Ok, as promised, a bit of a more fulsome wrap up of my experience post the hurricane. (Apologies now if this is a bit long/verbose)
As I previously posted, we settled back into the Grand Solmar the day after the hurricane. Other than the lack of the pools and common areas, things were in pretty good shape. We had power, A/C, water and internet. There were less than 250 of us on the resort. Maids came and cleaned rooms. The main restaurant served a limited menu during regular meal times. There were dozens of workers cleaning up in various ways. Generally, I think most of us were rather complacent and figured we’d start to be able to leave in a day or two…
…things largely changed in the afternoon on Monday. Southwest Airlines seems to have been the first to report there was long-term damage to the airport. I went down to ask the hotel front desk what the plan was considering the airport would be closed for at least a week and they all had no idea and were also under the impression it would be back up in a day or two. I let them know about the Southwest notice and they said they’d try to get more information. We then went into town to check it out and buy some provisions. I posted those pics earlier. After returning we hopped back on the internet and try to make a plan for ourselves. I noticed I could buy a ticket out of La Paz to Tijuana for Wednesday and my friend and I discussed this option. However, we had no idea if/how we would get to La Paz, nor did we have any solid reports on the condition of that airport. We decided to wait to see if we could get more information…sadly this wouldn’t happen as we lost internet about 7:45pm on Monday. This is when things would really start to take a bit of a turn.
Without the internet, we (and the rest of Los Cabos) were cut off from the world and largely each other. There was still no cell service, no local news channels and the situation in downtown started to deteriorate. The lack of access to verifiable information also created a resort rumor mill, fueled by many people going back and forth to Playa. It seemed there was no plan, no information and no way to get any. About mid-day Tuesday, the Grand Solmar sent a staff member to the airport. She returned with news the military had already begun evacuating tourists from San Jose del Cabo and would mass evacuated everyone from Cabo San Lucas on Wednesday. This morphed into an evening meeting where we were told the resort didn’t know the scope of the evacuation yet and was meeting with officials later that evening. It may take 2 days to evacuate. Wednesday morning at 8:30am the story then became it would take three days and approximately 80 per day would be allowed to leave the resort. Each resort had a “reserved” number of seats on evacuation planes and we would not be able to go to the airport on our own. The first group of 80 would leave at 11:45am. We were actually not on the list for the first day evacuation, but ended up getting out as a result of 6 people chartering their own plane to take them to Mexico city (and basically by being tenacious, we ended up getting two of their spots).
The “evacuation” did not go particularly smoothly. Solmar was basically going to use all their resort shuttles to get people to the airport. We ended up sitting outside, on stairs and ledges for over 4 hours waiting for our shuttle to arrive. They had been stuck in traffic and gas station lines for hours. All the furniture in the arrival area had been stored for the hurricane, which staff eventually started to bring back out at about 3pm. At about this time, cell service started to come back on. The 80 of us were then gathered about 4pm to be told only one shuttle would make it to us and so only 40 would be sent. They prioritized the elderly and those with infants and children. After that bus left they told the other 40 of us we could go back to our rooms if we wanted. About 25 did, but we waited. At this point, I knew this was not a particularly organized system and I just had a feeling we shouldn’t move yet. Sure enough, about 15 minutes later the GM showed up and said they had been able to get ahold of several van taxis that were on their way and would take us.
The first two showed up and the 15-18 of us who had waited, piled in. A heated argument erupted between the GM and the driver of our taxi and we were then asked by the GM to get out. The taxi driver was charging triple and refused to be paid by the resort. The GM sent him on his way (as has been reported, lots of profiteering going on). We actually felt quite fortunate as the next van to arrive was bigger, newer, had amazing A/C and an amazing driver. He zipped us through town and quickly as he could. We passed the enormous amount of looting too quickly for me to get any pics. The worst traffic we hit was passing Costco as many had just parked right on the main road to get up there to get what they could. My commentary on the looting was that it wasn’t terribly violent. I am sure there are many that were not necessarily trying to take advantage of the situation, but knew there was no one to “buy” supplies from and if they didn’t take what they needed, there would be nothing for them to “buy” later on. It was a sad situation.
The devastation of the area was obviously widespread. Powerlines down everywhere. Resorts in varying degrees of destruction. Many cars stranded along the roads. Lines 40-50 cars deep at the few gas stations with fuel. The army presence was lighter than I expected and those who were there were basically just keeping the peace and allowing the general lawlessness and despair to go on (not a judgment on them at all…there were obviously not enough of them to do anything more). We actually arrived at the airport just as the last people on the Solmar shuttle were getting off. There was a line of 800 or so, out in the sun with no water or even makeshift shelter (thank goodness it was later in the day by now). Some officials were telling us to go back as by now it was after 5:30 and “only 4 more planes will be leaving…you will not get on a plane.” Given the effort to get out, our taxi of 10 decided we weren’t going anywhere, plopped into line and all got on planes. There were no lists, no seats reserved, no sign of any organization. Only a line.
We basically waited through two checkpoints to get into the airport. There was little “choice” on where you were going. We were fortunate that Tijuana just happened to be the next set of planes to be going when we go to the front. However, as we waited to board, officials did make announcement about random small sets of seats on planes to other destinations that some took advantage of to get to Mexico City or Mazatlan. This was largely thus luck of the draw. There was no security screening, we got on with our Gatorade and water! We were basically walked on the tarmac and up onto the planes via stairs. After a large group us boarded, the flight attendants took counts and then we waited some time for a few trickles of other people to fill our plane before we left (this explained the random announcements of sets of seats we had encountered earlier). Lots of cheering as we took off and were on our way to TJ. Once landed we hopped in a cab and were dropped to walk across the border. Nearly no lines at this hour and I couldn’t believe we were back in the US, just miles from home after everything the day and week had brought.
My commentary on a couple of things:
Grand Solmar
There will be MANY posts and reports on how amazing the staff is/was. I largely agree. Certainly the general staff was AMAZING. I am a bit more judgmental of upper management. There was no real contingency plan. No sense of urgency after the hurricane to figure out what the next steps would be. Very little communication. What appeared to be very little forethought. I expect the general staff to do the job they’ve been assigned to the best of their ability, and the Grand Solmar staff totally excelled here, going above and beyond in any way they could. For upper management, I expect them to be thinking about things like “Are our shuttles fueled,” “should we have an area prepared for people to wait in to board the shuttles,” “what will conditions be like at the airport?” “should we be starting early in the day (like 7/8am instead of nearly noon) to ensure our guests get on to planes?” “Will there be traffic and major delays to getting fuel,” “as Solmar, do we have relationships we can leverage to make this process better?” “how can we best communicate everything to our guests?” These sorts of questions and considerations seemed largely absent. I also found some management very curt with some guests who were distressed.
Los Cabos
It’s going to take quite some time to get things back to normal. The lack of power, water and infrastructure is going to delay rebuilding supplies getting in and the general ability to rebuild. Even once these basic things are restored, MANY resorts need extensive rebuilding. Even the Grand Solmar, who’s rooms largely just need a good cleaning, doesn’t expect to re-open for 4 weeks. Downtown is a complete mess and Medano beach is gone (it will come back). The level of overall rebuilding required is going to take months. I appreciate the sentiment about supporting the tourism economy down there, but I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to head down until the end of the year at the earliest.
Again, I’m so happy to have been kept safe and to be home. Know that those of you that adore Cabo, it will be back and likely better than ever. Everyone there was determined to get back on their feet and continue to make Cabo a great vacation destination.
I didn't get out of my PJ's until 2pm :rofl:
