Fiesta Americana Grand Los
Cabos hotel is one of the latest
properties to open in Baja
California's trendy Los Cabos.
by Mary Ashcraft and Rod
Lopez-Fabrega
Views of the
rambling Sierra de la Laguna Mountains covered with candy pink San Miguel wild
flowers and yellow Palo de Arco flowering shrubs, soft breezes from the Sea of
Cortez, white sand beaches, secluded coves and 355 days of sunshine a year with
temperatures ranging between 75 and 90 degrees, provide the perfect setting for
the Grupo Posadas' five-star Fiesta Americana Grand Los Cabos hotel. Situated
between the towns of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo on the southernmost
Tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, this beachfront luxury resort in the exclusive
enclave of Cabo Sol, is very international in its approach to luxury but
proudly Mexican in its atmosphere of friendliness and expert attention.
Conforming architecturally to the contours of
the hillside and harmonious with the tans, ochres and sienna colors of nature
that surround it, the 278-room, 90-million-dollar property
features three restaurants, tennis courts, fitness center, health spa, business
center, and meeting space with state-of-the-art equipment for up to 1,100
people. Pablo Azcarraga, Grupo Posadas vice president believes, "The location,
the amenities and great golf combine to present one of the most enjoyable
experiences imaginable."
Immediately adjacent the hotel is the award-winning
Jack Nicklaus-designed, par 72, championship Cabo del Sol Ocean Course. Following
the water’s edge, teeing off perfect turf framed by Organ cactus and Agave and
putting on greens in lush surroundings makes the mix of ocean, land and desert,
as Jack himself says, a course that includes, "...the finest three
finishing holes of golf in the world." Dagoberto de Acha, golf pro of Cabo
del Sol Ocean Course, says that what is most often heard from golfers at the
end of a round is the exclamation, “spectacular!” Golf Magazine rates it
"among the 10 best public courses in the world." High season greens
fee is $200 and low season $150. Hotel guests receive a 20% discount.
The eight classifications of
guest rooms at Fiesta Americana, ranging from Deluxe to Imperial, all have
ocean views of the Sea of Cortez. The property offers three free-form swimming
pools (one with swim-up pool bar), and colorful desert gardens growing right up
to the sand beach. Grand Club level rooms feature the Fiesta Club personalized
service with its own concierge staff, private lounge, complimentary continental
breakfast, afternoon snacks, hors d’oeuvres and cocktails. There is also a
Fiesta Kids Club with supervised activities of painting, crayons, TV and table
games. Baby sitters are available on request. Rates are per room. Rack rates
for Deluxe rooms range from $600 during high season to $251 during low season;
for the Imperial Suite, rack rates range from $3,684 to $2,237
The hotel offers a number of four-
and seven-night packages priced on double occupancy. These include the
seven-night Grand Tour of Los Cabos Golf Courses with prices starting at
$4,400; the four-night Grand Golf and Relaxation starting at $2,661; the four-night
Grand Sport Fishing featuring Grand Deluxe accommodations, two days of sport
fishing aboard a 31-foot yacht, rod and reels, fishing license, box lunch,
certificates of catch and release, two dinners, buffet breakfast daily, airport
and marina transfers, starting at $2,429; and the four- or seven-night Grand
Sport Fishing and Golf starting at $2,710 and $4,570 for the latter.
Weddings
have become very popular at Fiesta Americana. All the planning may be left to
the hotel staff and will include the couples' preference of minister, priest or
rabbi. All the couple needs to bring are the marriage license and blood test.
After the wedding, a honeymoon at this romantic hotel is a good option. The
hotel offers the four- or seven-night Grand Honeymoon package. It includes Grand Deluxe accommodations,
welcoming bottle of Champagne, personalized bathrobes, daily in-room surprise
gift, unlimited use of Fitness Center, one free hour of tennis, one free
massage in Spa, one sunset cruise, discounted golf, theme party dinner or
Rosato Restaurant dinner with wine, buffet or room-service breakfast daily and
airport transfers. Prices start at $1,892 for the four-night and $2,857 for the
seven-night package.
The tour desk in the hotel lobby has a
multilingual staff and can arrange outside activities. The hotel has a shuttle bus from the front door to downtown
Cabo San Lucas that runs every fifteen minutes, which makes shopping the
bustling streets with its myriad craft shops, funky bars and authentic Mexican
restaurants easy. Well worth a visit is Pancho's Restaurant, with its rich
woven tablecloths, brightly colored cutout pictures hung like wash across the
ceiling, 250 kinds of Tequila (one scooped from a vat containing a Tequila-pickled rattlesnake,) a strolling
Mariachi band and an excellent Mexican menu.
The hotel also can arrange an array of
specialized services with Cabo Traveler Advisors (CTA.) With more than fifty
years of experience in the travel industry, managing director Victor Mena,
director of sales Francisco Olivares, and operations manager Jorge Woulburg
will have someone at the airport when you first step off the airplane for
transport to a hotel or to provide airport or Customs and Immigration help, if
needed. CTA has a long and varied list of activities to select from during your
visit. Some choices might be to horseback ride, sail, whale watch, deep sea
fish (Los Cabos is known as the Marlin capital of the world), snorkel, Scuba or
drive up and down the amazing Baja sand dunes in an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV).
