I'm planning on surprising my husband with a trip to Cabo in November. He's never been to Mexico--I have visited Cabo once, but it was 12 years ago on spring break and I can't remember a thing about where we stayed!

We are now in our early 30s and would like an upscale, luxurious resort that is walking distance from the bars and restaurants. I am reading about "the corridor"--I am confused. How far is this from food/entertainment/shopping?

Please recommend a hotel! Expensive hotels are fine. Thanks!

Gellers,
We stayed at Las Ventanas al Paraiso Thanksgiving week '01 - it was great and expensive. Other posts suggest that with changes in the kitchen and in management, it has not been the same in the last year or more, but by now, it may be back on track (Rosewood
is usually VG). www.lasventanas.com
M
PS you'll need transportation to the "towns".

Ventanas, Palmilla and Esperanza are the most luxurious hotels in the cabo area. All are small( Under 75 rooms) with all the amenities you would expect at hotels that start at $600 per night. None of these are walking distance to town, each is about a 15 minutes, $10 cab ride into either San Jose or Cabo

Check out www.cabopro.com. Its a little hard to navigate but it will show you the locations of all the hotels on a map and has a great selection of hotels from cheaper to very expensive. We stayed at Villa La Estancia for a week last October and had a great time. The hotel itself is quiet with a great pool and swim up bar. A more "fun" active hotel would be something like the Melia or the Pueblo Bonito Rose. We thought the best part about Cabo was being able to lounge by the pool all day (basically by ourselves, that's how quiet La Estancia was) and then take a nap and get a cab to town to go out at night. Cabs are cheap and extremely plentiful...there is a line of them waiting outside every hotel at all hours and in town as well. We picked Cabo San Lucas rather than San Jose del Cabo because you can swim in the ocean. If you look on a map you can see the difference (and the Corridor, etc.).

We just returned from Cabo. Stayed at the Fiesta Americana for 5 nights (in the corridor), and the Melia San Lucas for 2 nights. We are also in our early 30s and wanted to have fun...The Fiesta Americana was a very nice hotel. Luxurious, and relaxing. We were there with my company on an incentive trip, so everything was paid for. If we did not have preplanned evening activities with the company I believe this hotel would have been pretty boring at night. Not much going on there at all. I read that a cab from that area can be close to $40 each way to town and I know it was at least a 20-25 minute ride.

We took a cab to San Jose del Cabo one night for dinner from the Fiesta Americana, round trip was $67.00 w/tip. Had a wonderful meal at Morgan's Encore, but that was the last night it was open for the next 2-3 months. They have another restaurant there called Morgan's that everyone says is good too.

After the company trip was over we moved into town to the Melia San Lucas. This hotel was also nice, but not nearly as luxurious as the Fiesta Americana. We stayed there to be w/in walking distance to town, and it is definitely walkable. Beware, I saw a good rate on the hotel's website, but thought I should call to talk w/someone to make sure we had a reservation when we got there. The reservationist quoted a lot more than the website, when I mentioned this to her, she suddenly found the internet rate and booked it. We asked for a NS king room...when we checked in we were informed that we had only made a request and the room was not guaranteed, and guess what...all the NS, king rooms were booked. So we were stuck in a Smoking, double bed room.

The hotel is right on Medano beach. It is a swimmable beach, but definitely crowded with vendors. A polite no thank you worked for us, and we were not bothered at all when we were reading or sleeping. The best ammenity that this hotel has to offer is that it is right next door to the KnowWhere Sand bar. It is happy hour all day there, 2 for 1 beers. They are $2 a beer, it is crazy. The bar is right on the beach, the service is great and the tacos are the best I had all week, and I had a lot of tacos. The Office (right next door to the KnowWhere Bar) gets a lot of hype, and I am sure is good, but we preferred the KnowWhere Bar, where we sat from 2-6 or 7PM 2 days in a row. It is on the beach and has GREAT people watching. We had breakfast at both the office and the KnowWhere Bar. The Office was pricier but better.

To wrap up, I am not sure how luxurious you can get if you want to be close to town. If you are looking for fun and will settle for a "nice" hotel, stay at the Melia San Lucas. If you want ultra luxurious, on a nice beach, close to town, you may have to pick another destination. My husband and I have traveled a lot, and I am not sure that I would pick Cabo, if I were picking up the tab. Hope this helps.

Cabs are cheap and plentiful. Cabs are not cheap , they are expensive, what cost us $15 in P.V. cost $30 in Cabo for same distance.

It cost more to get to the Airport in Cabo than it does back home. The same 45 minute drive and it costs more.
This is in a country that the wage per day is $5 and that is a good wage.

The Beach vendors are not a problem a polite No. I mean we were polite. They were not. We were constantly interupted all day, and we said over and over againg the polite NO. How many No's does it take. We had the same people approaching us 3 to 4 times over the day. It was not relaxing.
Our converstations were interupted, my book reading interputed, our meals interupted. It was disturbing. They were aggressive and in our face.