Sorry if this seems like a repost, but we just got back from La Pacifica and I thought I would post a quick review describing the current state of things down there. Hopefully this will be helpful for someone else in the future.
We were there from Saturday 2/1 to Wednesday 2/5. It was our first time in the Cabo area and we loved it. The weather is very mild (more on that in a second) and there was never a cloud in the sky.
As others have mentioned, La Pacifica is actually about 1/3 of the larger Hilton Los Cabos resort. We thought it was a great resort. For whatever reason, IMO Hilton has watered down their flagship brand over the years, but Los Cabos is a throwback to when Hiltons were nice hotels with good restaurants.
Food:
As has been described elsewhere, the resort offers a "meal plan" that basically makes the resort all-inclusive. I say "basically" because there are some items that are not included in the plan and cost extra. Also, they will limit you to one item per course at dinner. I wanted to get a soup and salad one night and the waiter told me that it wasn't covered by the plan :-/
The price of the plan has recently gone up -- it's now just under $250 per person, per day. However, that does include taxes and gratuity for the servers, so the $250 figure really is your maximum out of pocket. The resort functions a little differently than other all-inclusives. You'll be presented with a bill after every meal, and that bill will have a scary dollar amount listed at the bottom. I'm not sure where those numbers go because they do not show up on your final bill. The only thing that will show up on your room charge are the daily all-inclusive fees. (Some people have reported that the restaurant gives you an itemized receipt with $0 at the bottom. That is not what happened for us. We always got tickets with the full price listed. Don't panic if that happens to you.)
There are three main restaurants on-site. The Hilton Los Cabos website recommends reservations but honestly we never saw a need for them. We like to eat late (~8pm), and we were frequently the only people eating at that hour. Be aware that only the Italian restaurant (Vela) is open every night. The other restaurants -- Talavera (Mexican) and Lena (steaks/seafood) -- seem to alternate nights. We had great food at Lena and Vela. Talavera seems to be mostly buffet and the one time we ate dinner there it was very meh. There is a sushi/Asian restaurant open at lunch that was also really good. The breakfast buffet was a cut above most breakfast buffets. We got room service breakfast, too, and it was surprisingly good (especially the French toast!).
One thing to note about the dining is that none of the restaurants have much (or any) indoor seating and temperatures were frequently in the mid-60s when we went to dinner. The resort provides portable propane heaters spread throughout the dining area and those help, but you should still take a jacket if you're going in winter months.
Pools and Resort:
There are two main pools at the resort: the main pool and the family pool. The HGV rooms overlook the family pool and this is definitely the more quiet part of the resort. Other posters have reported difficulty with finding chairs, but honestly there was abundant seating available by the family pool. The one downside is that during this time of year, the family pool is almost entirely in the shade by 4pm. Seating at the main pool is harder to find, but not impossible. We grabbed chairs at 10am one morning and we rented a cabana on the other.
The pools themselves seemed to be heated. They were a lot warmer than I expected. If you enjoy a hot tub, then La Pacifica will probably be a disappointment. The resort only has two large hot tubs that are frequently at capacity.
As far as activities go, the beach and ocean are the main attractions. The resort doesn't really offer much in the way of organized activities and there's only one bar that's open in the evenings. This suited us just fine, but if you want night life, you might need to grab a taxi into town.
The humpback whales were everywhere during our stay and it was really cool. You can easily see dozens of them from the pool deck. If you want to do more, the resort did help us book a fantastic whale watching tour in Cabo San Lucas. I highly recommend that if you're there in the winter months.
Rooms:
We had a 1BR unit that was fairly standard compared to other HGV properties. It did feature a full kitchen, albeit with scaled down appliances. If you rent a car, you'll pass a grocery store in San Jose on your way to the resort, so eating in your room is an option. We didn't really see much use for it, though, since we got the meal plan.
NOTE: Unlike HGV properties in the US, maid service occurs daily at La Pacifica.
Water:
One thing that is rarely discussed is the safety of the water for drinking. We weren't brave enough to fully test it, but we both of us made k-cup coffee from the tap water and had no ill-effects. My wife also used the ice from the ice maker to put in her drinking water, again with no ill effects. We certainly drank plenty of drinks with ice served to us in the restaurants. Point is, the drinking water seems to be safe enough, but the resort offers plenty of bottled water, too.
Summary:
Bottom line, this is a fantastic resort. The rooms are on-par with other HGV rooms and the resort is well designed and maintained. If you enjoy beach and/or all-inclusive resorts, I highly recommend it. Be warned that you'll probably have to head into Cabo San Lucas if you want much in the way of nightlife.