Other choices might be a sunset cruise to watch seals on the rocks in Cabo bay
in a luxurious Power Catamaran or Parasail high above blue Cabo Bay under a
colorful parachute. And for those who fell in love with the pop song,
"California Hotel," a trip can be arranged to the California Hotel of
song in the small typical village of Todos Santos. If the activity can be
thought of, CTA will do its best to arrange it.
When you decide to go exploring on your own,
the town of Cabo San Lucas is an adventure in contrasts. It is a fifteen-minute
taxi-ride heading south from the Gold Coast hotels. High on the hilltops
surrounding the town is the neighborhood of Pedregal, an exclusive enclave for
the very rich. Favored by Hollywood's power set, such folk as Sylvester
Stallone have palatial retreats perched on the cliffs looking down on what is
becoming Cabo's Tiajuana. The town is filled with a fascinating mix of
high-priced boutiques, tourist traps, typical restaurants, a MacDonalds, seedy
bars, elegant bars, a Hard Rock Cafe (of course), and you-name-it attractions.
The downtown area wraps around a large marina where pleasure craft and deep-sea
fishing craft are docked and a major shopping mall is being constructed. It's
fun and worth a day's worth of poking around as well as several nights of
cantina-hopping.
For the more conservative, a ride north to the town of
San Jose del Cabo is a must. This wonderful little community is much more like
the "typical Mexican town" of your dreams. Located about fifteen
minutes north of the Gold Coast, the atmosphere throughout makes San Jose
something of an oasis after the pace of neighboring Cabo San Lucas. It is an
historic Spanish Colonial Village with a marvelously baroque bandstand in the
town square, and a cool, shady park marking the end of a main street lined with
interesting shops.
Just off the park is a hidden gem of a
"boutique hotel," the Casa Natalia. Just opened in October, 1999, it
is owned and operated by European-born wife and husband partners Nathalie and
Loic Tenoux. The Tenoux's have created a magnificently appointed posada with
just 18 rooms. This is how they describe it themselves: "The hotel's
contemporary Mexican architecture has an international flavor that reflects the
region's spectacular deserts, mountains, clear skies and brilliant blue seas.
Colorful hand plastered walls in vivid blues, yellows, and terra-cotta, hand
hewn wood beams, towering palm groves, brilliantly colored tropical flowers,
cascading waterfalls, soaking and swimming pools and dramatic open flame
braziers all reflect the natural beauty of Los Cabos." They aren't
exaggerating. Positioned on a long, narrow lot, the place is breathtaking and
clearly has been designed with loving care and attention to details. The
90-seat Mi Cocina (My Kitchen) restaurant alone is worth a visit. It serves "Nouvelle
Mexican-Euro cuisine," and the young chef is continually developing
innovative dishes such as a wondrous soup made with a most unexpected
ingredient: pulverized pork rinds known locally as chicharrones. Room rates
(Deluxe) range from $180 during off-season to $280 high season.
The
Los Cabos international airport is serviced by international as well as North
American airlines.
TM
Views of the
rambling Sierra de la Laguna Mountains covered with candy pink San Miguel wild
flowers and yellow Palo de Arco flowering shrubs, soft breezes from the Sea of
Cortez, white sand beaches, secluded coves and 355 days of sunshine a year with
temperatures ranging between 75 and 90 degrees, provide the perfect setting for
the Grupo Posadas' five-star Fiesta Americana Grand Los Cabos hotel. Situated
between the towns of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo on the southernmost
Tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, this beachfront luxury resort in the exclusive
enclave of Cabo Sol, is very international in its approach to luxury but
proudly Mexican in its atmosphere of friendliness and expert attention.
Immediately adjacent the hotel is the award-winning
Jack Nicklaus-designed, par 72, championship Cabo del Sol Ocean Course. Following
the water’s edge, teeing off perfect turf framed by Organ cactus and Agave and
putting on greens in lush surroundings makes the mix of ocean, land and desert,
as Jack himself says, a course that includes, "...the finest three
finishing holes of golf in the world." Dagoberto de Acha, golf pro of Cabo
del Sol Ocean Course, says that what is most often heard from golfers at the
end of a round is the exclamation, “spectacular!” Golf Magazine rates it
"among the 10 best public courses in the world." High season greens
fee is $200 and low season $150. Hotel guests receive a 20% discount. 
