After arriving late the night before and sleeping in a small hotel in San Jose del Cabo, we were eager to get our trip to Los Cabos started. There are two main towns in Los Cabos, Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, and we decided to split our time between the two, starting with Cabo San Lucas.
After a quick bite to eat at a little smoothie stand, we took an Uber to our first hotel: Hacienda Encantada. Hacienda Encantada is a large property (there are actually technically multiple resorts that share the property) between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, but much closer to the latter. The drive from San Jose del Cabo was about half an hour, and we were blown away from the second we drove through the gates.
Review of Hacienda Encantada
We visited Los Cabos in November of 2020, when Covid-19 was putting a lot of restrictions on international travel. While this involved some hurdles, once we actually arrived at the property, we were very happy with the protocols in place to protect visitors. We had to wear a face mask in all indoor areas around the resort, and walk through a sanitizer station (which I called a car-wash for people) whenever we entered or exited the property. The resort was also operating at a limited capacity, meaning we were easily able to distance ourselves from other guests and never had trouble finding a chair by the pool.
The check in process was smooth, and while we arrived before our room was ready, they strapped on our oh-so-valuable all-inclusive bracelets so we could take advantage of the property’s many pools and restaurants.
Our first stop was the beach.
Hacienda Encantada is located high on a rocky hill overlooking the ocean. There is a path down to a small beach, which we took advantage of many times, but they have also created an artificial beach at the top of the hills, right next to a gorgeous infinity pool. This was my favorite spot in the whole property. From this artificial beach, we had an unbeatable view of the ocean, where we could watch boats go in and out of Cabo San Lucas and pelicans diving into the water to fish. We even saw a couple of whales off in the distance one day!
We ordered lunch from the beach bar, one of several on-site restaurants included in the all-inclusive plan. (We ate at all of them throughout our stay, and everything was delicious!) I couldn’t imagine a better way to start our trip than reading my book with a view of the ocean, a cocktail, and a seafood lunch. It was pure relaxation, and we came back here almost every day.
When our room was ready, we went back to reception, where a golf cart picked us up, along with our bags, and drove us to the right building. Who knows how we would have found our room otherwise?
Normally, I prefer boutique accommodation to the mega resorts like Hacienda Encantada, but because there are multiple buildings, multiple pools, and multiple restaurants all spread out, the resort didn’t really feel as big as it was. We stayed in a ground floor room in the El Encanto building. I was disappointed to be staying on the ground floor, but we really liked our room, which had a lovely little patio area, two double beds, and a large bathroom. It was extremely clean, and decorated in warm colors. Overall, we were pleased.
Just outside our door was another pool, and more importantly a hot tub, where we lounged for much of the afternoon. We quickly learned that Los Cabos is less about doing things and more about relaxing, which can be good or bad, depending on your travel style. After the crazy adventure of actually getting to Mexico, though, we were glad to have a relaxing day in.
We walked down to the beach for an absolutely stunning sunset, then ate dinner in Mariscos, the seafood restaurant, which was included in the all-inclusive plan but did require a reservation. The restaurant overlooked the ocean, and the food was all so good. It’s hard to get good seafood in New Mexico, which is about as far from the ocean as you can get, so we are always super excited when we get to eat fresh seafood. My favorite thing about all-inclusive resorts is that I can order as much food as I want, which meant appetizers and dessert at every meal. Plus, the wine flowed freely, and the servers were all super friendly and attentive.
I had read some mixed reviews about the service at Hacienda Encantada, but our experience with the staff was nothing but positive!
Diving in Cabo San Lucas
Our second day at Hacienda Encantada, we had the concierge arrange a diving tour for us. The resort has a sister hotel in downtown Cabo San Lucas, and there is a free shuttle that can take you to town, which was very convenient. After breakfast, we took the shuttle to the sister resort, then walked around the pier to the dive shop. Compared to the tranquil isolation of Hacienda Encantada, Cabo San Lucas was very busy. It was a totally different vibe, and I’m pretty sure this area is what gives Cabo its reputation as a party destination. We passed several bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops, all trying to lure us inside. It was just about a fifteen minute walk to the dive shop, but it made me glad we had chosen to stay a bit outside the main town.
We went diving with a company called Manta Scuba and did two dives in the marine park just off the coast. If you’ve ever Googled things to do in Los Cabos, you’ve probably seen pictures of the famous rock arch. We went diving in this area. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting much from these dives, but they were actually two awesome dives!
