini-fridge with some water, beer and soda. Frankly we didn’t spend a ton of time in the room, we definitely spent the majority of our time at the pool, beach and swim-up bar.

They congratulated us on our anniversary with champagne and chocolate covered strawberries and apparently I couldn’t wait to try it before I took this picture.

Probably my favorite thing about being at an all-inclusive resort is hanging out at the swim up bar. After about an hour at the swim up bar, everyone is your new best friend, you’re doing shots, you’re toasting virtually everything, just generally having a great time. In the span of a couple hours we were having great conversations with a fun couple from British Columbia, a group of folks from Sacramento and a family from Kansas City. The bartender was very accommodating of all of us even though I’m sure we were all pretty annoying to him. We spent the majority of our time at the pool and the hot tub next to the pool. We did have to eat, though.

The beach by the resort

There is a nice selection of restaurants on site, we ate our two dinners at Hacienda Baja Grill and Bon Vivant. At Bon Vivant, we learned that Tuna is fantastic. Neither one of us had ever tried seared tuna before and Jenn ordered a salad with tuna on it. I was reluctant to try it because it pretty much looked raw, but it was amazing and I’m really looking forward to having it again. This is one of the truly great things about all-inclusive resorts, if we were at a restaurant that we were paying for, we wouldn’t have tried the tuna, but knowing that if we didn’t like it, we could just order something else made it so much easier to try. On our last day for breakfast we went to the buffet expecting to be underwhelmed, but it was seriously good. They had a tremendous spread of fruit, salad, hot breakfast items, bagels, pastries and a whole lot more. I probably would’ve eaten there for every breakfast if I had known it was going to be that good.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a bagel rack. Everyone hotel should have one.

Overall, I thought the Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos was great. The restaurants that we tried were on par with what I would expect from a higher end all-inclusive resort. I was surprised by the quality of the breakfast buffet. The resort was very clean and well-maintained and the staff was extremely friendly and helpful. The beach wasn’t the best, because of how violent the waves were there, although I actually liked how loud the surf was, it’s weirdly calming to me. The hotel doesn’t own the beach, so there is a definite line where the hotel property ends and where the public beach begins and vendors set up shop right on the other side of that line. The hotel has rows of beach chairs set up on the hotel side of the line, so your view is always partially blocked by the vendors, which didn’t really bother me. You might find that annoying or convenient, depending on whether you are in the market for jewelry or a hat, or whether you just want an unobstructed view of the ocean.

There were these great living room areas with comfy couches in one of the pools which had a real chill vibe at night.

This hotel appears to have gone through the Hyatt point devaluation that just occurred, because this hotel is now going for 25,000 points off peak, 30,000 points normally and 35,000 peak. It also looks like a normal night will run around $500 right now. Considering the quality of the hotel, as well as the food and beverage, that’s probably above what I’m willing to spend, but I’m kind of cheap. In all fairness, people are paying it, and that’s why they can charge that much. Overall, we had a great time and we would definitely return, but I’ll be looking for a deal.

Ruta de Desierto and Regret

Posted on by David Cox

I spent a good deal of time doing research on the best way to get around in Los Cabos. Everything I read sounded unusually expensive. I knew that Uber was available in Los Cabos, but not technically legal. Apparently, there is quite a fight between the Uber drivers and the Taxi cartel, and the Uber drivers are not welcome, so they tend to not have any of the normal Uber stickers that you typically see. Also, because they tend to move around incognito, they won’t pick you up from the airport. Weirdly, they will drop you off at the airport, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to take my preferred mode of transport, Uber, from the airport.

As an aside, I know some people like to criticize Uber, but there is one reason, specifically, why I use it – up front pricing. I despise cabs because I don’t know what they are going to cost until I get dropped off. I once took a cab from the Denver Airport to downtown and I watched that meter tick up for probably 45 minutes, and it was torture. I also hate doctor’s offices and repair shops for the same reason, by the time you have an idea of how much something is going to cost, you just have to suck it up and pay. Go ahead, ask the hospital how much your surgery is going to cost before you check in. See if they can give you an answer, they won’t and your cabbie won’t either. Because of that, I’ll always take Uber. I love certainty, even if they were to charge me more.

I looked around for a while for an airport shuttle to take us from the airport to the Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos. It looked like it was going to cost about $20-$30 per person to take that shuttle. I thought “Hey it’s not that far, why not take the bus?” I looked into it and found out that it’s about $2 each to ride the bus, sounds good! That wasn’t my wisest decision, as it turned out.

Now that we decided on the bus (okay I decided, Jenn was apprehensive at best), I knew I needed cash to pay for the bus. We got off the plane and I went looking for an ATM to get pesos. I looked around for a while and couldn’t find one, so I decided to go to the exchange station at the airport. Ok, so you’re laughing at me, I get it, this is stupid, and I know that now, but at the time, I didn’t. I did know the exchange rates at the airport were probably not going to be great, but I didn’t realize how bad. I asked for $200 US to be given to me in pesos, and I was struggling through the language barrier, so I wasn’t exactly sure what she was saying to me, but she ran my card and gave me back 3,150 pesos. The exchange rate was right at 20 pesos to a dollar while we were down there, so I swallowed hard knowing that transaction cost me 850 pesos or around $42.50. This was my first moment of regret.

After dealing with the customs and the exchange station, Jenn was starting to get pretty antsy to get to the hotel and into the pool. It’s fine, just a trek across the parking lot and short bus ride and we’ll be in the pool in no time. The station for the Ruta del Desierto is in front of Terminal 1 and we were coming in from the international terminal, Terminal 2. We walked out of the airport into the sun and the warm air and into an area where there was a shuttle waiting area with a outdoor bar and shade. Jenn asked where the bus picked up, and I pointed way across the parking lot toward Terminal 1, which we couldn’t see yet. We walked out of the shaded area past the bar with all the cold drinks and stepped into the sun for about a 10 minute walk across the parking lot. Jenn wasn’t happy, and that was my second moment of regret.

We walked all the way across the parking lot and paid the attendant to get onto the bus. The bus was clean, fairly new and comfortable. This won’t be bad at all. We sat down in separate seats because we were each carrying a carry on bag and a backpack. The bus was only about half full, at first, and we were the only tourists on the bus. The bus took off, great, we’ll be there in about 20 minutes!

The bus started to make quite a few stops, and at first I didn’t think much of it. The bus started getting fuller and fuller, and it was getting quite warm on the bus. At one of the stops, a man got on, and he turned on his boom box and started performing for the bus. Normally I might have enjoyed this, but at this point I was realizing that my 20 minute bus ride was going to be considerably longer and I was also noticing my wife becoming less thrilled with the bus ride with every stop. I was doing my best to follow where we were at with google maps, and when we got close enough, we got out and walked another quarter mile to the hotel.

In my effort to save about $18 a person on the transportation from the airport, we spent $42.50 on the cash exchange, took 2 decently long walks with our luggage and took about a 50 minute bus ride. I definitely wouldn’t do that again. Next time we fly into the San Jose Del Cabo Airport, I’m definitely paying for an airport shuttle.

The rest of the time we were in Cabo, we used Uber to get around and it worked great, and was fairly priced. The only odd thing about using Uber in Cabo, was that the suggested tips were weirdly low and we had to use a custom tip in order to tip our drivers fairly. There was a lot of available Ubers when we needed one, and we had no problems using it there. So if you’re heading to Los Cabos, I would recommend using Uber when available, but take a shuttle from the airport. If you want to take the bus, it’s probably fine, but make sure you’re not in a hurry, it stops often.

The Hike – Mt Solmar Cabo San Lucas Mexico

Posted on by David Cox

Mt Solmar is a rocky peak 544 feet above the ocean at the very tip of Baja Peninsula where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortez. It is the home of a well traveled hiking path with spectacular views of the not only the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean but also most of Cabo San Lucas itself. Mt Solmar is entirely on private property and the hike is guided and takes place at 8:15 AM daily except for on Saturdays.

Enrique is the guide on these hikes. There is no cost to do the hike, but there is a mailbox where you are invited to tip at the end of the hike. I have no idea what the expected tip is for this, I think I tipped the equivalent of $5 US each, but honestly that could be on the low side, I just don’t know. There were probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 hikers on the morning that we went. If this was ever a secret, than this secret is getting out. I don’t know if Enrique ever turns people away because they are full, but I can’t imagine him allowing many more people than that on the hike.