The eight classifications of
guest rooms at Fiesta Americana, ranging from Deluxe to Imperial, all have
ocean views of the Sea of Cortez. The property offers three free-form swimming
pools (one with swim-up pool bar), and colorful desert gardens growing right up
to the sand beach. Grand Club level rooms feature the Fiesta Club personalized
service with its own concierge staff, private lounge, complimentary continental
breakfast, afternoon snacks, hors d’oeuvres and cocktails. There is also a
Fiesta Kids Club with supervised activities of painting, crayons, TV and table
games. Baby sitters are available on request. Rates are per room. Rack rates
for Deluxe rooms range from $600 during high season to $251 during low season;
for the Imperial Suite, rack rates range from $3,684 to $2,237
The hotel offers a number of four-
and seven-night packages priced on double occupancy. These include the
seven-night Grand Tour of Los Cabos Golf Courses with prices starting at
$4,400; the four-night Grand Golf and Relaxation starting at $2,661; the four-night
Grand Sport Fishing featuring Grand Deluxe accommodations, two days of sport
fishing aboard a 31-foot yacht, rod and reels, fishing license, box lunch,
certificates of catch and release, two dinners, buffet breakfast daily, airport
and marina transfers, starting at $2,429; and the four- or seven-night Grand
Sport Fishing and Golf starting at $2,710 and $4,570 for the latter.
The tour desk in the hotel lobby has a
multilingual staff and can arrange outside activities. The hotel has a shuttle bus from the front door to downtown
Cabo San Lucas that runs every fifteen minutes, which makes shopping the
bustling streets with its myriad craft shops, funky bars and authentic Mexican
restaurants easy. Well worth a visit is Pancho's Restaurant, with its rich
woven tablecloths, brightly colored cutout pictures hung like wash across the
ceiling, 250 kinds of Tequila (one scooped from a vat containing a Tequila-pickled rattlesnake,) a strolling
Mariachi band and an excellent Mexican menu. 
The hotel also can arrange an array of
specialized services with Cabo Traveler Advisors (CTA.) With more than fifty
years of experience in the travel industry, managing director Victor Mena,
director of sales Francisco Olivares, and operations manager Jorge Woulburg
will have someone at the airport when you first step off the airplane for
transport to a hotel or to provide airport or Customs and Immigration help, if
needed. CTA has a long and varied list of activities to select from during your
visit. Some choices might be to horseback ride, sail, whale watch, deep sea
fish (Los Cabos is known as the Marlin capital of the world), snorkel, Scuba or
drive up and down the amazing Baja sand dunes in an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV).
Other choices might be a sunset cruise to watch seals on the rocks in Cabo bay
in a luxurious Power Catamaran or Parasail high above blue Cabo Bay under a
colorful parachute. And for those who fell in love with the pop song,
"California Hotel," a trip can be arranged to the California Hotel of
song in the small typical village of Todos Santos. If the activity can be
thought of, CTA will do its best to arrange it.
When you decide to go exploring on your own,
the town of Cabo San Lucas is an adventure in contrasts. It is a fifteen-minute
taxi-ride heading south from the Gold Coast hotels. High on the hilltops
surrounding the town is the neighborhood of Pedregal, an exclusive enclave for
the very rich. Favored by Hollywood's power set, such folk as Sylvester
Stallone have palatial retreats perched on the cliffs looking down on what is
becoming Cabo's Tiajuana. The town is filled with a fascinating mix of
high-priced boutiques, tourist traps, typical restaurants, a MacDonalds, seedy
bars, elegant bars, a Hard Rock Cafe (of course), and you-name-it attractions.
The downtown area wraps around a large marina where pleasure craft and deep-sea
fishing craft are docked and a major shopping mall is being constructed. It's
fun and worth a day's worth of poking around as well as several nights of
cantina-hopping.
For the more conservative, a ride north to the town of
San Jose del Cabo is a must. This wonderful little community is much more like
the "typical Mexican town" of your dreams. Located about fifteen
minutes north of the Gold Coast, the atmosphere throughout makes San Jose
something of an oasis after the pace of neighboring Cabo San Lucas. It is an
historic Spanish Colonial Village with a marvelously baroque bandstand in the
town square, and a cool, shady park marking the end of a main street lined with
interesting shops. 
Just off the park is a hidden gem of a
"boutique hotel," the Casa Natalia. Just opened in October, 1999, it
is owned and operated by European-born wife and husband partners Nathalie and
Loic Tenoux. The Tenoux's have created a magnificently appointed posada with
just 18 rooms. This is how they describe it themselves: "The hotel's
contemporary Mexican architecture has an international flavor that reflects the
region's spectacular deserts, mountains, clear skies and brilliant blue seas.
Colorful hand plastered walls in vivid blues, yellows, and terra-cotta, hand
hewn wood beams, towering palm groves, brilliantly colored tropical flowers,
cascading waterfalls, soaking and swimming pools and dramatic open flame
braziers all reflect the natural beauty of Los Cabos." They aren't
exaggerating. Positioned on a long, narrow lot, the place is breathtaking and
clearly has been designed with loving care and attention to details. The
90-seat Mi Cocina (My Kitchen) restaurant alone is worth a visit. It serves "Nouvelle
Mexican-Euro cuisine," and the young chef is continually developing
innovative dishes such as a wondrous soup made with a most unexpected
ingredient: pulverized pork rinds known locally as chicharrones. Room rates
(Deluxe) range from $180 during off-season to $280 high season.