Posada Real Los Cabos — Attraction in Baja California Sur

I traveled solo to Cabo 12/8-12/13, 2021 via a deal ($99 6 days/5 nights) I found online so I didn’t get to choose my resort/hotel. This hotel is quaint, has beautiful grounds, the staff (all of them) were friendly and accommodating and the premises and rooms are kept clean.

If you are looking for a resort/hotel with all the bells and whistles this may not be the place for you. The rooms are clean but very dated and repairs that are made were not done professionally, DIY projects throughout. The restaurant is buffet style for each meal and the food is a hit or miss. They serve a buffet style dinner near the pool and that was really nice and some entertainment was provided. Me being a solo traveler would have preferred , had I chosen, more accommodations (spa, bigger pool, choice of food/restaurants, etc…). Would I come back? Definitely!!!! I would just plan better knowing what I know about the resort.

The things I think they can improve on, definitely remodel/update of the rooms (but I know that won’t happen immediately). Short term improvements I think should include:

More activities at pool side, the activity staff should lead pool games, contest with prizes (t-shirts, hats, food vouchers), karaoke, dancing, beach and pool volleyball, tug of war, water dancing/aerobics and more. The music at the poolside could be louder and include local, hip hop, popular, etc…. Live band, DJ, comedy, magic tricks should be going on to keep guest engaged. In other words the poolside should be the luckiest place at the resort to make up for other amenities not present.

The food offered at poolside could be more expansive to include pizza and deserts other than ice cream or at least give options for the ice cream; cones, toppings, variety of flavors.

The alcohol in the drinks is practically non existent and there should be no large ice chunks in the blended drinks. Maybe they need a better blended and/or a lesson in making drinks. Where are the fruit pieces, the umbrellas, the whip cream added to make the drinks festive?

Your gym is small, to supplement it you could offer water aerobics in the pool in the morning, yoga on the beach, massages under the covered areas you have on the beach.

Have vendor day/night and have vendors (food and goods), artist, etc… to come once a week to sell their goods on the sand.

You could have a movie night on the beach or on the grounds somewhere.

Have a activity calendar so the guest will know what’s going on at any given time of the day so they can plan accordingly.

Also, it would be nice to know what the buffet is featuring so the guest can choose if they want to eat at the resort or go elsewhere.

Lastly as I mentioned earlier all you staff were wonderful but I have to give a shout out to Violeta. She was more than helpful recommending and booking excursions. My luggage broke coming to Cabo and I needed to replace it. I was going to Uber to a store and asked her where I could go to get luggage. She not only told me where I could get it she drove me there and back. This personal touch I could not have gotten at a larger resort.

Thank you very much,‘overall I had a great experience at...

Prefacing with: I’m a regular 3 star hotel goer and I normally would have stayed at Hyatt or Hampton Inn, but I decided to give a resort a try. Ultimately, I wish I stuck with my usual as those were cheaper, in the same area, and I didn’t really use the resort enough to justify the cost difference, and the annoyances were enough to leave a sour memory of the resort. We stayed 6 days, 5 nights. My husbands review goes into our specific stay, I kept mine a bit more general.

Front Desk -We had a late check in (11 pm) so they did not give us any info regarding getting a lock for the safes (must be requested) or the wifi password until the next morning. The general info is all lumped into the concierge’s activities and time share pitch. -Asked the front desk to give the manager a note to call me to resolve an issue because we were never at the resort during the hrs they were in and the manager chose not to call me. -We were usually only there in the evenings so Araceli was at the desk. Not sure if it was a language barrier or what, but I felt like she was annoyed every time we went up to the front desk. I will say everyone else was very pleasant and tried to help and communicate when they could.

Bathroom -Generally the most updated thing in the whole resort. Has great water pressure. -They provide shampoo, soap and lotion. Shampoo is very watery, you will go through one bottle in two washes. We went and bought our own shampoo. -The toilet seat doesn’t really stay up (for men). It’s tricky to get it to balance and once there you can’t hit it bc it’ll fall. So when you sit it leans against you. -The shower floor towels have seen better days. They weren’t quite torn, but imagine the thinning that happens to the bottom of your socks with wear, that’s what the shower bath mats were like.