I had heard about this hike on YouTube and was not only excited about the hike itself, but also because the hike was always done with a dozen or so dogs. Who doesn’t want to go on a hike with a bunch of dogs, right? Enrique starts out the hike with a short lecture on the history of the area mixed with philosophy and religion. To be honest, I was having a hard time following him, because I was too busy watching all the dogs running around excitedly, darting in between all of the hikers. They obviously love doing this hike and they were definitely ready to go.

While Enrique was giving the initial talk, I did manage to hear why the dogs go on the hike. Essentially, they are there to scare away the snakes, which I was grateful for, but I wasn’t thinking about snakes before and now I was. He let us know which snakes to worry about and which ones not to worry about, but I’ll be honest with you, I avoid all snakes, even little garter snakes. My philosophy on snakes has always been that they walk without legs, they’re evil and you should kill them with fire. So after Enrique was done freaking me out, we started on the hike.

The first half of the hike is a fairly gentle climb on a rocky and sandy path with brush on both sides. Moving up the hill, the views of the Sea of Cortez and the marina slowly become more and more impressive. You also start to see more of Cabo San Lucas as well. The dogs pretty much lead this hike with Enrique also in the front. This was the easy part of the hike. After maybe around 15-20 minutes, Enrique stopped on a concrete slab and talked some more about the history of the area and again I got distracted by the dogs, because now the dogs were running back and forth between people getting pet by as many people as they could. I was happy to oblige.

After the stop, we went on the more difficult part of the hike. In many parts of the second half of the hike, it was more of a climb than a hike and we definitely were using our hands. There are quite a few spots where I felt a little apprehensive because I was walking on fairly polished rocks with sand on them in a pretty steep area. It did feel like there was some chance of me slipping and falling down the hill a few feet. It was moderately challenging, I would imagine that for experienced hikers this was fairly easy and for people with little to no experience this might seem impossible.

All of the work to get up the hill is paid off in a big way. When you get to the top of Mt Solmar, you are greeted with sweeping 360 degree views of the Pacific Ocean, Sea of Cortez, Cabo San Lucas, as well as Lover’s Beach and Divorce Beach directly below.

view from Mt Solmar

The top of the hill is fairly large, but there are large boulders everywhere and you have to negotiate around those as well as the other hikers to get the chance to stand on the viewpoints.

There are also views of the Pedregal area on the other side of the hills that border the Pacific beaches.

After about 20-30 minutes at the top of Mt Solmar, we began the trek down the hill. Enrique said we were going down the easy way, which was probably easier, but not easy. It was rocky, uneven and steep in some places. It definitely helps to be both tall and flexible on the way down. There are spots where you will be taking steps that are 3 feet down and there are plenty of places where you could twist an ankle or fall. After about 20 minutes hiking down we found our way to the entrance and left.

If you are thinking about hiking Mt Solmar, I would not only dress appropriately with comfortable hiking shoes and clothes, but bring along a large bottle of water. You will need it. I would also recommend that you think about whether you are fit enough for the trek. We are both runners and we didn’t struggle with the cardio part of the hike, but we did struggle with the flexibility and coordination aspect. You should keep that in mind before you show up for the hike. That being said, if you do feel you are in shape enough to handle it, it is a unbeatable view.

Flora Farms – San Jose Del Cabo

Posted on by David Cox

Flora Farms is a breathtaking organic farm and restaurant outside of San Jose del Cabo. Tucked into the tropical desert hills of Baja California Sur, it contrasts its surroundings with a lush, garden atmosphere.

Having spent a couple of relaxing days in San Jose Del Cabo, we visited Flora Farms on our way to Cabo San Lucas. We took an Uber and honestly, I felt bad for the Uber driver, because the road to Flora Farms was rough to say the least. The rough ride was well worth it though. This was a place that I had heard a lot about and I had pretty high expectations. They didn’t disappoint.

When you pull up, there are a series of gift shops and a beautiful garden walk as you work your way to the restaurant. We were there quite a bit early for our reservation so we asked to sit at the bar. The bar was busy but the bartenders were still very attentive. Jenn tried a mixed drink and I had an IPA that is brewed on-site at La Micro Brewery. There was a small band doing unusual versions of cover music at the bar at a pleasant volume.

The restaurant and bar are open air, as everything should be in Los Cabos. The main restaurant and bar are inside a building but were wide open to the outside. There was also a lot of tables outside under a forest of umbrellas.

