I just got back from a vacation to Cabo with friends from Cleveland, November 9th thru November 16th...Friday to Friday. Two out of four of us are time share owners with the Villa Group. One great perk of being a time share owner is access to the gold card, which offers many great discounts to food, drink and entertainment!

I'll start by telling you that all four of us bought the all-inclusive package for the first three days we were on the resort. Everyone in the room must go all inclusive. Knowing that there are a limited number of restaurants and bars at both Del Arco and Del Palmar, we figured three days would be plenty. We definitely made the $89 work for us all three days, particularly at 'El Farro', the sushi bar! Had great service there too! We got food and drink poolside all day as well...service begins at 10am. You can get some great greasy American or Mexican food at the taco bar or the Buckanero. We even got sushi rolls poolside one day. If you don't go all inclusive, they bill everything to,your room. They don't deal with cash anywhere. We sometimes gave cash tips, to make sure we got attentive service.

As far as the pool, it's awesome beyond belief! If you want pool chairs with both an ocean view near the pool, you'll need to put your towel out around 6am to save your seat. These are the first chairs to go every morning. There are plenty of umbrellas if you need shade, plus palm trees that block sun at times. There are also chairs in the very shallow part of the pool that are cool if you want to dip your feet will laying back. The servers are pretty on top of things over all, but cash tips help get quicker service.

They offer trolley service to their sister resort, Villa Del Palmar, just a few minutes down the road...also walkable. Palmar has twice as many guests and lots more planned activities if you want that sort of thing. We went over one night for Casino and karaoke night, which was a lot of fun. We also paid for the buffet for dinner, which was good...plenty of prime rib! There s also some shops and a small market for grocery essentials for your room.

Del Arco is the much more relaxed and upscale of the two resorts, with half as many rooms...so no over crowding. It's a combination of professionals, families and couples. I didn't see a lot of kids...but of course school is in session. We mainly saw very young kids under 5. So not much kiddie noise in early November.

Downtown, the marina and the beach offer many other food and entertainment options. Cabo Wabo, El Squid Roe, Nowhere Bar and The Office are a few to name. 'The Office' on the beach has the best margaritas! Pochos in the marina had a great dinner menu, Pepe's was some wonderful Mexican and the Baja Cantina near the beach had a nice sushi menu.

I also recommend a sunset cruise/bruise cruise, many to pick from. We took the Tropicat, which was a wine and cheese version of what most call a booze cruise. Beautiful cruise of lands end (the arch) and the southwestern coastline. Roughly a two hour cruise.

Anyway, I highly recommend the Villa Del Arco. I wouldn't say it's cheap...but you get what you pay for! The front desk and concierge staff are very good, as well as the door and bell hop staff. Most of the wait staff are quite good as well. Rooms are immaculate with fantastic views...ours was of the pool and ocean. Very spacious outdoor patios with comfortable seats and table.

Give it a shot.

We have a great time at the villa del Arco. We are enjoying our time share and annual stays there in Cabo San Lucas. This was our second trip there. The food, service, activities, and access to town are very good. A superior team, Cindy Bartz, a marketing director, and the other consierge staff at the resort were helpful to ensure our package was the value we bought. We appreciate the people at Villa del Arco. Lori

I have read a lot of reviews on this site before our Cabo San lucas vacation, so in all fairness, my great review may be biased as I had low expectations. I have come to realize that people are quick to complain about anything and everything, whereas the ones who have a great experience go home from vacation and may tell a few friends.
From the moment we arrived, we were greeted by concierge, Sandra, who was helpful and pleasant. We decided not to attend a presentation from what we had read online.
My husband and I arrived in a beautiful one bedroom villa, we had a glimpse of the sea of cortez. We unpack and headed straight to the beach, an easy walk from the villa. We had cadillac margaritas pool side and had wonderful service from gracious, smiling waiters. Over the next few days we heard talk around the pool. The gold card was helpful for food and drinks and activities. You get this by attending a presentation. My husband talked to a couple that had owned for 2 years and they were very happy. We met another young couple that attended the presentation, and although they could not afford to purchase on their honey moon, they said their sales guy was really nice the entire time, even after they said no. so, close to the end of our vavcation we decided to see a presentation. We met Valerie Knickle. She was fun, gave us a lot of information about the area and told us that whether we said yes or no, she would help us get our gifts.
Through the presentation, we kept expecting the speil to start. She had a very patient approach with us, we enjoyed the entire time we spent. We didnt feel any pressure. She was very honest about reservation windows and how to work the membership to recieve the best value. We found the deal too good to pass up. We could justify the money because we were already spending it. We are now happy owners, looking forward to returning. They also have other properties that we can use. We finished the vacation with some great meals, we recommend los tres gallos for mexican food, and mariscos de mazatlan for seafood, both recommendations that Valerie gave us and they were awesome. Swim in the sea, have a drink, use the desert spa, enjoy the friendly service and big smiles from the staff, dont be afraid to attend a presentation, the gifts and recommendations were worth it even if we hadnt bought. Thank you Villa del Arco for a perfect vacation. Oh, we also appreciated the washer dryer in the one bedroom villa as we went home to reality with clean clothes!

Hello Fellow Celiacs

My wife an I are from Vancouver and picked Villa Dela Arco for our two weeks in the sun, escaping the clouds and rain of Canada's winter west coast.

A few things about Los Cabos, this is our second visit, the first was 2009 at Villa Del Palmar the poor cousin to VDA. First off VDA is a really nice property, certainly geared towards a more mature laid back clientele, if you want to party go to Rui, if you have kids go to Villa Del Palmar.

So far we have avoided the Time-share sharks, if you get hooked in by them they will literally steal +3 hours of your life that you will never get back and possibly worse get you to hand over +$15,000 of your hard earned money on a really crappy deal.

We checked into VDA and had to do the typical Mexican room dance, first you get put in a crappy room, you go to the front desk and say this won't work, they move you to one notch above sub-standard after the speech they're at 100% capacity, you endure the evening and head back to the front desk first thing in the morning and start the process again until they find a decent room. We went from a walk out swamp-side room, infested with moths to a nice ground level pool-side and are very happy with our new digs. Finally we get to unpack and start the two week vacation we flew here for. Remember....(polite)squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Okay now let's talk GF, I've been Celiac for +9 years and traveling (my favorite past-time) can be a challenge, a couple bad meals and the multi-thousand dollar vacation goes for crap!!! I researched as best as I could GF in Cabo, not a lot of info out there however there is a new Organic Market called California Ranch Market located downtown. They're on the right track but still a ways to go, there are a number of products in the store and they continue to try to build stock but honestly you'd be hard pressed to get more then three days of meals from them.

Because we were coming down for two weeks, we decided the best course of action would be to pack an extra suit case stuffed with GF food; pasta, Udi's bread, pizza crust, nuts, pancake mix, crackers, cookies, granola, etc. Enough staples that with a trip to the local Wal-mart we would have a number of GF meals. We purchase a cheap case from Value Village and literally packed it full and so glad we did, best idea ever.

VDA has decent kitchens so making meals has been very easy. If you're Celiac and planning all-inclusive in Mexico you will be sick most days. Maybe the alcohol will help but be prepared for killer guts. If you're bring kids and not planning on cooking reconsider coming to Mexico.

So far the staff at VDA have been great, I would certainly recommend this place to any GF travel seeker on the west coast, direct flights, fantastic weather, safe, great people.

We rented a car because of the GF requirements, three trips to Wal-Mart and I think were good for the rest of the week. It's 10 minutes down the road, without a car I'm not sure it's possible.

I'll add to the review after our trip ends, if you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me I'm happy to help out.

Best

Jim