Room -Generally clean. It’s the not most modern resort, but it’s not dirty. There was gum on our headboard which was just painted over and not removed. -There are no outlets at the nightstand, you plug in across the room. -The walls are very thin. We could hear our neighbor’s conversations and snoring, and I’m sure they heard us. In the evenings we could hear the reception band and we were on the outside facing rooms (kinda fun, but can image it not being so if you get a super loud neighbor). -The phones don’t have a way to call the front desk, so you have to walk there to ask things (or the phones do, but they don’t clearly indicate it or tell you how to do so).

Resort General -Breakfast was good and the buffet had a lot of variety. Unfortunately you have to eat during their window. We had two days where our activities started before the window and they wouldn’t let us get a to go breakfast even though we already paid for it. They also wouldn’t refund us for them. -The pool staff and activities manager are very attentive and engaging. -The location is great and central. -Kid and dog friendly. -Shortage of pool towels. Even though the resort seemed only 30% full, when we asked to exchange for fresh pool towels they were unable to. -The wifi is unreliable and we would often hotspot or use...

The pros: Location is great - easy walking distance of restaurants and art galleries and the ecological reserve. Staff are friendly, courteous and generally quite helpful. The grounds are fastidiously maintained. The property itself is so tiny that if you forget something at your room you can zip back from the beach in under a minute. Plenty of pool chairs and loungers and no need to wake up early to set a towel down. Great spot on the beach and relatively few hawkers peddling junk and haggling you constantly while you’re trying to suntan and read a book. Not a huge drinker but the drinks are good and are not watery. WiFi is mainly reliable. No late night parties waking you up at 4am and no early spring breakers. Mature crowd and generally quiet and peaceful.

The cons: ROOM: A distinct sewer odor emanated from the bathroom. While I suspect everything in the room has been cleaned regularly and the housekeepers have been doing a good job, it’s so old and battered the fixtures everywhere in the room look filthy. There are no facecloths at all and the towels were tattered and far too many years old. There’s no quilt or duvet (only a duvet cover strangely) on the rock hard bed so you’d better cuddle up at night extra hard to stay warm. No mini fridge. TV cabinet was terrifying.

TEMPERATURE: Everything is lukewarm: the buffet food, the coffee, the shower (I didn’t bother shampooing or shaving my legs the whole week - it was too darn cold to do anything other than a painful, quick rinse) and the outdoor jacuzzi (room temperature). The pool however is freezing cold and only brave local children used it.

FOOD: Ranged from “decent enough breakfast; I can live with that” to “truly awful” dinners. There were often zero main course options to eat for plant-based eaters at the shockingly tiny buffet - a first for me in Mexico as there’s usually tons of options for me and I’m not a picky vegetarian at all. Bread was stale as anything every second day including french toast presumably because they reused it from the night before. I laughed at the “sausages” my husband got - they served sliced hot dogs, not even joking and labelled them breakfast sausages. Desserts were ok (standard Mexican fare) but again very limited. Coleslaw tasted foul, like it had gone off. Papaya similarly tasted off.

Overall? The Posada isn’t a “resort”; it’s a dingy old motel desperately in need of a renovation that happens to be beachfront and while it’s got a certain authentic flair to it and the staff are truly doing their very best (with the exception of the grumpy faced front desk gal), it’s a serious stretch to call it 3.5 stars. We’ll never stay here again but it clearly was enjoyed by some of the repeat senior crowd. By night two, I was ready to shell out another $800 to go anywhere else but there. Definitely the worst Mexican vacation I’ve taken as a direct result of the hotel quality and I’m on my seventh or eighth visit to Mexico. For an extra $300 we could have stayed at a 5-star resort in Riviera Maya again - so I kicked myself daily for...