What sets this place apart is the hundreds of little details, the design of the menu, the flowers and art pieces that both stand out and blend in, even the way the bartenders keep their garnishes for their drinks. Everything is perfectly laid out to make the guest experience an amazing meal in a garden.

We were seated outside in the section with all of the umbrellas. We arrived to a sign congratulating us on our anniversary (I might have mentioned that when getting the reservation) as well as complimentary mimosas. Jenn ordered a wood fired pizza and I had something similar to Baja version of shakshouka with potatoes. Both were very good.

Flora Farms is a bit on the pricey side, I think a mixed drink ran around $16 and a microbrew was around $8. The food runs between $20-$30 for most items and there are some specialties that run more expensive. That being said, I didn’t feel like we were overcharged, we were definitely paying for the atmosphere and it was worth every penny.

We made the mistake of calling for an Uber too soon, we were done with our meal and thought we would wander the grounds for a little while while we waited for our driver to arrive. Unfortunately, the Uber driver was already at Flora Farms, probably after dropping someone off, so we skipped the walk and took off down the road to explore Cabo San Lucas. I have a feeling we missed out on a great walk.

If you plan to visit Flora Farms, I would advise getting a reservation, it is a well-known restaurant that is going to be full often. They do make the reservation process easy with an online registry. You can find that at https://www.flora-farms.com/.

Points Check April 2022

Posted on by David Cox

Jenn is a residential house cleaner and owns her own business. That’s a huge bonus when trying to accumulate points. Why? Because if you own a business, you have access to business credit cards. One problem though was that even though she had owned the business for years, she didn’t have a bank account or any credit cards assigned to the business. She applied for the United Explorer business card but was put in purgatory until she was able to open a bank account. Once that was cleared up though, she was good to go with our 3rd United Airlines credit card.

The bonus on the United Business card was 75,000 after a spend of $5,000 in 3 months. This was the highest required spend that we had dealt with up to that point, I didn’t think it would be a problem, but Jenn was a little nervous about it.

The United Business card has a $99 annual fee, waived for the first year. It earns 2x points per dollar on dining, gas stations, office supply stores and United purchases, 1x on everything else. It also gives you a free checked bag on any flight and 2 one-time United Club passes annually. Also, on renewal if you have a business card and a personal card you get 5,000 point bonus each year you hold those cards.

I was also able to refer Jenn’s business from my personal United account which earned me an additional 10,000 points.

My First Redemption!

By this time, I was starting to feel pretty confident in our abilities to get points. It was also going to be our 25 anniversary so we decided that we would do a anniversary trip. I decided that we should visit Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, and Jenn was okay with me making the travel plans, which was unexpected. The issue for going to Cabo was that I didn’t want to use United miles because we were saving them for the flight to Munich. The two main airlines that fly from Chicago to Cabo are United and American. The problem was that Citi points don’t transfer to either one of those airlines. But, you can book a United flight through the Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles program and they are a Citi transfer partner. I will go into greater detail on this in another post, but I was able to book 2 round trip tickets to Cabo San Lucas for 40,000 points and around $225. The $225 dollars is because while you can use points to pay for the flight, you can’t use them to pay for taxes, and Mexico has some pretty expensive taxes on flights, in this case, over $100 per ticket.

Ok, on to the point check!

Since I wasn’t working on a bonus, I went back to using my Citi card for everything because it has a lot of 3x categories and it’s transferrable points. I spent just shy of $2,300 and earned around 4,200 points. Jenn was using her personal United card and spent just over $2,300. She earned around 2,500 miles. I earned 10,000 United miles on the referral. Jenn also spent $800 on her business United card and earned 900 miles.

That left us at around 163,500 United miles and after the redemption and 52,600 Citi points.

What we did right

At the time of booking the flight, a round-trip cash ticket from Chicago to San Jose Del Cabo Airport was running around $450, so if you figure that the flights would have cost $900 and the taxes were $225, then I saved $675 on the flights for 40,000 points. That gave me a redemption value of right around 1.7 cents per point, which is what most people pegged the value of Citi points at, so I was pretty satisfied with the redemption.

What we did wrong

I also put a down payment on an Airbnb in Cabo. The rate for the Airbnb was $1200 for 4 days. I don’t know if I would spend that much on that place again. It was very nice, but it was also $300 per night. Also, it sure seems like our spending was really high that month, so I have a feeling we spent a little over our budget for the month.