Our first dive was in a spot called Neptune’s Finger. We saw tons of reef fish, as well as a few eels and some really pretty starfish. This dive was extra special, though, because of the massive group of sardines that hovered just over our heads like a silver ceiling in the shallow water. I’d never seen such a huge school of fish before, and was blown away!
During our surface time between dives, we drove the boat around to Land’s End to see the arch and the sea lion colony that lives there. The water was pretty rough, so it wasn’t too relaxing, but still nice. After about an hour, we jumped back in the water for our second dive.
Overall, we didn’t see quite as much on our second dive as we did on the first. The site was Pelican Rock. However, the quietness of the dive was more than made up for when a huge group of cownose rays swam right above us. They circled around a few times, so we got to admire them for several minutes. It was absolutely incredible! I need to come up with more adjectives to describe the cool things we see on trips, but just look at the pictures. They speak for themselves!
After we finished diving, we had a few hours to hang out in Cabo San Lucas before heading back to the resort for dinner. We didn’t do much in town, and since we had a hot tub available to us at Hacienda Encantada’s sister hotel, we mostly hung out there until the shuttle picked us up. That return shuttle turned out to be quite an adventure though.
We visited Los Cabos in November of 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. We did everything we could to travel responsibly, and were more than happy with the sanitizing and safety protocols in place to protect travelers. However, not everyone had the same attitude we did…
Our hotel stated very specifically that masks had to be worn when taking the shuttle to Cabo San Lucas and back, which we were more than happy to do. So when it came time to get on the shuttle, we donned our masks and took a seat in one of the rows in the middle of the bus. We were followed by a group of ladies, all wearing masks, who were dancing and ready to have a good time. They sat in the front. The third group that tried to get on was two couples, all of whom were completely wasted and none of whom were wearing masks.
One of the ladies in front of us barred the door, and insisted (in a polite but firm manner) that the two couples needed to wear masks during the drive. However, the two couples were feeling belligerent, and not only refused to put on masks, but also started talking to the ladies in an aggressive and condescending tone. Within a matter of minutes, we were in the middle of an all-out fight, which involved a lot of yelling, name-calling, and even some shoving. I thought Ben was going to have to break it up!
The driver intervened and got everyone seated, thankfully with their masks on, if not without some grumbling, and we made it back to the resort without further incident.
However, I thought about this interaction quite a lot afterwards, and here are my final thoughts. As a Christian, I believe we should live in a way that considers others before ourselves. It’s easy to believe that when we all agree on something. But what about in a situation like this, where one group believes that masks are important for everyone’s health and safety, but the other group believes they don’t do anything? If we take a step back and ignore for a minute that lots of studies have shown masks to have an impact in slowing the spread of disease, it still confuses me that these people were unwilling to endure a tiny inconvenience for a few minutes in order to make the rest of us on the shuttle feel safer. I just think we should all be willing to make small sacrifices for the sake of others, even if we think they are wrong.
Also, if you don’t like the rules, don’t take the shuttle bus.
Anyway, back at Hacienda Encantada, we had an amazing dinner at their Italian restaurant, and after diving all day, I was starving! I really can’t stress enough how good the food was at this resort. While I’ve not been to a ton of all-inclusive resorts, I’ve been to enough to know that the food cannot always be counted on. (Ahem, food poisoning on our honeymoon.) But everything we ate at Hacienda Encantada was so good!
Relax on the Beach
On our third day in Cabo, we decided to just enjoy all the amenities that were available at the resort, starting with walking up to the lighthouse at the edge of the property. From here, we walked down what looked like a walking trail, but ended up taking us onto another property (whoops!) It was a very hot day, so it didn’t take long for us to decide that the pool was the place to be for the rest of the day.
With unlimited drinks and snacks, a comfy beach chair, and a nice, cool infinity pool, we had no qualms about spending the day at the hotel. Normally, I want to be having adventures all day every day when I travel, so to take not just one, but several days to simply relax was very unusual. I can’t pretend I don’t prefer a faster-paced style of travel, but with the stressful year 2020 had been, it was also kind of nice to have some down time. I read a book. Ben played some pool volleyball. It was a nice time.
We also saw a couple of whales from our clifftop pool. November is the very beginning of whale season in Los Cabos, and we were surprised 1.) that they were there, and 2.) that we could see them from our hotel! It was very cool.
Sadly, this brought us to the end of our time at Hacienda Encantada. Our trip to Cabo was not quite over yet, but we were off to a new hotel after breakfast the next morning. We were very sad to say goodbye, and if I could do this trip over, I totally would have stayed here the whole time. Our trip to Los Cabos was not our usual king of trip, but we ended up enjoying it so much more than we thought we would.
Leave a Reply