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Cabo San Lucas, Mexico - Westin or Sheraton? 2005 onward [Master Thread]

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico - Westin or Sheraton? 2005 onward [Master Thread]

Old Jan 5, 2005, 2:21 pm
  #1  
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Cabo San Lucas, Mexico - Westin or Sheraton? 2005 onward [Master Thread]

Possibly thinking of booking next Christmas week at either place -Sheraton Hacienda del Mar Resort and Spa or Westin Resort & Spa Los Cabos.

Did a search on FT and found little. This year we were at the Westin Rio Mar in PR and last year at the Westin in Puerta Vallarta. Would prefer a new place. Any feedback on these two, including the food and the night life I have college/graduate school kids with me.
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Old Jan 5, 2005, 7:10 pm
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Originally Posted by jkfb1
Possibly thinking of booking next Christmas week at either place -Sheraton Hacienda del Mar Resort and Spa or Westin Resort & Spa Los Cabos.

Did a search on FT and found little. This year we were at the Westin Rio Mar in PR and last year at the Westin in Puerta Vallarta. Would prefer a new place. Any feedback on these two, including the food and the night life I have college/graduate school kids with me.
We loved the Sheraton. We did visit the Westin and we were very happy we chose the Sheraton. We met other people there who were staying at the Westin and wished they had chosen the Sheraton. If you want more info on the Sheraton do a search. I have posted about it a few times. Let me know if you have any other questions.
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Old Jan 5, 2005, 8:59 pm
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My wife and I spent our second year in a row at the Westin PVR. We like it a lot. This year its back to a Catageroy 3 and a god deal at that. At Category 4 it is not. Still all rooms have a balcony and a view of the bay and the pools are great. Plus the free breadfast, evening snacks and drinks, including champagne meant you could literally stay there and not spend another penny.

Just for a change, my wife wanted somewhere else next Christmas week and I booked today the Sheraton Hacienda De Mar. Now I will have the fun job of getting us there, but I did do a search and some of the posts like mmichele's above led me to select the Sheraton.

Do not dealy. Book it now. You can always cancel if you change your mind.

Incidentally, the Westin PVR screwed up our bills (we had 2 rooms) and it looks like SPG paid the hotel about $147/nt for each one.

BTW, mmichele, is there a club room with drinks/snacks at the Sheraton and did you get an ocean view room?

Last edited by Vulcan; Jan 5, 2005 at 9:03 pm
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Old Jan 5, 2005, 9:26 pm
  #4  
 
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Originally Posted by jkfb1
Possibly thinking of booking next Christmas week at either place -Sheraton Hacienda del Mar Resort and Spa or Westin Resort & Spa Los Cabos.

Did a search on FT and found little. This year we were at the Westin Rio Mar in PR and last year at the Westin in Puerta Vallarta. Would prefer a new place. Any feedback on these two, including the food and the night life I have college/graduate school kids with me.
I've been to the Westin Regina the past two years (during xmas week), though both time I've stayed in the associated timeshares (Club Regina), but I've been in some of the hotel rooms. Overall it's a great property. Great location, in between San Jose Del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas. It's pretty isolated from other resorts so it's "quiet". Very nice pools and beach, the ocean is swimmable but there are strong undertows. Food is good (mostly ate by the pool each day)--especially chips, salsa, and guacamole For dinner each night we went to local restaurants in the two towns. (For GREAT sushi, try Nick-san in CSL.)

The hotel rooms are nice, each has its own balcony, heavenly bed and bath, etc. There's a club room (Royal Beach Club), as well, with food/beverage, as long as you have the right type of room (concierge room). There's high speed internet in all of the rooms, as well as WiFi access throughout the restaurants/pools/beach/etc (though $20USD/day).

Nightlife is in Cabo San Lucas, and it's great for college age kids (and even fun-loving adults ). Lots of bars, like Squid Roe, Cabo Wabo, Nowhere Bar which are popular with the tourists. There's plenty to do if you're up for it. Also, cabs from the Westin to CSL are $25USD and $15USD to SJDC (there's also a cheaper shuttle which runs during the day).

By the way, the place was absolutely booked during xmas week this year. I heard it was so overbooked that they had to send people to the Sheraton...
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Old Jan 5, 2005, 9:47 pm
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Originally Posted by Vulcan
My wife and I spent our second year in a row at the Westin PVR. We like it a lot. This year its back to a Catageroy 3 and a god deal at that. At Category 4 it is not. Still all rooms have a balcony and a view of the bay and the pools are great. Plus the free breadfast, evening snacks and drinks, including champagne meant you could literally stay there and not spend another penny.

