We’ve been home from Cabo San Lucas for a little over a week now and we’re already going through withdrawal. We’ve had one blizzard since getting home and are expecting snow on Thanksgiving, so the sun and beach seem like a distant memory at this point. We truly had a wonderful time visiting Cabo and walking around town and through the marina.
Restaurants in the MarinaBoats in BayLive Music at the Marina
As you walk through the marina, you’ll continuously be approached by sales people trying to get you to take a glass bottom boat, take you deep-sea fishing, go on a time share tour, or play golf at one of the many courses around the area. It is definitely worthwhile taking a glass bottom boat out to the arch and to go to lover’s beach. The marina is also where you board the different dinner cruises, party boats, and fishing boats. We’ve done many of the different dinner and sunset cruises, but haven’t gone deep-sea fishing as of yet, perhaps on our next trip to Cabo.
Fishing BoatsFresh CatchPelicans Waiting for Their Share
There are many wonderful restaurants in the marina as well, all of them offering fresh seafood and tasty drinks. On Sunday, while we were there, we came across a restaurant offering all you can eat oysters. Since we love oysters, we definitely took advantage of that opportunity. At night-time, the marina area really comes to life with plenty of things to do and opportunities to people watch.
All You Can Eat OystersRestaurant in the MarinaMargarita
The downtown area also has plenty of vendors where you can purchase local trinkets and bargain with the store owners to get the best price on you souvenirs. At first it might feel awkward haggling over the price, but it is expected and don’t feel intimidated. If you don’t want to go downtown, there are plenty of vendors walking up and down the beach bringing souvenirs to all of the resorts for you to purchase.
Vendors on the BeachHorses on the BeachGlass Bottom Boat
At the resorts themselves, you can arrange kayaking, paddle boarding, parasailing, jet skis, golf, and more. There are also people walking the beach with horses so that you can take a romantic horse back ride along the beach. Our favorite thing about Cabo is the size of the resorts. There aren’t huge resorts with thousands of rooms, so whether going into town, walking the beach, or sitting around the pool, you’re not overwhelmed by tremendous crowds. We can hardly wait for our next trip to the beach, but it is going to have to wait for a little while.
ParasailingLover’s Beach in the DistanceHorse Back RidingFrog Legs at the Marina
First of all, we know that timeshares aren’t for everyone. The year that our youngest daughter went off to college, one of our parents gave us one of their timeshare weeks because they weren’t going to have time to use it that year. So two weeks after dropping our daughter off at her dorm, we were off to Cabo San Lucas. When we arrived at the resort, which was gorgeous, we were asked about scheduling a tour of the property and listening to their timeshare pitch. We decided to go ahead and schedule the tour, only because of the discounts, free drinks, and other offers. The morning of the tour, we both woke up repeating the mantra, “just say no”. We were determined that we weren’t going to be duped into buying a timeshare and we wouldn’t give them more than the sixty minutes that they said the tour would take us. We looked at the rooms, ate breakfast with the salesperson at a table overlooking the private beach, and eventually made our way to the sales office. Our room was spectacular, the beach was gorgeous, and we were feeling relaxed, perhaps too relaxed. Our resolve had wavered, we were no long able to “just say no”, but we were now firmly embedded into the “maybe” camp. We called our parents who had given us the timeshare week and asked their opinion, after all, they had several timeshare weeks with different companies and traveled constantly. Their response, “if you had to go there every year and you couldn’t trade it, would we go?”. We looked out at the resort, the ocean, the beautiful blue skies. Yes, we could do this every year, happily, so in the end, it was “just say yes” and we had purchased our first timeshare. There are a lot of questions that you need to ask yourself before you decide to purchase a timeshare, but we actually are big fans of timeshares after having had a couple of them for several years now.