We were there from Saturday 2/1 to Wednesday 2/5. It was our first time in the Cabo area and we loved it. The weather is very mild (more on that in a second) and there was never a cloud in the sky.
As others have mentioned, La Pacifica is actually about 1/3 of the larger Hilton Los Cabos resort. We thought it was a great resort. For whatever reason, IMO Hilton has watered down their flagship brand over the years, but Los Cabos is a throwback to when Hiltons were nice hotels with good restaurants.
Food:
As has been described elsewhere, the resort offers a "meal plan" that basically makes the resort all-inclusive. I say "basically" because there are some items that are not included in the plan and cost extra. Also, they will limit you to one item per course at dinner. I wanted to get a soup and salad one night and the waiter told me that it wasn't covered by the plan :-/
The price of the plan has recently gone up -- it's now just under $250 per person, per day. However, that does include taxes and gratuity for the servers, so the $250 figure really is your maximum out of pocket. The resort functions a little differently than other all-inclusives. You'll be presented with a bill after every meal, and that bill will have a scary dollar amount listed at the bottom. I'm not sure where those numbers go because they do not show up on your final bill. The only thing that will show up on your room charge are the daily all-inclusive fees. (Some people have reported that the restaurant gives you an itemized receipt with $0 at the bottom. That is not what happened for us. We always got tickets with the full price listed. Don't panic if that happens to you.)
There are three main restaurants on-site. The Hilton Los Cabos website recommends reservations but honestly we never saw a need for them. We like to eat late (~8pm), and we were frequently the only people eating at that hour. Be aware that only the Italian restaurant (Vela) is open every night. The other restaurants -- Talavera (Mexican) and Lena (steaks/seafood) -- seem to alternate nights. We had great food at Lena and Vela. Talavera seems to be mostly buffet and the one time we ate dinner there it was very meh. There is a sushi/Asian restaurant open at lunch that was also really good. The breakfast buffet was a cut above most breakfast buffets. We got room service breakfast, too, and it was surprisingly good (especially the French toast!).
One thing to note about the dining is that none of the restaurants have much (or any) indoor seating and temperatures were frequently in the mid-60s when we went to dinner. The resort provides portable propane heaters spread throughout the dining area and those help, but you should still take a jacket if you're going in winter months.
Pools and Resort:
There are two main pools at the resort: the main pool and the family pool. The HGV rooms overlook the family pool and this is definitely the more quiet part of the resort. Other posters have reported difficulty with finding chairs, but honestly there was abundant seating available by the family pool. The one downside is that during this time of year, the family pool is almost entirely in the shade by 4pm. Seating at the main pool is harder to find, but not impossible. We grabbed chairs at 10am one morning and we rented a cabana on the other.
The pools themselves seemed to be heated. They were a lot warmer than I expected. If you enjoy a hot tub, then La Pacifica will probably be a disappointment. The resort only has two large hot tubs that are frequently at capacity.
As far as activities go, the beach and ocean are the main attractions. The resort doesn't really offer much in the way of organized activities and there's only one bar that's open in the evenings. This suited us just fine, but if you want night life, you might need to grab a taxi into town.
The humpback whales were everywhere during our stay and it was really cool. You can easily see dozens of them from the pool deck. If you want to do more, the resort did help us book a fantastic whale watching tour in Cabo San Lucas. I highly recommend that if you're there in the winter months.
Rooms:
We had a 1BR unit that was fairly standard compared to other HGV properties. It did feature a full kitchen, albeit with scaled down appliances. If you rent a car, you'll pass a grocery store in San Jose on your way to the resort, so eating in your room is an option. We didn't really see much use for it, though, since we got the meal plan.
NOTE: Unlike HGV properties in the US, maid service occurs daily at La Pacifica.
Water:
One thing that is rarely discussed is the safety of the water for drinking. We weren't brave enough to fully test it, but we both of us made k-cup coffee from the tap water and had no ill-effects. My wife also used the ice from the ice maker to put in her drinking water, again with no ill effects. We certainly drank plenty of drinks with ice served to us in the restaurants. Point is, the drinking water seems to be safe enough, but the resort offers plenty of bottled water, too.
Summary:
Bottom line, this is a fantastic resort. The rooms are on-par with other HGV rooms and the resort is well designed and maintained. If you enjoy beach and/or all-inclusive resorts, I highly recommend it. Be warned that you'll probably have to head into Cabo San Lucas if you want much in the way of nightlife.