Just for a change, my wife wanted somewhere else next Christmas week and I booked today the Sheraton Hacienda De Mar. Now I will have the fun job of getting us there, but I did do a search and some of the posts like mmichele's above led me to select the Sheraton.

Do not dealy. Book it now. You can always cancel if you change your mind.

Incidentally, the Westin PVR screwed up our bills (we had 2 rooms) and it looks like SPG paid the hotel about $147/nt for each one.

BTW, mmichele, is there a club room with drinks/snacks at the Sheraton and did you get an ocean view room?
I just checked on the SPG website and it shows the Westin PVR as a Cat. 4. Are you sure thats it's a Cat 3? Thanks, Paul~
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Old Jan 6, 2005, 8:20 am
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You're right about Booking Already too late

[QUOTE=Vulcan]

Do not dealy. Book it now. You can always cancel if you change your mind.

Just called the Platinum desk to find out differences and availability of both places. First the Sheraton has no Club level. The Westin does have Royal Beach Club.

As far as availablity goes, the Sheraton is booked for New Years Eve already so unless I want to check out on Dec 31 (which my kids hate, they are tired of watching the ball drop on a screen at Logan) the Sheraton is not an option. The Westin still has rooms through January 1.

I asked about PVR, they have availability, but the Westin on St. John ( I know it's on the other Ocean) does not. Now I need to give this some serious thought. Who would have thought that on January 6 booking a room for Dec 25-Jan1, 2005 - even if I wanted to pay for it - would be so difficult
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Old Jan 6, 2005, 10:36 am
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Did you call SPG rather than try to book on line. Sometimes the online award engine does not go into 2006. I called yesterday morning at 11 AM and was able to book the Sheraton for Dec 26 arrival and January 1 departure. I find it hard to believe that I got the last award room

Ed
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Old Jan 6, 2005, 11:30 am
  #8  
 
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Originally Posted by paulnagy
I just checked on the SPG website and it shows the Westin PVR as a Cat. 4. Are you sure thats it's a Cat 3? Thanks, Paul~
From the list published by William the other day:

WESTIN TORONTO PRINCE 2 3
WESTIN RESORT PVR 4 3
WESTIN CANCUN 4 3

I agree that the website shows it as a 4 yet. If you need to book an award thre, I would call SPG and see if they have it as a "3".
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Old Jan 6, 2005, 1:41 pm
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Originally Posted by Vulcan
My wife and I spent our second year in a row at the Westin PVR. We like it a lot. This year its back to a Catageroy 3 and a god deal at that. At Category 4 it is not. Still all rooms have a balcony and a view of the bay and the pools are great. Plus the free breadfast, evening snacks and drinks, including champagne meant you could literally stay there and not spend another penny.

Just for a change, my wife wanted somewhere else next Christmas week and I booked today the Sheraton Hacienda De Mar. Now I will have the fun job of getting us there, but I did do a search and some of the posts like mmichele's above led me to select the Sheraton.

Do not dealy. Book it now. You can always cancel if you change your mind.

Incidentally, the Westin PVR screwed up our bills (we had 2 rooms) and it looks like SPG paid the hotel about $147/nt for each one.

BTW, mmichele, is there a club room with drinks/snacks at the Sheraton and did you get an ocean view room?
There was no club room when I was there but we did get upgraded to an ocean front suite with two balconies, a kitchen, 2 bathrooms etc. The views were beautiful. For breakfast we ate everyday at Girasoyles, which is $12 a person but you can order as much as you want and whatever you want from the menu. It was great! ALso, request a room in the main building. They were sold out the first day we were there and we got put in one of the smaller rooms and they weren't as nice as the ones in the main building. Have fun!
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Old Jan 6, 2005, 1:50 pm
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Stayed 5 nights at Hacienda del Mar about 2.5 years ago. Absolutely loved it. It was sold out the entire we were there, but never seemed crowded. Far enough from the crazy party scene, but close enough to town if you wanted to go. Great architecture and lovely beach, though they recommended guests stay out of the water due to tides. We spent a couple of days laying on the beach and had it to ourselves.
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Old Jan 6, 2005, 6:24 pm
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Westin Resort Pvr 4 3

I emailed Willam and he confirmed that its going to a "3". There are a lot of changes to be made and some take longer than others. His suggestion was to wait and watch. It should go to a "3" shortly.
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Old Jan 7, 2005, 12:06 pm
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We just returned from a New Years stay at the Sheraton Hacienda, here are some off the cuff comments. In addition ot these comments on another thread I've posted some thoughts (mostly positive ones) regarding several earlier stays at the property. We've never stayed at the Westin, we just like the Hacienda layout better.

For this stay, we had some negatives, but I'd chalk most of those up to near 100% occupancy, they were bursting at the seams. When we checked in we found we had been given a platinum upgrade to an oceanfront room (from a points and cash base room). But after checking out the room in the "23" building on the first floor facing the pool, we decided that we prefered some of the "oceanview" rooms we'd stayed in before. We stayed in buildings "25" and "27" (the property has a main building and then several other freestanding buildings of varying size, 23/25/27 appear to be the smallest) before in top floor corner rooms. The rooms in 25 and 27 were high up with more light (windows on side wall) and privacy and quite frankly they had more ocean view than the first floor oceanfront room we were given in 23.

We walked back up to the front desk and explained what we were looking for. They grabbed us a room in the main building, top floor, facing south. It had a great view, but a smaller balcony with less privacy than the balconies on the 25/27. We had some immediate A/C problems, a water leak on the floor, so they had to send up maintenance. They quickly fixed the mechanical problem, but housekeeping never arrived to clean up the mess. After 3 calls we used all our towels to mop it up and pushed them out in the hallway, calling housekeeping again.

Next day, still no housekeeping so we visited the front desk, even with a pile of towels at the door. Went to breakfast at the main restaurant and they had a New Years brunch buffet for $26 per person, so we ordered ala carte. Perfectly reasonable prices, but the service was very poor. It was as if the waitstaff were just sitting tables and then hoping customers would take the buffet, so the waitstaff didnt have to work. It was pretty clear that others were having similar problems. This was only our second meal experience at the Sheraton, a dinner at Pityhaus (sp?) on an earlier visit was unimpressive, including a bottle of wine that we had to return, especially in comparison to some of our favorite outside restaurants (more below). I've heard others say good things about the food at the Sheraton, but we will be eating off property from now on.

After brunch we returned to our room, still no housekeeping so we went out for the day. Later that evening, still no housekeeping and we were out of towels. Got some towels from a cart and got ready to head out for the evening. On the way out we stopped at the front desk and made a firm request that our room be cleaned before we returned or else we were going to make some serious noise. Overhead other guests in a heated debate with asst front desk manager over their brunch, cold food and bad service. Not sure if this was a New Years staffing issue, but we cut them slack and didnt get bothered by our poor service.

We went out for a great dinner and returned to find everything in order in our room. All's well that ends well for us, especially since we were the ones that wanted a change to this room, but if an incident like this would ruin your stay... Another thing comes to mind, we've visited the property before in mid-October, end of Nov and early Dec and occupancy was much lower. In October the place was practically empty, the other times it was about 1/2 full. The service then was amazing, every request was promptly filled and we had our own personal waiter at the pool taking care of us. We'll likely return during the slower season next year instead of during the holidays.

As for where to eat, in Cabo we love Nick-San, great creative sushi with lots of local fish. It can be expensive, we seem to average $60 person including bev, tax, tip... but worth it in my opinion. Quetzal in Cabo is great for lunch and breakfast, a real authenitc hole-in-the-wall place, but wont make you ill. The place next to Quetzal (paty's?) is also good and also safe. These places are super cheap, maybe $10 for breakfast for 2. They are more or less around the block from the supermarket (the one near Squid Row). In San Jose, we like La Panga as well as Tequila. Both have great outdoor courtyard seating areas. The food is quite good, I would say int'l fusion as opposed to anything mexican. Decent wine lists as well. Both places have entrees in the $20+ range, so with a salad and drinks you can come out in the $50 per person range.
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Old Jan 8, 2005, 10:05 am
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JKFB1

I recently chose between the Westin and Sheraton in Cabo and went with the Westin because of the Royal Beach Club (free breakfast and drinks) which I expect may save some money over the course of the week. I am going in February, and will report back.

Kindra
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Old Jan 8, 2005, 10:22 am
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http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3201592

On my RTW trip I stayed at both properties six nights each. I liked the exterior and design of the Hacienda Del Mar better, Suite at the Westin with Jacuzzi and Daybed on the balcony was superb though. Great Bathroom. Good value hotels, food in the area is expensive though.
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Old Jan 8, 2005, 11:16 am
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Flamboyant

Why was the Royal Beach Club closed?
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