Traveling in Cabo – Day One
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I had so much to tell and so many blog posts I could write that I have decided to make my vacation to Cabo an entire week long post series. I will cover the activities and highlights of each days and include a photo album on each day of the best pictures and shots from the day.
Our Cabo vacation was a week long getaway just for my lovely wife and I to sit back and enjoy some quality time alone together, with grandma at home babysitting the kids we had little to worry about and were able to relax and enjoy the trip.
On the first day which was June 1st we departed Phoenix at around ten in the morning and arrived in Cabo at just after Noon Mountain Time, Cabo is one hour ahead of Phoenix this time of year because of the Daylight Savings Time. The first thing you notice when getting off at San Jose Del Cabo airport is that you park on the runway and depart the plane from both sides walking down stairs to the ground. The airport is fairly small for an International airport and boarding planes directly from the ground is interesting.
To travel to Mexico, you have to fill out an immigration document and declaration document. This document is like a Visa which allows you to visit Mexico for up to 180 days, you also will need your passport and have to keep your “Exit” document to leave the country. These documents took some time to fill out, but you fill them out on your flight to save time.
We arrived and quickly learned that renting a car online has hidden fee’s and costs you don’t expect, like when you get a great deal on a car, know that you are going to be paying around $40 per day extra in insurance and liability coverage minimum. Our great deal was supposed to be a car for one week at $150 dollars, but wound up costing us almost $350 dollars because of the mandatory insurance policy, and the fact that I wanted additional collision insurance just in case.
The next thing you notice when traveling to San Jose Del Cabo or Cabo San Lucas is that you will be bombarded by time share salesmen, everything you want can be had cheaper if you are willing to donate 90 minutes of your time and life to being the target of a time share presentation. You are hit up from the airport, the car rental, the hotel itself and every single eatery you visit on the beach will all try to sell or give you activities for free for attending time share presentations.
In theory, if you don’t mind having to say no a thousand times, and donate 1 1/2 hours of your days to presentations in the morning, you probably could do 12 activities including Fishing, Wave Runner, Dinner Cruises, Dolphin Swims, even save $300 off your car rental for a week, all by enduring painfully grueling time share presentations.
Driving is fairly easy, there is only one main road from the airport to San Jose Del Cabo and that is Highway 1, and the town is about 25 minutes away. We arrived at the hotel only after missing a turn once, there are many roundabouts in Mexico and there are very few in Arizona so I had trouble figuring them out and which directions to take initially.
The hotel is just simply stunning and the most beautiful establishment we have ever stayed at in all of our years of traveling, Cabo Azul is the finest looking property we have stayed at, with Infinity pools, beach and ocean views, 3 restaurants, a market and gigantic suites, it truly is a luxury property.
Since we were over budget on the rental car, and we know we wanted to book an 8 hour fishing trip, this cost was $450 dollars, but with a time share presentation and booked through the hotel, I decided to get the deal and have it marked down to $250. In the end this turned out not to be worth it and I will tell more tomorrow.
We ate at Javier’s restaurant at the hotel that evening, which had some delicious Carne Asada salad (which was my entrée), while my wife had Lobster Seafood Enchilada’s which were incredible. The food was fantastic, and the service excellent, but one thing you will realize when staying in Cabo San Lucas very quickly, is that if you keep paying in American US Dollars, you will gradually overpay constantly, because the pesos translation rate varies place by place, and you often leave a little more in USD than had you paid in pesos. The food is also very expensive, we were hard pressed to eat at a nice establishment and pay more than $100 USD for two people to dine.
More to come on the dining, food, activities and experiences.
Here is the first day’s worth of photo’s mostly showing the hotel room at Cabo Azul, and the views from it.
Tomorrow will be Day two, which will cover activities, as well as the Time Share presentation speech.
-Justin Germino
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Tags: Cabo Azul Review, Cabo San Lucas, Cabo Time Shares, Javiers in Cabo, Mexico Car Rental, Mexico Travel, San Jose Del Cabo, Staying at cabo azul, Traveling to Cabo
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Oh wow Justin!! The view is soooooooo absolutely freakin’ gorgeous that i feel like taking off right now!! HOWEVER, when you mention the costs of car rental, eating at a nice establishment and all that… makes me feel the burn in my wallet and I haven’t even left yet. That’s gonna take some major savings for me and the hubs to have a trip there.. But I think I’m still gonna settle for Bali or New Zealand as destination of choice!
But good for you and wifey for taking a week long break to spend quality time at such a gorgeous place!!
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And I don’t think I can handle all that time share presentations.. LOL!
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Hey Justin:
Found your blog from Twitter. Looks like you are going to have some great fun at Cabo. We went to Cabo few times through Cruise and have never stay over 7 days. It’s beautiful place. I guess you are right. One of our friends was ripped off by the Timesharing sales. Well. It’s not entirely the sales’s fault, but it make s the whole trip a unhappy one to them.
Will check out your photos. By the way, remember to take some photos on Lover’s beach.
Have a great time.
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Thanks, yeah I took the trip last week and had no internet access, this week I am back and posting all my pics each day in a series for the whole week, stay tuned, tomorrow we were at Cabo Wabo, and Wed, Thurs and Fri are pics on the water. Thanks for visiting, look forward to you playing my twitter poetry game.