Sunset over the Pacific OceanSuite at Villa Del Arco
The most obvious and important question is can you afford it? Timeshares aren’t cheap and you need to understand all of the expenses that are involved. First, unless you’re in the position to purchase outright, you will have a monthly installment payment as well as interest charges. If you decide to exchange your week (we’ll talk about that later) there is a cost for each week that you trade. If you’re not able to use your week, most timeshares allow you to “bank it” or “rescue it”, which allows you to move your week to the following year and gives you longer to use your week, but again there is a cost to do that. The biggest additional expense is for your maintenance fees, which is what they charge for cleaning and general maintenance of the property. It is a big investment, so you need to think about it carefully. One potential benefit, depending on the timeshare that you’ve bought is that it is buying property and you can write off the interest on your taxes and when you’ve paid it off, it is yours and you can will it to a child or relative.
View from Our Room at the Villa Del ArcoResort in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic
The next question to ask yourself is how often can you travel? If you travel consistently, one week every year or at least every other year, then perhaps it might be a good choice for you. The way that we look at it is that we’re “pre-paying” for our hotel or resort in advance, which is usually the most expensive part of the trip anyway. For us, we know that we will travel at least a couple of weeks a year, with at least one of those trips being out of the country. We find that it reduces our stress when we start planning a trip, knowing that we don’t have to think about the cost of our room and our only expenses will be for food, activities, and airfare.
Suite at the Resort in Punta CanaSunset in Puerto Vallarta
If you’re leaning towards purchasing a timeshare, the next question is probably which one is right for you. There are lots of them out there, Marriott, Hilton, Disney, and a variety of other hotel groups. We’re not going to make a recommendation, although we have two different timeshares at the moment and are happy with both. Find out if they are affiliated with a timeshare exchange company. One of our timeshares is associated with RCI and the other is associated with Interval International. These companies allow you to deposit your timeshare week with them and exchange it for any available timeshare property in their catalog, which provides properties all over the world, making your timeshare a passport to travelling the world. A couple of years ago, we spent two weeks in Estapona Spain simply by trading weeks that we had in our current timeshares. Also, check to see if you can convert your timeshare for points in a regular hotel rewards program, that way if you can’t travel, you can at least convert your timeshare into hotel rooms that can be used anywhere the hotel chain has a presence.
Suite in Puerto VallartaFlamenco Dancers at the Resort in Estapona Spain
In our opinion, the younger that you are when you decide to purchase a timeshare, the better it will work out for you because it is that much longer that you will own it after it has been paid off. If you do decide to go on a timeshare tour or accept an offer for a cheap hotel room if you’re willing to listen to their pitch, be prepared for a pushy sales experience. Unfortunately they are sales people and that is what they do. Only buy a timeshare if you feel that it is the right decision for you, which it may or may not be. If you do decide to buy a timeshare, hopefully our advise will help you find the one that is right for you.
Within three weeks of our youngest daughter leaving home for college, we were sitting at the beach in Cabo San Lucas. As our friends have gone through the same transition from having kids at home to being empty nesters, we’ve seen two typical transitions. One, like ours, where the couple starts dating again and enjoying the freedom that it offers. And the second, which always saddens us, is when, after spending years devoted to the children and their activities, the couple wakes up to find that the only thing they had in common was taking care of the kids and they drift apart and often get divorced. Happily we couldn’t wait to start spending more time together because not only are we husband and wife, but we’ve always been each other’s best friend. So, as sad as we were to drop our daughter off at college, we were excited to start having more adventures and we were off to Cabo.
Arch at CaboSunset over the Pacific Ocean
We’ve said this many times, but we truly prefer to travel in the off season, so our trip to Cabo was in late October. Our parents, who are avid travelers as well, had given us a week using their timeshare and this would be our first experience using a timeshare. We flew into the Los Cabos International Airport, which is located in San Jose Cabo and is about a 45 minute taxi or shuttle ride to Cabo San Lucas. This was our first trip to Mexico, we’ve been there several times since, but seeing the armed federal police officers all over the airport was unexpected. You deplane outside and then walk into the airport to go through customs. Somehow we managed to go through a wrong door into a room with all of the luggage. There was a large glass wall between us and the room to go through customs with a door where a policeman stood. We went to walk through the door to get into the other room and were quickly and abruptly told that we had to exit the way we came and go in the correct door. No arguing with a man with semi-automatic rifle.
Dinner on the BeachInfinity Pool at Villa Del Arco
We made it through customs and were prepared for what we would face next, which was the gauntlet of timeshare salesman claiming that they will take you to your resort. We’d been warned in advance and walked through, ignoring the fervent pleas to provide us a ride, and made it to the taxis and shuttles. We chose to take a shuttle, which is cheaper, but you share the shuttle with several other families and couples, so it takes a little longer as they stop at the various resorts until they reach your resort. As you get closer and closer to Cabo San Lucas, the ocean and the resorts start coming into view and it finally starts sinking in that you’re about to spend a week in paradise. We were staying at the Villa Del Arco resort and from the moment we arrived, we knew we were in for an incredible stay.
Villa Del ArcoSuite at Villa Del Arco
Resorts in Cabo San Lucas aren’t like resorts in most other tourist locations in Mexico, they have a height restriction on resorts near downtown, so you don’t have these giant monstrosities along the beach. The result of this is that the resorts are smaller, with fewer crowds in the resort and on their private beaches. As we checked in, we were told that if we attended the one hour timeshare sales presentation we would get discounts in town and some vouchers for the resort. Having not been through a timeshare pitch before, we accepted and were off to have a tropical drink while our luggage was taken to our suite. Once we got to our suite, with its gorgeous view of the ocean and the famous arch in Cabo San Lucas (El Arco de Cabo San Lucas), we were truly impressed.
Arch at Cabo San LucasPrivate Beach at Villa Del Arco
The following morning, we went to our timeshare tour where we were shown the different rooms of the resort and then taken to breakfast with our sales person. Afterwards, we went to the sales office for the closing pitch. We had told ourselves before we went that, no matter what, we were going to say “no”, this was just to get some free stuff. Even though we’d only been there for a night, we were in love with the resort. It wasn’t an easy decision, but after much debating and the sales manager sweetening the pot, we decided to buy what would turn out to be our first timeshare. After the stress of making the decision to purchase, we were off to the pool and the pirate ship bar and restaurant located in the center of the pool. We have swam laps around that ship/bar many times now and it is one of our fondest memories.
Pirate Ship BarView from Our Room at the Villa Del Arco
Another great thing about Cabo is the close proximity to town, restaurants, and the marina. We love going to the restaurants and asking for the fresh catch of the day and having it prepared specially for us. Cabo is also famous for the marlin and other sport fishing, so you can catch some fresh fish and take it to the restaurants to prepare for you and your guests. On this trip we discovered walking down the beach from the resort to town and the marina provided us with many beach bar opportunities with drinks almost always on special and ceviche, guacamole, and fresh seafood always in abundance. Walking from the resort to town to see the famous Cabo Wabo bar or haggle with the beach and street vendors for trinkets to take home is an easy twenty minute walk and some nice exercise to offset the time spent sitting pool or ocean side eating and drinking.
Cabo WaboMarina at Cabo San Lucas
It was the first of what has been many happy trips that we’ve had since becoming empty nesters, but obviously holds a special memory in our hearts. Not only did we become timeshare owners, but we fell in love with our home resort, the Villa Del Arco. Most importantly, if it was possible, we became even closer by sharing another travel experience and have been back to Mexico several times since. For those of you that aren’t empty nesters yet, take our advice, don’t forget to be a couple and foster the things that brought you together, the things that you have in common, the things that will fill your lives when raising the children is no longer your number one priority. You’ll always be parents, there will always be advice to give and wisdom to share, but hopefully you’ll do that while filling your lives with adventure.
